Just like Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, the Begum of Awadh, who took control of Lucknow, fought the British during the 1857 rebellion?



On May 10, 1857, the “sepoys” of Meerut rebelled against the British East India Company. Very soon, others joined them under the banner of Bahadur Shah II, the Mughal emperor, to whom the rebels gave the title Shahenshah-e-Hind. The rebellion became a full-fledged uprising against the British, with kings, nobles, landlords, peasants, tribals, and ordinary people fighting together. Yet historians tend to ignore, and to completely forget, the role of the women who came out of their homes and joined the men in fighting the Company Bahadur.



She crowned her 11-year-old son Birjis Qadar the ruler of Awadh, under Mughal suzerainty, on June 5, 1857, after a spectacular victory by the rebel forces in the Battle of Chinhat. The British were forced to take refuge in the Lucknow Residency, a series of events that became famous as the Siege of Lucknow, while her diktat ran in Awadh as regent of Birjis Qadar.



The longest and fiercest battles of the First War of Independence were fought in Lucknow. The begum ruled for 10 months as regent and had the biggest army of any of the rebel leaders that fought the British in 1857.



 



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Born in Kerala, who became the first woman Supreme Court judge in 1989?



Born to Annaveetil Meera Sahib and Khadeeja Bibi on April 30, 1927, at Pathananthitta in the erstwhile state of Travancore (now Kerala), Fathima studied law at Trivandrum’s Law College. Despite being only one of the five women students in her class in the first year (a number that dropped to three by the second year), the hardworking student was already on her way to making history.



In 1950, Fathima became the first woman to top the Bar Council of India’s exam. The same year in November, she enrolled as an advocate and started her career in Kerala’s lower judiciary, much to the displeasure of many people who raised their eyebrows at a headscarfed woman in the Kollam court.



In October 1989, six months after retiring from the Kerala High Court, Fathima was appointed as a Supreme Court judge in October 1989. For India, it was a watershed moment that paved the way for women in India to occupy positions in the higher judiciary.



 



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Who became the first woman governor (of what is now Uttar Pradesh) of Independent India?



Indian freedom fighter Sarojini Naidu became the first female Governor of a state in independent India when she was appointed as Governor of United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh, in 1947. Also known as the 'Nightingale of India', Naidu also served as the first Indian woman President of the Indian National Congress. She was born on February 13, 1879.



Her collection of poems entitled "The Feather of The Dawn" was later edited and published after her death in 1961 by her daughter Padamaja.



Born as Sarojini Chattopadhyaya on February 13, 1879 in Hyderabad she received her higher education from King's College London and later at Girton College, Cambridge.



She married Govindarajulu Naidu, a doctor by profession, when she was 19 and the couple had five children.



Sarojini Naidu died of a heart attack on March 2, 1949.



 



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Who became the first woman school teacher in India?



Born on January 3, 1831, in a family of farmers in Naigaon village in Satara district, Maharashtra, Savitribai Phule was the eldest daughter of Lakshmi and Khandoji Neveshe Patil. At the age of 9, she was married to 13-year-old Jyotirao Phule. Her husband was one of the greatest social reformers of Maharashtra. In fact, it was Jyotirao who taught Savitribai to read and write. She was passionate about teaching and soon enrolled herself in a teachers’ training institution in Ahmednagar. She also received another teacher’s training course in Pune.



She started teaching girls in Maharwada in Pune with Sagunabai, a revolutionary feminist and Jyotirao’s mentor. Soon, Savitribai, Jyotirao and Sagunabai started their school at Bhide Wada. The curriculum of the school was based on western education and included mathematics, science and social studies.



With her close friend and colleague Fatima Begum Sheikh, Savitribai also started teaching women and children from downtrodden castes including Mang and Mahar who were considered untouchables. Savitribai and Jyotirao opened 18 schools for children of different castes.



A staunch feminist, Savitribai, in 1852, started Mahila Seva Mandal to educate women about their rights, dignity and social issues.



 



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Who became the first Indian woman to go to Antarctica?



Meher Moos became the first Indian woman to go to Antarctica.



Born and brought up in Maharashtra, Meher did her schooling from St. Joseph’s Convent in Panchgani. After that, she completed her BA (Hons.) from Sophia College, followed by LLB from the Government Law College in Bombay (now Mumbai). In 1965, at the young age of 21, she joined Air India as an air hostess.



The list of unusual and exotic places Meher has been to in the world is staggeringly long: most of the mountain chains of the world, Andes, Sierra Nevada, the Rockies, the Alps, Atlas, Himalayas; the remotest islands of Indonesia, Melanesia and Polynesia; across all oceans and several rivers, the Amazon, Congo, Zambesi, Mississippi, Yangtse, Ganges; to all the Gulf countries and the Middle East; across the International Dateline in Tonga; and, up to the shores of Easter Island.



Somehow, Meher managed to get this done but the plane that was meant to take her to Madagascar (where the expedition would begin) developed a hydraulic leak. She had to change her plans yet again and eventually caught up with the ship at Cape Town to begin a journey she would never forget.



And, thus, Meher Moos became the first Indian woman to go to Antarctica.



 



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Who became the first Indian woman to cross the English Channel?



Arati Saha was an Indian long distance swimmer, best known for becoming the first Asian woman to swim across the English Channel in 29 September 1959. In 1960, she became the first Indian sportswoman to be awarded Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in India. Born in Calcutta, West Bengal, British India, Arati had been introduced to swimming at the early age of four. 



