Women of Substance
Published on : Thursday 04-03-2021
Industrial Automation celebrates women achievers in the Indian industry on the occasion of International Womens Day.
The United Nations designated 1975 as the International Women’s Year and since that year, March 8 has been celebrated as International Women’s Day (IWD). The theme for IWD 2021 is, “Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world”. The theme celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also aligned with the priority theme of the 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, “Women's full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”, and the flagship Generation Equality campaign, which calls for women’s right to decision-making in all areas of life, equal pay, equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work, an end all forms of violence against women and girls, and health-care services that respond to their needs.
India has a mixed record when it comes to women’s empowerment. Women in India now participate fully in areas such as education, sports, politics, media, art and culture, service sectors, science and technology, etc. The armed forces now recruit women in combat duties. But at the same time the country ranks 112 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2020, a report that benchmarks 153 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment. To that extent, it has a long way to cover in closing the gap.
2021 began on a positive note for women technocrats as Soma Mondal assumed charge as Chairman of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) on January 1, one of the largest steel-making companies in India and one of the Maharatna companies among the country’s Central Public Sector Enterprises. Just a month earlier, Navaratna PSU Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) appointed Ms Renuka Gera as Director – Industrial Systems & Products on Tuesday, December 1, 2020. Prior to that, Vartika Shukla assumed charge as Director (Technical) of Engineers India Limited (EIL), another Navratna PSU under the administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG), on August 1st, 2020.
Industrial Automation began the initiative of celebrating the IWD in 2018, highlighting the role of women in the engineering industry. Since then, the magazine has featured over 30 women achievers, celebrating their success in what was, and still remains a largely male dominated industry, and where traditionally women are underrepresented. This Special Feature is dedicated to the aspiring women engineers of the country, with the hope that it will inspire them to greater heights in their professional careers.
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