HINDU MARRIAGE- SAKHE SAPTAPADI BHAB

When it comes to Indian marriages, words like big, fat, extravagant, pomp and show come to our mind at once. However, irrespective of the style and size of  the wedding, one thing that remains common in all Hindu marriages is the 'seven vows' signified by the sacred 'saat pheras' around fire or 'agni', which  is one of the most imperative rituals of Indian weddings. With each 'phera' the couple makes a vow, a commitment with strong mythological roots, which is to be lived forever and more, its only then that a couple is accepted as husband and wife for the next many lives to come. 

These seven vows are supposed to serve as an anchor to keep the couple going through all the ups and downs of life together, as husband and wife tied to each other in a sacred relationship. 

First vow

The couple appeals to the almighty to shower blessings in the form of pure and nourishing food with a respectful and noble life. The groom pledges to provide welfare and happiness to his wife and children, whereas the bride swears to shoulder all responsibilities for the welfare of the groom's entire family. 

Second vow

The groom requests the bride to be his strength so that he can provide security and protect the family with courage. The bride agrees to abide by, while demanding eternal love and undivided attention. 

Third vow

The couple pleads for wisdom, wealth, and prosperity in order to live a content and satisfied life. They pledge to remain spiritually committed and the bride assures the groom that by the virtue of true love and devotion she will remain a chaste wife. 

Fourth vow

The groom thanks his would-be wife for bringing auspiciousness, happiness, and sacredness in his life. In return, the bride takes an oath to serve and please her husband in every way possible. Together, they also pledge to take care and respect their elders in the family. 

Fifth vow

The importance of the fifth vow is to pray for the welfare of all the living things in this Universe and begetting a noble breed. The couple also prays to almighty to bless each other's friends and family with happiness and well-being. 

Sixth vow

In the sixth vow, God is invoked to bless the couple for bountiful seasons and long lived togetherness. The groom wishes that his wife would glut his life with joy and peace; while the bride provides assurance that she would participate with her husband in all his noble and divine acts.

Seventh vow

This is the last vow adding completion to the ceremony. Here the couple pleads for the long lasting relationship, enriched with understanding and loyalty. They take an oath to nourish their relationship with love and honesty and be together with each other forever not only in this life, but also in the lives to come. 

Even though different religions and cultures have their own unique set of vows and different ways to perform them, the basic meaning of all remains the same 'commitment', a vow of being spiritually united as one. It is a way to assure your partner that he/she is worthy of your love and you are willing to submit, 'till death do you part'. 

True love is all that you need to fulfill all the vows mentioned above; what according to you are the importance of these 'pheras'? Do let us know through comments.

Nethaji Subhash Chandra Bose

Nethaji Subhash Chandra Bose was born on January 23, 1897 at Cuttack, in Orissa. He was the sixth son of Janakinath and Prabhavati Bose.
Subhash was an excellent student and after school joined the Presidency College, Calcutta, where he studied philosophy, a subject he was interest in.
As a young boy Subhash felt neglected among his 8 siblings. At his English school he suffered under the discrimination faced by Indians which made him even sadder.
Nethaji wanted to work for the poor but his father, had other ideas. He sent Subhash to England to appear for the Indian Civil Service. In July 1920, barely eight months later Subhash Chandra Bose appeared in the Civil Service Examination and passed it with distinction. But he didn’t want to be a member of the bureaucracy and resigned from the service and returned to India.

Back home, he participated in the freedom movement along with ‘Deshbandhu’ C.R. Das. He was thrown into jail but that only made him more determined. Subhash joined the congress and rose to its Presidentship in 1938 a post he held for 2 years.

In 1939, when the Second World War started Gandhiji and other leaders were against doing anything anti-Britain. But Subhash thought differently. He knew, for instance, that the fall of the Roman Empire had led to the freedom of its colonies. He decided to seek foreign help for his cause of freeing India.

He was arrested and kept in his house under detention. On January 17, 1941, while everyone was asleep, Bose slipped out of his house into a waiting car. Disguised as a Muslim religious teacher, Bose managed to reach Peshawar two days later.

