SEMINAR : SUCCESSFUL WOMEN

This is a select representation of the papers presented by 12 groups of ix c

INTRODUCTION : TAKEN FROM THE PAPER PRESENTED BY ….. SRUTHY P B, SREELEKSHMI M S, ANFAL S, FOUSIYA S, ARYA R S

Nowadays we can see women employed in all fields in IAS , IAF and similar higher posts. There is reservation for women in legislatures. We have women Chief ministers and we had a woman Prime Minister. They are considered as exceptions . Women particularly of rural community are yet to come out of their shell , their bondage to the main stream . There is a dearth of women in politics.

The year 1995 was declared as INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF WOMEN upholding the status of women in the society. Many movements flourish for the cause of women . This seminar would highlight the success stories of women in various walks of life.

Sugathakumari

Sugathakumari (born January 3, 1934) is an Indian poet and activist, who has been at the forefront of environmental and feminist movements in Kerala, South India. She is an established writer in Malayalam with a unique voice of her own emotional empathy, humanist sensitivity and moral alertness. Most of her poetic works had a special place for Mother Nature and some of them dwelved on human relationships and emotional traverse of the mind. She played a big role in the Save Silent Valley protest. She is the founder secretary of the Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi, an organisation for the protection of nature and of Abhaya, a home for destitute women and a day-care centre for the mentally ill. She was the former chairperson of the Kerala State Women's Commission.

Sugathakumari has won numerous awards and recognitions including Kendra Sahitya Academy Award (1978), Odakkuzhal Award (1982), Vayalar Award (1984), Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra Award (1986), Aasan Prize (1991), Vallathol Award (2003), Kerala Sahithya Akademi Fellowship (2004), Ezhuthachan Puraskaram (2009) and Saraswati Samman (2012). In 2006, she was honoured with Padma Shri, the country's fourth highest civilian honour.

Sugathakumari was born at Aranmula in January 1934. Her father, Bodheswaran was a famous Gandhian thinker and writer, involved in the country's freedom struggle. Prof. V. K. Karthiyayini, her mother, was a well known scholar and teacher of Sanskrit. After completing her graduation from the University College, Thiruvananthapuram, she took a Master's Degree in Philosophy in 1955, and did research for three years on 'Comparative Study of the Concept of Moksha in Indian Schools of Philosophy', but did not complete the thesis.

Sugathakumari's husband Dr. K. Velayudhan Nair (1979–2003) was an educationist and writer. An expert in educational psychology, Nair has to his credit several works, including a widely-acclaimed study on Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. They have a daughter, Lakshmi. Sugathakumari's elder sister Hridayakumari is a literary critic, orator and educationist. Hridayakumari won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 1991 for her book Kalpanikatha, a study on romanticism in Malayalam literature.

Sugathakumari's very first poem which she published under a pseudonym in a weekly journal in 1957 attracted wide attention. In 1968, Sugathakumari won the Kerala Sahithya Akademi for her work Pathirappookal (Flowers of Midnight). Raathrimazha (Night Rain) won the Kendra Sahitya Academy Award in the year 1978. Her other collections include Paavam Manavahridayam, Muthuchippi, Irulchirakukal and Swapnabhoomi. Sugathakumari's earlier poetry mostly dealt with the tragic quest for love and is considered more lyrical compared to her later works in which the quiet, lyrical sensibility is replaced by increasingly feminist responses to social disorder and injustice. Environmental issues and other contemporary problems are also sharply portrayed in her poetry.

Sugathakumari is perhaps the most sensitive and most philosophical of contemporary Malayalam poets. She is regarded as having given a fresh lease on life to Romantic lyricism in Malayalam poetry. Her poetry makes an odyssey into the very essence of womanhood. She journeys into the psychological subtleties of man-woman relationship. Sugatha Kumari shows a conscious quest for women's identity and integration in her writings. She follows the traditional writing style and has not leaned much towards the modernism in Malayalam poetry. Her poetry has always drawn upon her sadness and unhappiness. "I have been inspired to write mostly through my emotional upheavals; few of my poems can be called joyous. But these days I feel I'm slowly walking away from it all, to a world that is futile or meaningless," says Sugathakumari. Sugathakumari's most famous works include Raathrimazha, Ambalamani and Manalezhuthu. Sugathakumari has also made contribution to the field of children's literature. In 2008, she received an Award for Lifetime Contribution to Children's Literature, instituted by the State Institute of Children's Literature. She also has several translated works to her credit.

She has won numerous other awards for her literary works, including the prestigious Vayalar Award and Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, the highest literary honour by Government of Kerala.^] In 2004, she was given the Kerala Sahithya Akademi Fellowship. She won the prestigious Saraswati Samman in 2012, being only the third Malayalam writer to do so. She was the principal of Kerala State Jawahar Balabhavan, Thiruvananthapuram. She is the founder chief editor of Thaliru, a children's magazine published by Kerala State Institute of Children's Literature.

She was inspired by her father's poetry as well as his strong beliefs: 'He was a freedom fighter filled with the all too rare ideals of patriotism and sacrifice.' His example influenced her deeply and led her eventually to the conviction that the writer has an important obligation as a social conscience.

A committed conservationist, Sugathakumari served as the secretary of the Society for Conservation of Nature, Thiruvananthapuram. In the late seventies she led a successful nationwide movement, known as Save Silent Valley, to save some of the oldest natural forests in the country, the Silent Valley in Kerala, from submersion as a result of a planned hydroelectric project. She was the founder secretary of the Prakrithi Samrakshana Samithi, an organisation for the protection of nature. She was also actively involved with various women's movements of the seventies and served as the chairperson of the Kerala State Women's Commission.

Although she is best known as a poet environmentalist, Kumari is also the founder of Abhaya (refuge) -- an organization which gives shelter and hope to female mental patients. Her work to launch Abhaya was prompted by an off-chance visit to the government-run Mental Hospital in the capital, Thiruvananthapuram. There women were housed in 19th century conditions, sexually abused and regularly prostituted to men in the neighboring police camp. When she visited the hospital she saw 'women's bodies covered with sores and stark naked. They were emaciated and their hair was matted. They didn't even look like human beings.' The horror of this experience was embedded in her mind and she decided on the spot to do something about it, despite opposition to interventions from ngos by professionals in the field.

