Zee honours achievers with Sofy Indian Women Awards

The Sofy Indian Women Awards, a Zee initiative, were presented at a glittering function in the capital on Monday by Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Union minister for skill development and entrepreneurship, and Yukihiro Kimura, managing director of Unicharm India.

The event was a celebration of women power, attended by some of the country's leading women achievers from a range of fields across India.

"Women should think of being equal partners with men, not as adversaries," said senior actress Shabana Azmi, in her opening remarks at the discussion, "Women in 21st century", moderated by Sudhir Chaudhary, editor of Zee News, which preceded the awards ceremony. Arundhati Bhattacharjee, chairperson of State Bank of India, Supriya Sule, Parliamentarian from the NCP, and leading fashion designer, Ritu Beri, were also part of this debate.

"This is no longer the age of hunter gatherers. It is the age of mechanisation when superior physical prowess is no longer of importance. It is the power of the mind that matters," said Bhattacharjee.

Ritu Beri's appeal to the assembled guests, "let us women make sure that our sons, our brothers and our husbands know how to respect women", got her a lot of applause. "In earlier time, in rural areas, husbands would tell their wives whom to vote for and the women would do as they are told. But today, these women listen to their husbands but once they step inside do exactly as they wish," said Sule.

"Sofy Indian Women Awards is an imaginative programme by Zee Media to honour the accomplishments and contributions of women in various fields," said Uma Prabhu who delivered the inaugural address.

The awards were given in a variety of fields -- politics, business, science, entertainment, law, music, fashion, art, etc.

The occasion also saw the launch of the logo of "Will to Skill", a new initiative by the Zee Media group in line with prime minister Narendra Modi's Skill India initiative.

Among the awardees were veteran politician, currently minister of minority affairs and long-term deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma Heptulla, and Naina Lal Kidwai, one of the first women to head a foreign bank in India (HSBC).

"At 75 years of age, I am no longer aggressive. I only tell them, please step aside, let us too breathe some fresh air," Heptulla said, while accepting the award.

'Missile woman' Tessy Thomas, project director of the Agni-IV missile in the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the first woman to head a weapons project in the country, got the award in the science and technology category.

Another to win was Meeran Borwanker, IPS officer, former police commissioner of Pune, more famous as the real life Mardaani who inspired the crime thriller starring actor Rani Mukherji.

Vibha Bakshi, maker of the award-winning documentary, Daughters of Mother India, based on the events that shook the nation after the December 2012 gang rape; Zia Mody, eminent corporate lawyer; and Indira Hinduja, gynaecologist and pioneering infertility specialist, were some of the other winners.

So were Anita Dongre, fashion designer and entrepreneur; Reena Saini Kallat, leading contemporary artist; and Arundhati Subramaniam, poet, winner of the first Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry in 2015.

In the field of social work, Priti Patkar, social worker and co-founder of Prerana, an NGO that works the children of the red-light districts of Mumbai, and Shaheen Mistri, founder of Teach for India initiative, were given awards.

And in the area of sports, Arunima Sinha, the national level volleyball player who lost her leg in an accident and the went on to climb Mount Everest, the first Indian female amputee to do so; and Kunjarani Devi, weightlifter, were awarded.