Bose went to Italy, Germany and even Russia to seek help but without much use. Subash decided to organize Indians on his own. He landed in Singapore and grouped Indians there into the Indian National Army or the Azad Hind Fauj and declared himself the temporary leader of the free Indian government. Japan, Germany and Italy recognizied Subhash’s government and the whole of India rejoiced.

The INA marched to Andaman and Nicobar islands, liberating and renaming them as Shaheed and Swaraj islands. On March 18, 1944, it crossed the Burmese border and reached Manipur where free India’s banner was raised with the shouts of ‘Jai Hind’ and ‘Netaji Zindabad’. But heavy rain prevented any further movement and the units had to fall back. Even then Netaji was determined. On August 17, 1945, he issued a Special Order to the INA which said that “Delhi is still our goal”.

He then wanted to go to Russia to seek Soviet help to fight the British. But the ill-fated plane in which he was flying, crashed in Taipei on August 18, 1945, resulting in his death.

Some people believe that Subhash Chandra Bose didn’t die, that he faked his own crash to escape the British who wanted to arrest him. There were even reports of Bose living in Russia and other foreign countries, even some claims of having seen him as a sadhu… but none were ever proved and today his death in the plane crash is the accepted version.

Events in Nethaji’s Life

* 1897: Born to Sri Janaki Nath Basu and Pravabati Devi in Cuttack, Orissa
* 1913: Stood second in the School leaving examination and took admission in Presidency college, Calcutta.
* 1915: Passed Intermediate examination in first division.
* 1916: Charged for misbehaving with British Professor, rusticated from Prsidency college.
* 1917: Got admitted in Scottish Church college in Philosphy Honours.
* 1919: Got first class in Philosophy Honours and left for England for ICS examination.
* 1920: Passed the then ICS examnation in London with highest marks in English.
* 1921: He got the prestigious tripos degree of Cambridge University.
* Resigned from his ICS job and came back to mother land in the same year. Formed South Calcutta Sevak Samity. Was arrested in the end of 1921 for anti British movement.
* 1922: Released from jail on August 1. Joined Swarajya dal under the leadership of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan in Gaya congress.
* 1923: Elected President of All India Youth Congress; elected Secretary of Bengal State Congress and Editor of the paper ‘Forward’, founded by Deshabandhu.
* 1924: Swarajya Dal won Calcutta Municipality election. Deshabandhu elected Mayor of Calcutta and Subhas Chandra became CEO. Arrested again in October by the British Government.
* 1924-27: Spent nearly three years in the Burma jail; released in May.
* 1925: Deshabandhu passed away.
* 1927: Elected General Secretary of All India Congress Committee.
* 1928: Formed the Volunteer organization in the Calcutta summit of Indian Congress and elected as the General Officer in Command.
* 1929: Addressed the Lahore summit of Indian Congress and proposed for a parallel Government in India.
* 1930: Jailed in January again; elected Mayor of Calcutta Corporation from jail.
* 1931: Elected President of INTUC in Calcutta meeting.
* 1933: Left for Europe.
* 1933-36: Met reputed personalities like Mussolini in Italy, Felder in Germany, D. Valera in Ireland and Roma Rolland in France.
* 1936: Returned to India in April; arrested in Bombay.
* 1936-37: Released in March and started for Europe; published ‘Indian Struggle’.
* 1938: Elected President of Indian Congress. d President of Indian Congress; made the historic speech in Haripura convention; formed National Planning Commission. Rabindra Nath Tagore falicited Subhas Cahndra in Santiniketan.
* 1939: Reelected President of Indian Congress; resigned and formed the new organization Forward Block; Rabindra Nath laid the Foundation stone of Mahajati Sadan.
* 1940: Arrested and started fasting in the jail; released from the jail.
* 1941: Left home and absconded; reached Kabul and then left for Moscow; met Hitler in Berlin.
* 1942: Left home and made the historic speech on air from Germany; formed Indian Legion and expanded its activities.
* 1943: Started for Japan by submarine; reached Tokyo and delivered the speech on air in Tokyo; convened the meeting of South East Asian Indian Independence League.
* Formed the Azad Hind Government on October 21; visited Andaman islands in December.
* 1944: The Azad Hind Fauz approached the Arakan front; war breaks out near Imphal and Azad Hind took control of Kohima-Imphal; rejected the peace proposal of British Govrnment through a speech on air; reached Tokyo to discuss with Japanese Government; addressed a massive public meeting in Kualalampur.
* 1945: Delivered the speech on air from Sonan Radio; started for Bangkok.
* Laid foundation stone for Martyrs’ statues at Sonan; Hirosima and Nagasaki destroyed by atom bomb by the Americans; Japan surrenders; Subhas left Saigon to implement his future plans.Netaji Subhas could not be traced after that. Some people believe that he died in a plane crash, others refuse to accept that even today.