Sugatha Kumari has received the Bhattia Award for Social Science, the Sacred Soul International Award, the Lakshmi Award for social service and the first Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra Award from the Government of India for her effots in environmental conservation and afforestation

Mutthuchippi (Pearl and Oyster; 1961)

Pathirappookkal (Midnight Flowers; 1967)

Paavam Maanavahridayam (Poor Human Heart; 1968)

Pranamam (Salutation; 1969)

Irul Chirakukal (The Wings of Darkness; 1969)

Raathrimazha (Night Rain; 1977)

Ambalamani (Temple Bell; 1981)

Kurinjippookkal (Kurinji Flowers; 1987)

Thulaavarshappacha (The Monsoon Green; 1990)

Radhayevide (Where is Radha?; 1995)

Devadasi (1998)

Manalezhuthu (The Writing on the Sand)

Awards and recognition

2006: Padma Shri

Literary awards

1968: Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Pathirappookkal

1978: Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award for Rathrimazha

1982: Odakkuzhal Award for Ambalamani

1984: Vayalar Award for Ambalamani

1991: Aasan Prize

2001: Lalithambika Sahitya Award

2003: Vallathol Award

2004: Kerala Sahithya Akademi Fellowship

2004: Balamaniamma Award

2004: Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam Sahitya Award

2007: P. Kunhiraman Nair Award for Manalezhuthu

2008: Award for Lifetime Contribution to Children's Literature

2009: Ezhuthachan Award

2009: Basheer Award

2012: Saraswati Samman for Manalezhuthu

2013: Kadamanitta Award

2013: PKV Award for Literature

2013: Pandit Karuppan Award

GROUP 1 (ASWATHY K S , ANAGHA SURESH, ARATHY S P, NEETHU R G)

KASTURBA GANDHI

Born to Gokuladas and Vrajkunwerba Kapadia of Porbandar, little is known of her early life. Kasturba was married to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in an arranged marriage in 1882.^[2]

When Gandhi left to study in London in 1888, she remained in India to raise their newborn son Harilal Gandhi. She had three more sons: Manilal Gandhi, Ramdas Gandhi, and Devdas Gandhi.

Working closely with her husband, Kasturba Gandhi became a political activist fighting for civil rights and Indian independence from the British. After Gandhi moved to South Africa to practice law, she travelled to South Africa in 1897 to be with her husband. From 1904 to 1914, she was active in the Phoenix Settlement near Durban. During the 1913 protest against working conditions for Indians in South Africa, Kasturba was arrested and sentenced to three months in a hard labour prison. Later, in India, she sometimes took her husband's place when he was under arrest. In 1915, when Gandhi returned to India to support indigo planters, Kasturba accompanied him. She taught hygiene, discipline, health, reading, and writing.

Kasturba Gandhi with Mohandas Gandhi in the 1930s.

Kasturba Gandhi and her husband Mohandas Gandhi (1902)Kasturba suffered from chronic bronchitis due to complications at birth. While her husband could move his mind from one thing to another, she would sometimes brood over troubles. Stress from the Quit India Movement's arrests and hard life at Sabarmati Ashram caused her to fall ill. Kasturbai fell ill with bronchitis which was subsequently complicated by pneumonia.

In January 1944, Kasturba suffered two heart attacks. She was confined to her bed much of the time. Even there she found no respite from pain. Spells of breathlessness interfered with her sleep at night. Yearning for familiar ministrations, Kasturba asked to see an Ayurvedic doctor. After several delays(which Gandhi felt were unconscionable), the government allowed a specialist in traditional Indian medicine to treat her and prescribe treatments. At first she responded—recovering enough by the second week in February to sit on the verandah in a wheel chair for a short periods, and chat then came a relapse. The doctor said Ayurvedic medicine could do no more for her.

To those who tried to bolster her sagging morale saying "You will get better soon," Kasturba would respond, "No, my time is up." Even though she had a simple illness. Shortly after seven that evening, Devdas took Gandhi and the doctors aside. The doctors pleaded fiercely that Ba be given the life saving medicine, though Gandhi refused. It was Gandhi, after learning that the penicillin had to be administered by injection every four to six hours, who finally persuaded his youngest son to give up the idea. Gandhi didn't believe in modern medicine. After a short while, Kasturba stopped breathing. She died in Gandhi's arms while both were still in prison, in Poona

GROUP 2 (ANJU SM ,AARATHY SATHIKUMAR, ANUJA B R, NEERAJA S A, BISMI S N)

Ashapoorna Devi

Asha Purna Devi, is a prominent Bengali novelist and poet. She was born in 8 January 1909. She has been widely honoured with a number of prizes and awards. She was awarded 1976 Jnanpith Award and the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1976; D.Litt by the Universities of Jabalpur, Rabindra Bharati, Burdwan and Jadavpur. Vishwa Bharati University honoured her with Deshikottama in 1989. For her contribution as a novelist and short story writer, the Sahitya Akademi conferred its highest honour, the Fellowship, in 1994. She died in 1995.^[1]

Ashapoorna Devi was born on 8 January 1909, at her maternal uncle’s place at Potoldanga in North Calcutta. Her real name was Asha Purna Devi. Her early childhood finds her in a traditional and extremely conservative family at Vrindaban Basu Lane amongst a large number of relatives. Due to the domination of her grandmother who was a staunch supporter of old customs and conservative ideals, the female children of the house were not allowed to go to school. Private tutors were employed only for the boys. It is said that baby Ashapurna used to listen to the readings of her brothers sitting opposite to them and that was how she learnt the alphabets.

Ashapurna’s father Harendra Nath Gupta was a famous artist of the time who used to work for the C. Lazarus & Co. fine furniture makers as a designer, Sarola Sundari, Ashapurna’s mother came from a very enlightened family who was a great book lover. It was her “intensive thirst” for reading classics and story books which was transmitted to Ashapurna and her sisters in their early age.

