An International memory athlete and an activist who has been working for the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy for the last 30 years are among the 100 women nominated for 'Women Achievers' Award', an initiative by the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry.
The ministry had launched the contest in collaboration with social networking website Facebook on July 15 last year to select 100 women achievers of India under various categories through public nominations. The awardees will be felicitated by President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday which is also the first anniversary of 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' scheme.
Among those nominated is 20-year-old Sri Vyshnavi Yarlagadda, an International memory athlete who was ranked second in October 2013 in 'Names and Faces' event organised by the World Memory Sports Council. She is the first Indian to win an open category medal at the World Memory Championships, which refers to a sport of memorising maximum information and recalling it.
Rashida Bi from Madhya Pradesh has been selected in the Environment and Forests and Wildlife category for working for the victims of Bhopal Gas Tragedy for the last 30 years.
The list of nominees also include Patiala-based Harshinder Kaur, a paediatric doctor who has been awarded by numerous governments across the globe for her work in eradicating discrimination against female child, and Lalita Nijhawan from Delhi for her commendable work in the field of education for women and children, especially the girl child.
The award process began in July last year through which nominations were invited in 20 categories. A jury shortlisted 200 women from 474 nominations received across the 20 categories. The 200 shortlisted women nominees went for public voting from December 3 to 20, 2015 out of which 100 women were selected.
Some of the categories include fields like access to justice protecting women and their rights, agriculture and animal husbandry, animal welfare, arts and culture, commerce industry and entrepreneurship, community mobilisation, disability and disadvantage, education, environment, forests and wildlife and globalising India.
"These names were then put in the public domain through the ministry's website and put to a rigorous three-layered online public voting," a senior ministry official said.