Comments of Nethaji Subash Chandra bose

Netaji was a ‘dare-all leader’ By Satya Prakash Malaviya in “The Pioneer”

Subhash Chandra Bose is one of the few heroes of history who left the deepest impress on the minds of the people of India within a short span of his charismatic life. He was born on January 23,1897 at Cuttack in Orissa.

Subhash Bose passed the Indian Civil Service examination obtaining fourth position but resigned in April, 1921. He was the first Indian to resign from the Indian Civil Service.

The Under Secretary of State for India sent for him. Subhash told him, “I do not think one can be loyal to the British Raj and yet serve India honestly, heart and soul.”

He returned to India on July 16th, 1921, and met Mahatma Gandhi on the same day at Bombay. He wrote, “I remember clearly the scene of that afternoon…

“Facing the door sat the Mahatma…(he) received me with his typical hearty smile and soon put me at ease and the conversation started at once. I wanted to know about his plan which would finally lead to overthrowing foreign rule. And so I heaped question upon question and the Mahatma replied with patience.”

However, Subhash left Gandhi, disappointed because he thought it impossible to change the British.

Subhash was an indefatigable fighter for democracy within Congress. Mahatma Gandhi loved Subhash and Subhash
had the highest respect for him. Gandhi called him “dare all leader”. It is said that the sobriquet Netaji was given by Gandhi.

Subsequently at a mass rally held on July 9, 1943 at Singapore the title Netaji was affectionately conferred on Subhash by public acclamation. Both Gandhi and Subhash had one thing in common: their chief concern was to transform ideas into facts.

Gandhi believed in the doctrine of nonviolence to attain freedom, but Bose believed in revolutionary means for the goal of Swaraj.

Political testament of Subhash is remarkable. He wrote, “To my countrymen I say forget not that the grossest crime is to compromise with injustice and wrong.

“Remember the eternal law you must give life, if you want to get it. And remember that the highest virtue is to battle against inequity, no matter what the cost may be. The individual must die so that the nation may live. Today I must die, so that India may live and may win freedom and glory.”

He was completely dedicated to the cause of India’s independence. He had one desire alone to find ways and means to fight for liberation of the motherland.

On January 17, 1941, Subhash escaped from his Eight Road House in Calcutta and left India.

For about a year nothing was heard of him. There was also a news flash towards the close of 1941 that Subhash had died in air crash. On March 25, 1942 all doubts about Subhash were set at rest when he made a Broadcast from Radio Berlin. He spoke, “This is Subhash Chandra Bose, who is still alive speaking to you over the Azad Hind Radio…

“Ever since I left India last year, British propaganda agencies have from time to time given contradictory reports about my whereabouts… The latest report about my death is perhaps an instance of wishful thinking. I can imagine that the British Government would, at this critical hour in India’s history, like to see me dead since they are now trying their level best to win India over to their side for the purpose of their imperialistic war”.

In August 1942 Gandhi gave a call for Britishers to “Quit India” and for Indians to “Do or Die.” Subhash Bose gave his full support to this call through his Radio Broadcast from Germany on August 31, 1942 in which he said, “In the last days of our campaign there will be much suffering and sorrow, much persecution and slaughter… But that is the price of liberty and it has to be paid. It is but natural that in its last hours the British lion will bite hard, but it is after all the bite of a dying lion, and we shall survive it.”

In a broadcast from Bangkok on October 2, 1943, on the occasion of 75th birth anniversary of Gandhi, Bose described him as the greatest leader of Indians and his services to the cause of India’s freedom as unique and unparalleled and added that his name will be written in letters of gold in our national history for all time.