Due to shortage of space Harendra Nath shifted his own family to a new house at 157/1A, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road (beside Khanna Cinema Hall), which provided freedom to Sarola Sundari and her daughters to read more and more according to their heart’s desire. In order to satisfy Sarola Sundari’s tremendous urge of reading there had been a continuous flow of various books and magazines from the different libraries of the time. As there was no dearth of leisure for the daughters and no bar to read adult books from very tender age. Ashapurna and her sisters had built up a love-relationship with books. Though Ashapurna had no formal education as such, she was no less self-educated.

Another fact was very remarkable which needs mention. The period in which Ashapurna was growing up was socially and politically a restless one. It was passing through a phase of agitation which resulted in a nationwide awakening. Though the children of Harendra Nath were far away from the direct touch of the outside world, they were quite sensitive to the restlessness going on throughout the country led by Mahatma Gandhi; and other political leaders who were ready to sacrifice their lives to bring independence. Thus different factors were responsible for nourishing specific culture which guided Ashapurna from her early childhood to youth, and carried her to a definite platform through various experiences and ideals of life.

According to Ashapurna –she and her sisters used to compete with each other by composing and reciting poems. This gave rise to an unusual tenacity which inspired Ashapurna to send a poem to Sishu Sathi secretly to the then editor Rajkumar Chakravorty for publishing. The year was 1922, Ashapurna was thirteen and the name of the poem was “Bairer Dak”(The Call from the Outside). The poem was not only published, there was request from the editor to send more poems and stories. That was the beginning which developed into a never-ending flourish for Ashapurna culminating into a permanent place for her into the realm of literature.

Ashapurna got married in 1924 when she was just fifteen. She had to go to Krishnanagar to her in-law’s place leaving behind Calcutta of which she was so fond. She was married to Kalidas Gupta. Since this period we find them changing places quite frequently. Three years later in 1927 the whole family settled in Calcutta for good at first in Ramesh Mitra Rload, Bhowanipur and later in a bigger house at 77 Beltola Road, where they lived till 1960. They had however, to shift with their own family to a separate flat near Golpark together with their only son Sushanta, daughter-in-law Nupur and a granddaughter Shatarupa. Later in 1967 another grand daughter Shatadeepa was added to the family. Finally in 1970 Kalidas Gupta and Ashapurna built their own house in Garia at 17 Kanungo Park. Ashapurna lived there till she died on 13 July 1995.

Along with the normal chores of domestic life Ashapurna was making a room of her own through sheer power of will which realized her a significant place in the world of creative literature.

As mentioned earlier that publication of the poem ‘Bairer Dak’ marked the beginning of the odyssey of one of the most prolific creative geniuses of Bengali literature to whose credit go 242 novels and novelettes, 37 collection of short stories, 62 books for children. The number of her short stories runs into over 3000.

In the beginning of her writing career Ashapurna wrote only for the children – Chhoto Thakurdar Kashi Yatra was the first printed edition published in 1983, followed by others, one after another throughout her literary career.

In 1936 she first wrote a story for adults – “Patni O Preyoshi” published in the Puja issue of Ananda Bazar Patrika. “Prem O Prayojan” was her first novel for adults published in 1944.

Since this period her writing continued as a never-ending process. Most of her writings marked a spirited protest both for men and women, against the inequality and injustice stemming from the gender-based discrimination and narrowness of outlook for both ingrained in traditional Hindu society, Ashapurna Devi’s stories lay threadbare the oppression women have to face and made a fervent appeal for a new social order though not subscribing to the modern theoretical feminism of western mode. Her magnum opus – the trilogy – Pratham Pratishruti (1964), Subarnolata (1967) and Bakul Katha (1974) symbolizes an endless struggle for women to achieve equal rights.

Upon her death she was at the peak of fame leaving behind an inexhaustible fund of unique literary creations which gained her respect and appreciation from all her readers. Ashapurna Devi had been widely honored with a number of prizes and awards, the list of which follows this script.

^{GROUP 3 (AJIN
B R, RAVOOF , SINYDH, MUHAMMED RAMSY, MUHAMMED FAYAS)}

^{MOTHER
TERESA}

Mother Teresa (baptized August 27, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia) taught in India for 17 years before she experienced her 1946 "call within a call" to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. Her order established a hospice; centers for the blind, aged, and disabled; and a leper colony. She was summoned to Rome in 1968, and in 1979 received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work.

Catholic nun and missionary Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. On August 27, 1910, a date frequently mistaken for her birthday, she was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Mother Teresa's parents, Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu, were of Albanian descent; her father was an entrepreneur who worked as a construction contractor and a trader of medicines and other goods. The Bojaxhius were a devoutly Catholic family, and Nikola Bojaxhiu was deeply involved in the local church as well as in city politics as a vocal proponent of Albanian independence.

In 1919, when Mother Teresa was only 8 years old, her father suddenly fell ill and died. While the cause of his death remains unknown, many have speculated that political enemies poisoned him. In the aftermath of her father's death, Mother Teresa became extraordinarily close to her mother, a pious and compassionate woman who instilled in her daughter a deep commitment to charity.

Although by no means wealthy, Drana Bojaxhiu extended an open invitation to the city's destitute to dine with her family. "My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others," she counseled her daughter. When Mother Teresa asked who the people eating with them were, her mother uniformly responded, "Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people.

Mother Teresa attended a convent-run primary school and then a state-run secondary school. As a girl, Mother Teresa sang in the local Sacred Heart choir and was often asked to sing solos. The congregation made an annual pilgrimage to the chapel of the Madonna of Letnice atop Black Mountain in Skopje, and it was on one such trip at the age of 12 that Mother Teresa first felt a calling to a religious life. Six years later, in 1928, an 18-year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to join the Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was there that she took the name Sister Mary Teresa after Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.