She used to take part in long distance swimming competition in the Ganges. Arati got the first inspiration to cross the English Channel from Brojen Das. At the 1958 Butlin International Cross Channel Swimming Race, Brojen Das became the first among the men and earned the distinction of being the first person from the Indian subcontinent to cross the English Channel. 



Arati had completed her Intermediate from City College. In 1959, under the supervision of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, she married her manager Dr. Arun Gupta. First they had a court marriage and later a social marriage. Her in law's house was in Tarak Chatterjee Lane, very near to her grandmother's house. After marriage she had a daughter named Archana. She was employed in Bengal Nagpur Railway. On 4 August 1994, she got admitted to a private nursing home in Kolkata with jaundice and encephalitis. After battling for 19 days, she died on 23 August 1994.



 



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Who became the first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1953?



Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was elected President of the eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1953, becoming the first woman to head the organ. ailing from a prominent political family, her brother Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of independent India, her niece Indira Gandhi the first female Prime Minister of India and her grand-nephew Rajiv Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India.



Pandit was the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet post in pre-independent India. In 1937, she was elected to the provincial legislature of the United Provinces and was designated minister of local self-government and public health. She held the latter post until 1938 and again from 1946 to 1947. In 1946, she was elected to the Constituent Assembly from the United Provinces.



In India, she served as Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964, after which she was elected to the Indian parliament's lower house, Lok Sabha, from Phulpur, her brother's former constituency from 1964 to 1968. Pandit was a harsh critic of Indira Gandhi's years as Prime Minister especially after her niece had declared the emergency.



Pandit retired from active politics after relations between them soured. On retiring, she moved to Dehradun in the Doon Valley in the Himalayan foothills. She came out of retirement in 1977 to campaign against Indira Gandhi and helped the Janata Party win the 1977 election. She was reported to have considered running for the presidency, but Neelam Sanjiva Reddy eventually ran and won the election unopposed.



 



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Which is the first Indian woman to go to space?



Kalpana Chawla was the first woman of Indian origin to fly to space. Kalpana graduated from the Tagore School and was good in academics and moved to the United States in 1982 after completing a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College.



Kalpana has two Masters Degrees to her name. She got her first Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1984, followed by the second in 1986.



She earned her PhD in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the University of Colorado Boulder.



Kalpana was assigned as crew representative for shuttle and station flight crew equipment in 1998. She started to serve as the lead for Astronaut Office’s Crew Systems and Habitability section soon afterwards.



On November 19, 1997, Kalpana became the first woman of Indian origin to fly to space as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87.



 



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Who became the country’s first woman Chief Minister (of Uttar Pradesh) in 1963?



Sucheta Kripalani became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963. Born in 1908 in present-day Haryana’s Ambala, Kripalani completed her education from Delhi’s Indraprastha College, before moving on to teach Constitutional History at Banaras Hindu University.



Her role in shaping the contours of an independent India is notable, for she was a member of the Constituent Assembly tasked with formulating the seminal document that would be governing the newly-independent country.



Post-independence, Kripalani’s political stint included serving as an MP from New Delhi and then also as the Minister of Labour, Community Development and Industry in Uttar Pradesh’s state government.



Sucheta was married to prominent freedom fighter and politician, Acharya JB Kripalani.



 



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Who was the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest in 1984?



Bachendri Pal, (born May 24, 1954, Nakuri, India), Indian mountaineer who in 1984 became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Beginning its ascent in early May 1984, her team almost met disaster when an avalanche buried its camp, and more than half the group was forced to abandon the ascent because of injury or fatigue. Pal and the remainder of the team pressed on, and she reached the summit on May 23, 1984.



Pal achieved immediate fame, and in 1985 she returned to Mount Everest to successfully lead an all-woman team to the summit. She led an all-woman rafting expedition down the Ganges River in 1994, covering over 1,500 miles (2,500 km). In 1997 she led an all-woman team on a successful 2,500-mile (4,000-km) transit of the Himalayas, beginning in Arunachal Pradesh and concluding at the Siachen Glacier. She was awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, in 1984.



 



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Which is the first woman Director General of Police of the country, born in Himachal Pradesh?



Kanchan Chaudhary Bhattacharya was the second woman officer in Indian Police Service (IPS) in India, the first being Kiran Bedi. A 1973 batch IPS officer, she was the first woman to become Director General of Police of a state and retired on 31 October 2007 after 33 years of service. She then turned to politics and ran as a candidate of Aam Aadmi Party from Haridwar, Uttarakhand in the 2014 Indian general election. Cases that Chaudhary handled in her career included the murder of seven-time national badminton champion Syed Modi in 1987 and the Reliance-Bombay Dyeing case in 1989. During her time as Assistant Superintendent of Police, Malihabad, Uttar Pradesh, she tracked down 13 dacoits in a single year. She also investigated several white collar crimes in banks and public sectors.



On 26 August 2019, Bhattacharya died at a hospital in Mumbai where she had been receiving care during the previous five to six months. Her body was cremated at the Worli crematorium in Mumbai. She was survived by her husband and two daughters. Uttarakhand Police Director General Law and Order Ashok Kumar paid tribute to Bhattacharya stating, "She was a simple and sweet-natured person who gave us a free hand while we worked under her when she was the DGP." An official tribute event was held at the department's headquarters on August 27th.



 



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