Subhash was the first to address Mahatma Gandhi as Father of Nation. (NB: The “Mahatma” had not yet “died” a coward’s death at Partition talks! At that particular moment in time the “Mahatma” was like the Cardinal who had not yet shot dead his mother or raped his kitchen maid.)

In a Broadcast from Azad Hind Radio on July 6, 1944 he said, “India’s last war of Independence has begun… Troops of the Azad Hind Fauz are now fighting bravely on the soil of India… Father of our nation! In this holy war of India’s liberation, we ask for your blessings and good wishes”.

The deeds of INA are heroic and a saga of supreme sacrifice. On August 22,1945 Tokyo Radio announced that Subhash Chandra Bose had died in an air-crash in Formosa on August 18,1945 en route to Japan. He was then forty-eight years only. No Indian believed the shocking news.

Today we must remember the following tribute of Gandhi to Bose: “The greatest and the lasting act of Netaji was that he abolished all distinctions of caste and class. He was Indian first and last. What is more, he fired all under him with the same zeal so that they forgot in his presence all distinctions and acted as one man.”

The nation refuses to believe that their true Idol of Patriotism, Subhash Bose, is dead.

A SLOWER-GROWING INDIA

“A slower-growing India will be more financially vulnerable, poorer, full of frustrated young people and taken less seriously by the rest of the world”

This quote from the Economist (source mentioned below) should send warning signals to people who play a major role in shaping the destiny of our country.

Over the last few years, India has often been touted as the next big super power, emerging nation, will go past China and so many other good adjectives. We all get elated with these tags.

All of a sudden, some have started raising serious doubts about India. Reasons attributed for this are many: number of scams surfacing day in day out across the nation, coalition politics, lack of decision making ability at the top and many more.

But I am going to focus on something more fundamental – the lack of investment on core Research and Development (R&D) by Indian firms.  

Wikipedia defines 2 models for R&D. In one model, the primary function of an R&D group is to develop new products; in the other model, the primary function of an R&D group is to discover and create new knowledge about scientific and technological topics for the purpose of uncovering and enabling development of valuable new products, processes, and services.

Are we spending enough on R&D? Answer is straight “No”. Let us look at the numbers. 

We are just spending 0.9% of GDP on R&D and are in 8^th position among all countries. The global R&D total for 2011 was $1.2 trillion. United States leads all countries by funding one-third of global R&D in 2011. US spends about 405  billion $, China 153 billion $, Japan 144 billion $, South Korea 45 billion $ and India 36 billion $. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending )

Harshwardhan Gupta in his article 40Years of "Innovation" in India says that Pre-Liberalization (prior to 1991) was better than post-liberalization in terms of R&D scenario in our country. Earlier we could not import industrial machinery. This forced us to engage in large amount of real engineering design and innovation, especially in smaller companies; and usually they grew much faster. But when Liberalization arrived, all these small companies and entrepreneurs started importing machines at the cost of indigenous design and innovation.

The other Asian giants like China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea initially also imported these technologies from the west but they quickly learned the underlying engineering and design philosophies behind these sophisticated machines. They then started improving upon the originals and started mass manufacturing them at a low cost. Within a couple of decades, many of the Eastern companies overtook their Western counterparts.

But most of the Indian companies did not follow this. We imported and started using it. Majority of them where not ready to invest in R&D to understand what goes behind the design. We are becoming increasingly dependent on imported technology and machinery, losing entire vital indigenous industries in the process.

Take the case of Indian IT companies. We pride ourselves in IT field but there is hardly a notable global product from our IT companies. The revenues from IT are from services sector and if any other country can emulate our achievements, we will struggle to maintain the growth in this sector.

Let us consider the case of South Korea. They have so many global brands in the world market. Samsung & LG in consumer electronics sector, Hyundai & Kia in automobile sector, POSCO and many more. They are global players in everything ranging from cars, steel, industrial machinery, robotics, aerospace, biotech, rechargeable batteries and so on.  They are the world's largest and best shipbuilder.

Let us focus on Indian global brands. If you look at the Indian brands in top 500 global brands in 2012 (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2012/countries/India.html ), there are 8 Indian companies. Among them 5 companies (ONGC, HP, BP, RIL and Indian Oil) are in the oil and energy sector which is making huge losses presently. The other three are Tata Motors, Tata Steel and SBI.