A year later, Mother Teresa traveled on to Darjeeling, India for the novitiate period; in May 1931, Mother Teresa made her First Profession of Vows. Afterward she was sent to Calcutta, where she was assigned to teach at Saint Mary's High School for Girls, a school run by the Loreto Sisters and dedicated to teaching girls from the city's poorest Bengali families. Mother Teresa learned to speak both Bengali and Hindi fluently as she taught geography and history and dedicated herself to alleviating the girls' poverty through education.

On May 24, 1937, she took her Final Profession of Vows to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience.

As was the custom for Loreto nuns, she took on the title of "mother" upon making her final vows and thus became known as Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa continued to teach at Saint Mary's, and in 1944 she became the school's principal. Through her kindness, generosity and unfailing commitment to her students' education, she sought to lead them to a life of devotion to Christ. "Give me the strength to be ever the light of their lives, so that I may lead them at last to you," she wrote in prayer.

However, on September 10, 1946, Mother Teresa experienced a second calling that would forever transform her life. She was riding a train from Calcutta to the Himalayan foothills for a retreat when Christ spoke to her and told her to abandon teaching to work in the slums of Calcutta aiding the city's poorest and sickest people. "I want Indian Nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying and the little children," she heard Christ say to her on the train that day. "You are I know the most incapable person -- weak and sinful but just because you are that -- I want to use You for My glory. Wilt thou refuse?"

Since Mother Teresa had taken a vow of obedience, she could not leave her convent without official permission. After nearly a year and a half of lobbying, in January 1948 she finally received approval from the local Archbishop Ferdinand Périer to pursue this new calling. That August, wearing the blue and white sari that she would always wear in public for the rest of her life, she left the Loreto convent and wandered out into the city. After six months of basic medical training, she voyaged for the first time into Calcutta's slums with no more specific goal than to aid "the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for."

Mother Teresa quickly translated this somewhat vague calling into concrete actions to help the city's poor. She began an open-air school and established a home for the dying destitute in a dilapidated building she convinced the city government to donate to her cause. In October 1950, she won canonical recognition for a new congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, which she founded with only 12 members -- most of them former teachers or pupils from St. Mary's School.

As the ranks of her congregation swelled and donations poured in from around India and across the globe, the scope of Mother Teresa's charitable activities expanded exponentially. Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s, she established a leper colony, an orphanage, a nursing home, a family clinic and a string of mobile health clinics.

In February 1965, Pope John Paul VI bestowed the Decree of Praise upon the Missionaries of Charity, which prompted Mother Teresa to begin expanding internationally. By the time of her death in 1997, the Missionaries of Charity numbered over 4,000 -- in addition to thousands more lay volunteers -- with 610 foundations in 123 countries on all seven continents.

In 1971, Mother Teresa traveled to New York City where she opened a soup kitchen as well as a home to care for those infected with HIV/AIDS.

The next year she went to Beirut, Lebanon, where she crossed frequently between Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut to aid children of both faiths. Mother Teresa has received various honors for her tireless and effective charity. She was awarded "Jewel of India," the highest honor bestowed on Indian civilians,

As well as the now-defunct Soviet Union's Gold Medal of the Soviet Peace Committee. Then, in 1979, Mother Teresa won her highest honor when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work "in bringing help to suffering humanity."

Despite this widespread praise, Mother Teresa's life and work have not gone without criticism. In particular, she has drawn criticism for her vocal endorsement of some of the Catholic Church's more controversial doctrines, such as opposition to contraception and abortion. "I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion," Mother Teresa said in her 1979 Nobel lecture.

In 1995, she publicly advocated a "no" vote in the Irish referendum to end the country's constitutional ban on divorce and remarriage. The most scathing criticism of Mother Teresa can be found in Christopher Hitchens' book The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, in which Hitchens argued that Mother Teresa glorified poverty for her own ends and provided a justification for the preservation of institutions and beliefs that sustained widespread poverty

After several years of deteriorating health in which she suffered from heart, lung and kidney problems, Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87. Since her death, Mother Teresa has remained in the public spotlight. In particular, the publication of her private correspondence in 2003 caused a wholesale re-evaluation of her life by revealing the crisis of faith she suffered for most of the last 50 years of her life.

In one despairing letter to a confidant, she wrote, "Where is my Faith -- even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness -- My God -- how painful is this unknown pain -- I have no Faith -- I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart -- & make me suffer untold agony." While such revelations are shocking considering her public image of perfect faith, they have also made Mother Teresa a more relatable and human figure to all those who experience doubt in their beliefs.

For her unwavering commitment to aiding those most in need, Mother Teresa stands out as one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century. She combined profound empathy and a fervent commitment to her cause with incredible organizational and managerial skills that allowed her to develop a vast and effective international organization of missionaries to help impoverished citizens all across the globe.

However, despite the enormous scale of her charitable activities and the millions of lives she touched, to her dying day she held only the most humble conception of her own achievements. Summing up her life in characteristically self-effacing fashion, Mother Teresa said, "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus."

GROUP 4 (NAVEEN SURESH , ADARSH P S, ABHIRAM M, AMAL GOPI, SYAM M)

HELEN KELLER

The name of Helen Adams Keller is known around the world as a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds, yet she was much more than a symbol. She was a woman of luminous intelligence, high ambition and great accomplishment. She devoted her life to helping others.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1880. When she was only 19 months old, she contracted a fever that left her blind and deaf. When she was almost seven years old, her parents engaged Anne Mansfield Sullivan to be her tutor. With dedication, patience, courage and love, Miss Sullivan was able to evoke and help develop the child's enormous intelligence.

Helen Keller quickly learned to read and write, and began to speak by the age of 10. When she was 20, she entered Radcliffe College, with Miss Sullivan at her side to spell textbooks – letter by letter – into her hand. Four years later, Radcliffe awarded Helen Keller a Bachelor’s degree magna cum laude.

After graduation, Helen Keller began her life's work of helping blind and deaf-blind people. She appeared before state and national legislatures and international forums, traveled around the world to lecture and to visit areas with a high incidence of blindness, and wrote numerous books and articles. She met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson, and played a major role in focusing the world's attention on the problems of the blind and the need for preventive measures.