Fact is we hardly have any global brands in the world. We are a nation of billion plus population who are just consumers of the global brands of other companies. Everything from TV, washing machine, computers, industrial machinery is of brands of other nations.

I do not see this trend changing in the near future unless companies start investing in core R&D. We need to invest in research to build future technologies. If Indian companies do not take this risk we can never ever hope to be a Super Power.  

"Barshanam Bharat shresthah"

"Barshanam Bharat shresthah" (Skandh Purana)

"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages:

she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much"-

William James Durant(1885-1981)

Ratnakar dhoutpadam himalaya kiritinam

The most admirable, sacred nation Bharath(India that is Bharat instead of Bharat that 

is India in our constituition) which has glorious past, being universal, considerable & 

reconciling figure among other countrieswitnessed a precipitous fall in her reputation.

Vivacious visage, noble bearing, keen eyes & warm & disarming smile of Bharat mata

has already turned bimired. Creative capitalismis being increasingly subordinated to 

crony capitalism, aggressive muslim has led to horrific riots & the loss of many lives,

uninterrupted trespassing from belligerent neighbours has become a unsolvable problem.

(exempli gratia Assam riots)

While Singapore, a small nation recovered lately from british, is often refer to as one of 

the "Asia's economic tigers" It's economy is driven by electronics manufacturing & 

financial service, shipping & international trade etc.

However, after the death of its leader Mao in 1976, a new leedership & economic reforms

were ushered in. Nowadays, china is one of the world's top exporters, & is attracting 

record accounts of foreign investment. In turn, it is investing billions of dollars abroad, 

& emerging as one of the most powerful countries on earth.

The latest report released by The Census Bureau of America shows that more than 

49 million (16%) of people in world's richest nation were living in poverty in 2010. The 

Poverty rate soared to its higher level. Since 1993 as per the official calculation. It still

the richest country in the world & a mighty military power.

"A slower-growing India will be more financially vulnerable, poorer, full of 

frustrated young people & taken less seriously by the rest of the world" 

This quote from the Economist should send warning signals to people who play a major

role in shaping the destiny of our country.

Over the last few years, India has often been touted as the next big super power, 

emerging nation, will go past China and so many other good adjectives. We all 

get elated with these tags.

All of a sudden, some have started raising serious doubts about India. Reasons 

attributed for this are many: number of scams surfacing day in day out across 

the nation, coalition politics, lack of decision making ability at the top and many more.

" Sarbesham no janani bharat 

Dharani kalpa lateyam"         (Radhanath Ray)

But Bharat, still a developing country & it will take time to flourish & to become a 

developed nation.  

The Great Mathematicians

1. Indian astronomical scientist, who gave a table of trigonometric sine functions 

calling them 'jya' in sanscrit ?

a) Aryabhatta 1st         b) Aryabhatta 2nd

c) Brahmagupta          d) Bhaskar 2 nd

2. German mathematician, the cgs unit of magnetic flux density is named after him ?

a) Gauss                    b) Dirichlet

c) Abel                       d) Poincare

3. British math and geologist, who appointed as successor to Newton as lucasian 

professor of math in 1703 ?

a) Hardy                     b) William Whiston

c) Littlewood               d) Cauchy

4. German mathematician, who discovered hyper elliptic functions and applied his 

work in elliptic functions to number theory ?

a) Jacob Jacobi          b) Daniel Bernouli

c) Lagrange               d) Lefler

5. French mathematician, who developed a theory to explain the interaction between

electricity & magnetism ?

a) Celsius                  b) Fahrenheit

c) Ampere                 d) Fermat

6. Greek mathematician, who was the first to define parabola, hyperbola and ellipse

and wrote a book 'conics' ?

a) Apollonius              b) Thales

c) Hypatia                  d) Eratosthenes

7. British mathematician, who invented speedometer ?

a) Andrew wiles            b) Charles Babbage

c) Alan Turing               d) G H Hardy

8. Swiss mathematician, who discovered a simple mathematical formula, that gave the 

wavelengths of the spectral lines of Hydrogen- the 'Balmer Series' ?

a) Euler                        b) Johann Bernoulli

c) Jacob Bernoulli          d) Jakob Balmer

9. Swiss doctor wrote 'Hydrodynamica' deals with theory of statics and the motion 

of the fields ?

a) Daniel Bernoulli           b) Gabriel Cramer

c) Heinz Hopf                  d) Jakob Steiner

10. Swiss mathematician, who is the first to use 'g' to denote accelaration due to gravity ?

a) Paul Guldin               b) Jacob Amsler

c) Francois Sturm         d) Johann Bernoulli

11. German Astronomer, in 1838, he was the first man to calculate accurately the 

distance of a star from earth ?

a) Friedrich Bessel        b) Kepler

c) Elert Bode                d) Tobias Mayer

12. Author of 'Karna Kuthuhala', who introduced first the mathematical signs of 

minus and plus ?

a) Bhaskar-II                 b) Varahamihir

c) Bhaskar-I                  d) Aryabhatta-I

13. British matheamatician, whose book 'The laws of thought'(1854) is a famous

book in the study of logic ?

a) James Sylvester          b) De Morgan

c) George Boole              d) William Thomson

14. English mathematician modified Napier's logarithms by introducing the Base 10 ?

a) Briggs Henry              b) John Napier

c) Nicholas Mercator       d) North Whitehead

15. English mathematician, who was a founder & first president of Royal Society ?

a) William Brouncker           b) Sir Paul Nurse

c) Martin Rees                    d) Stephen Toope

16. Russia born german mathematician, who founded the transfinite set theory ?

a)  Grigori Perelman            b) Georg Cantor

c) Goldbach                        d) Thomas Bayes

17. French Mathematician, gave fully satisfactorily definitions of the fundamentally 

important concepts of limit and convergence ?

a) Cauchy                        b) Fermat

c) Pascal                         d) Descartes

18. French mathematician, also introduced the use of complex number into Trigonometry ?

a) Michel Chasles              b) Abraham De Moivre

c) Joseph Fourier               d) François Viète

19. British mathematician & quantum theorist, who shared nobel prize for physics 

with Schrodinger in 1933 ?

a) Paul Dirac                   b) Peter Higgs

c) Richard Feynman         d) Lady Ada Lovelace

20. Greek mathematician and geographer devised a technique called the 'Sieve' for

finding prime numbers ?

a) Euclid                            b) Eratosthenes

c) Pythagoras                    d) Archimedes

ANSWER-

1. a   2. a   3. b   4. a     5. c    6. a   7. b    8. d    9. a    10. d

11. a    12. a   13. c    14. a    15. a    16. b    17. a      18. b    19. a   20. b

INDIAN WOMEN

• Toru Dutt (1856-77) : The first Indian woman poet to write in English, and her work depicts archetypes of Indian womanhood.
• Tara Patel : Poet
• Anna Sujata Matta: Poet in english.
• Sarojini Naidu : The First women Governer.
• Chandabai : A Jain Scholar and a Pioneer of women's education in India[1]. She was the founder of the oldest women's publication in India that is still published Jain Mahiladarsh.
• Mahadevi Verma : Outstanding Hindi poet, was also a freedom fighter, woman's activist and educationist.
• Santha Rama Rau:  Remember the House (1956).
•  Ruth Prawar Jhabvala : To Whom She Will (1955) and  Heat and Dust (1975) which was awarded the Booker Prize
• Arundhati Roy : Awarded with the Booker Prize of 1997 for her work "God of Small Things".
• Anita Desai,: Fire on the mountain, Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Kiran Desai : Indian author who is a Citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. Her novel The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker Prize[1] and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award
• Shobhaa De : Socialite Evenings (1989), Indian Columnist and Novelist.
• Jhumpa Lahiri : The namesake, Indian American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name.
• Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni : The Mistress of Spices (1997).
• 
  Sarojini Naidu :  The first Indian women in politics to become President of the Indian National Congress and the first women to become the Governor of Uttar Pradesh.
  Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit : The first Indian women in politics to hold a position in the cabinet.
  Sucheta Kripani : The first Indian women in politics to be elected chief minister of any Indian state.(Uttar Pradesh ).
  Lakshmi Sahgal :  The first Indian woman to run for the post of President of India.
  Indira Gandhi : The first Indian woman in politics to become Prime minister of Indepent India.
  Pratibha Patil : The first Indian woman in politics to become President of India.
  Sonia Gandhi : The Indian woman who is currently the leader of Congress.
  Meira Kumar : The first  woman Speaker of Lok Sabha.
  Agatha Sangma : The Youngest Indian woman to become MP( at the age of 28). She is the youngest minister in the current council of ministers and is a former lawyer.
  Amita Sharma : Joint Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development.
  Some of the other emerging Indian women in politics who have established their names  are Shiela Dixit, Mayawati, Uma Bharti,Jayalalitha, Vasundhra Raje Sindiya and Mamata Banerjee etc.
  Indian Women Diplomates : Indian women in the Indian  foreign service have now aqriured positions exclusively to become India’s ambassadors  in different countries. Till now the position often considered too important , dangerous and tough was occupied by males of the country . The Indian women are heading 26 Indian missions and consulates around the world. Some of the names include:
  