Miss Keller won numerous honors, including honorary university degrees, the Lions Humanitarian Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and election to the Women's Hall of Fame. During her lifetime, she was consistently ranked near the top of "most admired" lists. She died in 1968, leaving a legacy that Helen Keller International is proud to carry on in her name and memory.

Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.^[1]^[2] The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthday on June 27 is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, her 100th birthday.

A prolific author, Keller was well-travelled and outspoken in her convictions. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, and other radical left causes. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971.^[3]

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her family lived on a homestead, Ivy Green,^[4] that Helen's grandfather had built decades earlier.^[5]

Her father, Arthur H. Keller,^[6] spent many years as an editor for the Tuscumbia North Alabamian, and had served as a captain for the Confederate Army.^[5] Her paternal grandmother was the second cousin of Robert E. Lee.^[7] Her mother, Kate Adams,^[8] was the daughter of Charles W. Adams.^[9] Though originally from Massachusetts, Charles Adams also fought for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, earning the rank of colonel (and acting brigadier-general). Her paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, a native of Switzerland.^[7]^[10] One of Helen's Swiss ancestors was the first teacher for the deaf in Zurich. Keller reflected on this coincidence in her first autobiography, stating "that there is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his."^[7]

Helen Keller was born with the ability to see and hear. At 19 months old, she contracted an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain", which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness left her both deaf and blind. At that time, she was able to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington,^[11] the six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who understood her signs; by the age of seven, Keller had more than 60 home signs to communicate with her family.

In 1886, Keller's mother, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful education of another deaf and blind woman, Laura Bridgman, dispatched young Helen, accompanied by her father, to seek out physician J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice.^[12] Chisholm referred the Kellers to Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located in South Boston. Michael Anagnos, the school's director, asked former student 20-year-old Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, to become Keller's instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship during which Sullivan evolved into Keller's governess and eventually her companion.

Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. In fact, when Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the doll.^[13] Keller's big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water"; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world. Due to a protruding left eye, Keller was usually photographed in profile. Both her eyes were replaced in adulthood with glass replicas for "medical and cosmetic reasons".

"The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands—the ownership and control of their livelihoods—are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease."

—Helen Keller,

Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities, amid numerous other causes. She was a suffragist, a pacifist, an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, a radical socialist and a birth control supporter. In 1915 she and George Kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition. In 1920 she helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Keller traveled to 40 some-odd countries with Sullivan, making several trips to Japan and becoming a favorite of the Japanese people. Keller met every U.S. President from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain. Keller and Twain were both considered radicals at the beginning of the 20th century, and as a consequence, their political views have been forgotten or glossed over in popular perception.^[21]

Keller was a member of the Socialist Party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class from 1909 to 1921. She supported Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs in each of his campaigns for the presidency.

Newspaper columnists who had praised her courage and intelligence before she expressed her socialist views now called attention to her disabilities. The editor of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development." Keller responded to that editor, referring to having met him before he knew of her political views:

At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him. ... Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent.^[22]

Keller joined the Industrial Workers of the World (known as the IWW or the Wobblies) in 1912,^[21] saying that parliamentary socialism was "sinking in the political bog". She wrote for the IWW between 1916 and 1918. In Why I Became an IWW,^[23] Keller explained that her motivation for activism came in part from her concern about blindness and other disabilities:

I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind. For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to a life of shame that ended in blindness.

The last sentence refers to prostitution and syphilis, the former a frequent cause of the latter, and the latter a leading cause of blindness. In the same interview, Keller also cited the 1912 strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts for instigating her support of socialism.

GROUP 5 (SAZNA ,AKSHITA FRANCIS, GOPIKA GOPAN, RAHNA, SUBINA)

Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu, (born as সরোজিনী চট্টোপাধ্যায় ) also known by the sobriquet as The Nightingale of India,^[1] was a child prodigy, Indian independence activist and poet. Naidu was one of the formers of the Indian Constitution. Naidu was the first Indian woman to become the President of the Indian National Congress ^[2] and the first woman to become the Governor of Uttar Pradesh state.Her birthday is celebrated as women's day all over India.

Sarojini Naidu was born in Hyderabad to a Bengali Hindu Kulin Brahmin family to Agorenath Chattopadhyay and Barada Sundari Devi on 13 February 1879. Her father was a doctor of science from Edinburgh University, settled in Hyderabad State, where he founded and administered the hyderabad College, which later became the Nizam's College in hyderabad. Her mother was a poetess baji and used to write poetry in Bengali. Sarojini Naidu was the eldest among the eight siblings. One of her brothers Birendranath was a revolutionary and her other brother, Harindranath was a poet, dramatist, and actor.^[3]

Sarojini Naidu passed her Matriculation examination from the University of Madras. She took four years' break from her studies and concentrated upon studying various subjects. In 1895, she travelled to England to study first at King's College London and later at Girton College, Cambridge. She fell in love with Govindarajulu and married him in 1898. E: Sarojini Naidu OCCUPATION: Activist, Political Leader, Poet BIRTH DATE: February 13, 1879 DEATH DATE: March 02, 1949 EDUCATION: University of Madras, King's College, London, Girton College, Cambridge PLACE OF BIRTH: Hyderabad, India PLACE OF DEATH: Lucknow, India Maiden Name: Sarojini Chattopadhyay AKA: Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu joined the Indian national movement in the wake of partition of Bengal in 1905. She came into contact with Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.^[4]

During 1915-1918, she traveled to different regions in India delivering lectures on social welfare, women empowerment and nationalism. She awakened the women of India and brought them out of the kitchen. She also helped to establish the Women's Indian Association (WIA) in 1917.^[5] She was sent to London along with Annie Besant, President of WIA, to present the case for the women's vote to the Joint Select Committee.

In 1925, Sarojini Naidu presided over the annual session of Indian National Congress at Cawnpore. In 1929, she presided over East African Indian Congress in South Africa. She was awarded the hind a kesari medal by the British government for her work during the plague epidemic in India.^[6] In 1931, she participated in the Round table conference with Gandhiji and Madan Mohan Malaviya.^[7] Sarojini Naidu played a leading role during the Civil Disobedience Movement and was jailed along with Gandhiji and other leaders. In 1942, Sarojini Naidu was arrested during the "Quit India" movement. She was a great freedom fighter and an equally great poet.

Sarojini Naidu began writing at the age of 12. Her play, Maher Muneer, impressed the Nawab of Hyderabad. In 1905, her collection of poems, named "The Broken Exes" was published.^[8] Her poems were admired by many prominent Indian politicians like Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

Named “Golden Threshold” after Sarojini Naidu’s much celebrated collection of poems, this premise has a long and wider history. This was the residence of her father, Dr. Aghornath Chattopadhyay, the first Principal of Hyderabad College, later named Nizam College. This was the home of many reformist ideas in Hyderabad - in areas ranging from marriage, education, women’s empowerment, literature and nationalism –apart from being the home of brilliant, radical and creative members of the Chattopadhyay family, which included the anti-imperialist revolutionary Birendranath; maverick poet, actor and connoisseur of music and dance Harindranath; dancer and film actress Sunalini Devi; communist leader Suhasini Devi –and of course the poet, crusader for women’s rights, nationalist leader and ‘Nightingale of India’ Sarojini Devi. Harindranath Chattopadhyay said about this house, where anyone and any ideas were welcome for discussion, “a museum of wisdom and culture,a zoo crowded with a medley of strange types – some even verging on the mystique”. Golden Threshold now houses Theatre Outreach Unit an initiative of University of Hyderabad started in August 2012.

In 1949 she fell ill. Her physician came and gave her a sleeping pill for good sleep. She smiled and said "Not eternal sleep I hope". But that night on March 2, 1949 she died in her sleep becoming a "Nightingale of Heaven and God".

GROUP 6:(SANU S S , AMAL MOHAN , ANANTHU A S, VISHNU SURESH)

C K JANU

C. K. Janu is the leader of the Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha, a social movement that has been pushing for land to be redistributed to landless adivasis and that grew out of the Dalit-Adivasi Action Council in Kerala state, South India.

Janu's background is Ravula (called Adiya by the Malayalis, due to historical background), one of the adivasi groups in Kerala who used to be indentured laborers (adiya actually means slave) and whose people are still mostly landless agricultural laborers. Janu had no formal education but learned to read and write through a literacy campaign that was conducted in Wayanad, the area in the north of Kerala, near the border with Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where Janu comes from. Her biography is quite typical of Adiya people: she used to be landless (until she organized a long drawn-out struggle to occupy land with her community and finally got a piece of land) and used to work as an agricultural laborer. Actually, as she never gained much money with her political career—or even lost money on having to pay for her political activities—she still often does this kind of work to get by.

Janu was with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for a while in her youth and gained some experience in politics there—but also soon learned that the CPI(M) was not actually interested in the landless poor very much any more (adivasis—a legal category under which many very different groups of people fall—are in total only 1.5% of the population in Kerala). She therefore left the party in 1982. She was an active social worker at the beginning of the 90s and was even, in November 1994, awarded a state award for her efforts in this field. She however returned the award as a critique of the government's lack of responsiveness to the demands of landless adivasis.

In 2001 C. K. Janu became a prominent person in Kerala as she led a protest march through the state and held a long sit-in strike in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvanathapuram to demand land for landless adivasis. In 2003 she also led the occupation of land at Muthanga. The occupation ended with massive police violence in which a policeman and an adivasi were killed. It came to be known as the Muthanga incident. Since then the movement has been in the news less and has concentrated on occupying land at Aralam farm, a huge cooperative farm that the government had promised to distribute amongst landless adivasis.

It is quite notable that C. K. Janu as a woman managed to gain such an important role in politics in the state of Kerala—without her being the wife of an important politician or even having the support of a political party. Indeed, apart from K. R. Gowri Amma (a former communist leader who became minister several times, coming from a lower-caste—Ezhava—background) and K. Ajitha (a former Naxalite leader and now organiser of a feminist NGO), there are not many women in Kerala who make it to such political prominence.

Janu has sometimes been described moreover as the first 'organic' leader of adivasis in Kerala: she does not hold strongly to abstract political dogmas but works more from the concrete experiences of adiya life. She cooperated for some time with national and international indigenous people's organizations but was always very wary of being funded by any organization. Most of the activities of the Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha are funded entirely through the solidarity of poor adivasis and dalits

GROUP 7 (SYAM M R, ACHYUTH J M, AKHIL J , SHAN , SHERRIF )

P. T. Usha

Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha (born June 27, 1964), popularly known as P. T. Usha, is an Indian track and field athlete from the state of Kerala. P. T. Usha has been associated with Indian athletics since 1979. She is regarded as one of the greatest athletes India has ever produced and is often called the "queen of Indian track and field".^[2] She is nicknamed the Payyoli Express. Currently she runs the Usha School of Athletics at Koyilandy in Kerala. P. T. Usha was born in the village of Payyoli, Kozhikode District, Kerala. In 1976 the Kerala State Government started a Sports School for women, and Usha was chosen to represent her district.

In 1979 P. T. Usha participated in the National School Games, where she was noticed by O. M. Nambiar, who coached her throughout her career. Her debut in the 1980 Moscow Olympics proved lacklustre. In the 1982 New Delhi Asiad, she got the silver medal in the 100m and the 200m, but at the Asian Track and Field Championship in Kuwait a year later, Usha took the gold in the 400m with a new Asian record^[^{citation needed}^] . From 1983-89, Usha garnered 13 golds at ATF meets.

At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, she finished first in the semi-finals of the 400 metres hurdles, but faltered in the finals, reminiscent of Milkha Singh's 1960 defeat. There was a nail-biting photo finish for the third place.^[3] Usha lost the bronze by 1/100th of a second. She became the first Indian woman (and the fifth Indian) to reach the final of an Olympic event by winning her 400m hurdles semi-final.