  • Meera Shankar : India’s ambassador to the United states. The only Indian  woman to be appointed Indian ammbasador to US since Vijayalakshmi Pandit.
  • Nirupama Rao : The Indian woman full term  foreign Secretary in India’s history.  She is handling the ongoing dialogue with Pakistan. She was the first woman spokesperson of the ministry of external Affairs.
  • Nengcha Lhouvum : The Indian woman  ambassador to Lebanon.
  • Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa :  The first woman envoy to Qatar.
  • Sujatha Singh : Indian High commision in Australia.
  • Ruchi Ghanashyam : India's high commissioner to Ghana. she was the first woman officer to be posted to Islamabad at a time when harassment of Indian diplomats was a routine.
  • Chokila Iyer : The  first Indian woman foreign secretary ( 2001).
  • Manimekalai Murugesan : Indian woman ambassador in Libya

Indian Women Enterpreneurs

• Kiran Majumdar Shaw : MD of Biocon India. She is the wealthiest entrepreneur of India.
• Chanda Kochar : CEO & Managing Director, ICICI Bank. She is ranked number 20 on the Forbes list of 100 most powerful women in the world.
• Vidya Mohan Chhabaria : Chairperson of Jumbo Group.
• Ekta Kapoor : Creative head, Balaji Telefilms.
• SunitaNarain : Environmental and political activist and a major proponent of Green concept of substantial Development.
• Neelam Dhawan : Microsoft India, Managing Director, leads Microsft sales and marketing operations in this Country.
• Sullaijja Firodia Motwani : Joint Managing Director of Kinetic Engineering Ltd, incharge of company’s overall Business Development.
•  Mallika Srinivasan : Director of TAFE India. Her efforts have made the company the first tractor company to be recognised for strong commitment to excel at the 15th Quality summit conducted by Confederation of Indian Industry in Banglore.
• Pretha Reddy : Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group., First Indian women advisor on healthcare to the Indian Governemnt.
• Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi : Chairman and Executive Officer of Pepsico.
• Priya Paul : Chairperson, Appejay Surrendra Park Hotels. She is also the founding member of the world travel and Tourism Council- India initiative and Chairperson of South Asia Women’s Fund.
• Vinita Bali : Managing Director, Britannia Group. She had made the topline profit double in four years between 2005-9 giving the company a growth of 20% annually.
• Meher Pudumjee : Chairperson, Thermax Ltd.
• Vandana Luthra : Founder and Mentor, VLCC Health Care Ltd.The well known brand is present in 90 cities and operation is seven countries.      
• Camella Panjabi:  Author and Creator, Masala Zone Restaurent Chain. She has made regional Indian cuision  a favorite in the western world. Her restaurent Amaya was the first to receive a Michelin Award.

Three Indian businesswomen among the 15 women entrepreneurs who have been awarded the third La Caixa International Women Entrepreneurial Challenge Awards (IWEC) 2009 :

• Dipali Goenka : Director of Welspun Retail.
• Vasundhara Mantr : Professional Jewellery Designer.
• Anita Lal : Creative Head, The Goodearth Company.