In the 10th Asian Games held at Seoul in 1986, P. T. Usha won 4 gold medals and 1 silver medal in the track and field events. Here she created new Asian Games records in all the events in which she participated. She won five golds at the 6th Asian Track and Field Championship at Jakarta in 1985. Her six medals at the same meet is a record for a single athlete in a single international meet.

Usha has won 101 international medals so far. She is employed as an officer in the Southern Railways. In 1985, she was conferred the Padma Shri and the Arjuna Award.

Currently she coaches young athletes at her training academy in Kerala, including Tintu Luka, who was qualified for the women's semi-final 800m at the London 2012 Olympics.

Set a national record at the state athletic meet at Kottayam, 1977.

Captured the limelight as a junior athlete in the national interstate meet at Kollam, 1978.

Participated in the Moscow Olympics, 1980.

Became the first Indian woman to reach the final of an Olympic event.

Became the youngest Indian sprinter, aged 16, to compete in the quadrennial sporting extravaganza at the Moscow Olympics.

Participated in the 1982 Delhi Asiad and won the first medal of the games.

Tried the 400m for the first time at the 1983 Asian Track and Field Meet (re-christened as the Asian championship) at Kuwait. She emerged successful in the one-lapper in an international arena for the first time.

Achieved a record of 55.54 seconds at Los Angeles, the very first time the 400m hurdles was added to the women's athletics. This is the current Indian national record.^[4]

Won 5 gold medals and 1 bronze in 1985, at the Jakarta Asian Athletic meet.

Won 4 golds in 1986, Seoul Asian Games, claiming for herself the title of Asia's sprint queen.

Took a hiatus from the sport following her marriage in 1991, returning in 1993.

Participated in the Olympic Games from 1980 to 1996, except for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Last participated in the Atlanta Olympics, 1996.

Represented India in 4 x 100 metres relay together with Rachita Mistry, E. B. Shyla, and Saraswati Saha at the 1998 Asian Championships in Athletics where her team won the gold medal on way to setting the current national record of 44.43 s. ^[5]^[6]

During the 1985 Asian Track and Field Meet at Jakarta, Indonesia, Usha secured 5 gold medals, in the 100, 200, and 400 metre sprints, the 400m hurdles, and the 4x400m relay. She also earned a bronze medal in the 4x100m relay. This is the current record for most gold medals earned by a female in a single track meet

Recipient of the Arjuna Award, 1984

Padma Shri, 1984

Greatest woman athlete, 1985 Jakarta Asian Athletic Meet

Best Athlete in Asia Award, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1989

World Trophy for best Athlete, 1985, 1986

Adidas Golden Shoe award for the best athlete, 1986 Seoul Asian Games

Kerala Sports Journalists Award, 1999

Thirty international awards for her excellence in athletics

GROUP 8 :(SA ADH MUHAMMED, ANAZ, AVINASH B MOHAN, ADITYA KRIHNAN, SABEER )

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, the daughter of a grocer. She went to Oxford University and then became a research chemist, retraining to become a barrister in 1954. In 1951, she married Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman, with whom she had two children.

Thatcher became a Conservative member of parliament for Finchley in North London in 1959, serving as its MP until 1992. Her first parliamentary post was junior minister for pensions in Harold Macmillan's government. From 1964 to 1970, when Labour were in power, she served in a number of positions in Edward Heath's shadow cabinet. Heath became prime minister in 1970 and Thatcher was appointed secretary for education.After the Conservatives were defeated in 1974, Thatcher challenged Heath for the leadership of the party and, to the surprise of many, won. In the 1979 general election, the Conservatives came to power and Thatcher became prime minister.

She was an advocate of privatising state-owned industries and utilities, reforming trade unions, lowering taxes and reducing social expenditure across the board. Thatcher's policies succeeded in reducing inflation, but unemployment dramatically increased during her years in power.Victory in the Falklands War in 1982 and a divided opposition helped Thatcher win a landslide victory in the 1983 general election. In 1984, she narrowly escaped death when the IRA planted a bomb at the Conservative party conference in Brighton.

In foreign affairs, Thatcher cultivated a close political and personal relationship with US president Ronald Reagan, based on a common mistrust of communism, combined with free-market economic ideology. Thatcher was nicknamed the 'Iron Lady' by the Soviets. She warmly welcomed the rise of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

In the 1987 general election, Thatcher won an unprecedented third term in office. But controversial policies, including the poll tax and her opposition to any closer integration with Europe, produced divisions within the Conservative Party which led to a leadership challenge. In November 1990, she agreed to resign and was succeeded as party leader and prime minister by John Major.

In 1992, Thatcher left the House of Commons. She was appointed a peeress in the House of Lords with the title of Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven and continued giving speeches and lectures across the world. She also founded the Thatcher Foundation, which aimed to advance the cause of political and economic freedom, particularly in the newly liberated countries of central and eastern Europe. In 1995 she became a member of the Order of the Garter, the highest order of knighthood in England.In 2002, after a series of minor strokes, Baroness Thatcher retired from public speaking. She died of a stroke on April 8, 2013, at the age of 87

GROUP 9 (SURYA M S, VAISHNA R U, ASWATHY A S, VINCY R PRINCE , ADITYA S NAIR)

Bachendri Pal

Bachendri Pal earned a coveted place for herself in Indian history by becoming the first Indian woman to summit the Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world. A free-willing, fearless, and adventure-loving girl, Bachendri always dreamt of being a mountaineer. By dint of her hard work and sheer determination, Bachendri Pal created history when she successfully summited the Everest, thereby becoming the first Indian woman to achieve the big feat. An exemplary public figure and a noted mountaineer, Bachendri Pal is revered as an icon for all aspiring mountain climbers. By her extraordinary fete, Bachendri Pal proved that a woman could foray into any field and become successful given she has enough sensibility and determination to work towards it. Currently, Bachendri Pal is employed with Tata Steel where she conducts high-altitude training workshops for the corporate workforce. Apart from this, Bachendri Pal also works as an active guide, training women in mountaineering and river rafting. Explore this biography to know more about the early life, career, profile, and achievements of Bachendri Pal.

Bachendri Pal was born in May 24, 1954 in a village called Nakuri in Garhwal to parents - Shri Kishan Singh Pal and Smt. Hansa Devi. Her father was a border tradesman who supplied groceries from India to Tibet. From her early childhood, Bachendri Pal was a strong-spirited child - full of zip - and excelled in both academics and sports. It was at the initiation of her school principal that she was sent to college for higher studies. There she actively participated in sports and even bagged a gold medal in rifle shooting. Bachendri Pal went on to become the first girl to graduate from her village. Later on, she completed her M.A. in Sanskrit and then went on to complete her B. Ed. Driven by her passion for adventure, she enrolled in the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, which opened a whole slew of avenues for her.

Bachendri Pal got her first taste of mountaineering thrill while still at school, at the age of 12when she along with her friends scaled a 13,123 ft. high peak and during a school picnic. In 1982, during her course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, she got the chance to mount Gangotri I (21,900 ft.) and Rudugaria (19,091 ft.). It was during this time, she got the job of an instructor at the National Adventure Foundation, an adventure school for women mountaineers. Soon after the completion of her mountaineering course, she got the chance to join the fourth expedition team headed for India's Mount Everest Mission, the Everest-84. She along with her team members commenced their climb on May 1984. However, a sudden landslide at Lhotse glacier left her and her team members injured. However, Bachendri Pal remained undeterred and continued her climb until she reached the peak of the Everest on 23 May 1984 at 1:07 p.m., thereby becoming the first Indian woman in the world to climb the Mt. Everest. Presently, she is working as the Chief of Adventure Programs of Tata Steel Adventure Foundation of Tata Group. There she gives training to the management teams to bolster up their team spirit by teaching them skills to survive in challenging situations.

Bachendri Pal had bagged several awards and recognitions during her mountaineering career. In 1984, she received the first Csr Gold Medal closely followed by a Padmashree in 1985 and the Arjuna Award in the year 1986. In 1990, her name was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first Indian women to summit the Mt. Everest. She received the National Adventure Award in 1994 and a prestigious Yash Bharati Award from the Uttar Pradesh Government in 1995. In 1997, she received the honorary D.Litt. from the University of Garhwal and was also honored with the prestigious Mahila Shiromani Award. It was in this year that her name entered the Limca Book of Records.

Apart from training corporate and scaling great heights, Bachendri Pal has made significant contribution in training women in mountaineering and river rafting. In 1985, Bachendri led an Indo-Nepalese Everest Expedition women's team. This expedition made seven world records and created a benchmark in Indian mountaineering. In 1993, she organized the Indo-Nepalese Women Everest Expedition and in 1994, she took part in the River Ganga Rafting Expedition from Haridwar to Kolkata. She also led the First Indian Women Trans-Himalayan Expedition including eight women, covering 4,500 km trek via Siachen Glacier.

GROUP 10 ( AMRITHA V NAIR , ANCY JOSE, ARATHY R S, MEENU V, MIDHULA B RAJ)
Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc( 1412 – 30 May 1431), nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" (French: La Pucelle d'Orléans), is a folk heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. She was born a peasant girl in what is now eastern France. Claiming divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII of France. She was captured by the Burgundians, transferred to the English in exchange for money, put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon for charges of "insubordination and heterodoxy",^[6] and was burned at the stake for heresy when she was 19 years old.^[7]

Twenty-five years after her execution, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr.^[7] Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is – along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux – one of the patron saints of France. Joan said she had received visions from God instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and caused the lifting of the siege in only nine days. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims.

To this day, Joan of Arc has remained a significant figure in Western civilization. From Napoleon I onward, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her memory. Famous writers, filmmakers and composers who have created works about her include: William Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 1), Voltaire (The Maid of Orleans), Friedrich Schiller (The Maid of Orleans), Giuseppe Verdi (Giovanna d'Arco), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (The Maid of Orleans), Mark Twain (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), Jean Anouilh (L'Alouette), Bertolt Brecht (Saint Joan of the Stockyards), George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan), Maxwell Anderson (Joan of Lorraine), Carl Theodor Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc), Robert Bresson (The Trial of Joan of Arc), Arthur Honegger (Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher), Leonard Cohen (Joan of Arc), and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (Joan of Arc). Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc have continued in film, theatre, television, video games, music, and performances.

The historian Kelly DeVries describes the period preceding her appearance in the following terms: "If anything could have discouraged her, the state of France in 1429 should have." The Hundred Years' War had begun in 1337 as a succession dispute over the French throne with intermittent periods of relative peace. Nearly all the fighting had taken place in France, and the English army's use of chevauchée tactics (similar to scorched earth strategies) had devastated the economy.^] The French population had not recovered from the Black Death of the previous century and its merchants were isolated from foreign markets. At the outset of Jeanne d'Arc's appearance, the English had nearly achieved their goal of a dual monarchy under English control and the French army had not achieved any major victories for a generation. In DeVries's words, "The kingdom of France was not even a shadow of its thirteenth-century prototype."

The French king at the time of Joan's birth, Charles VI, suffered bouts of insanity and was often unable to rule. The king's brother Duke Louis of Orléans, Duke of Orléans, and the king's cousin John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, quarreled over the regency of France and the guardianship of the royal children. This dispute escalated to accusations of an extramarital affair with Queen Isabeau of Bavaria and the kidnappings of the royal children.. The matter climaxed with the assassination of the Duke of Orléans in 1407 on the orders of the Duke of Burgundy.^[11]

The factions loyal to these two men became known as the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Henry V of England took advantage of this turmoil to invade France, winning a dramatic victory at Agincourt in 1415 and capturing many northern French towns.^[12] The future French king, Charles VII, assumed the title of Dauphin – the heir to the throne – at the age of fourteen, after all four of his older brothers died in succession.^[13] His first significant official act was to conclude a peace treaty with Burgundy in 1419. This ended in disaster when Armagnac partisans assassinated John the Fearless during a meeting under Charles's guarantee of protection. The new duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, blamed Charles for the murder and entered into an alliance with the English. The allied forces conquered large sections of France.^[14]

In 1420, Queen Isabeau of Bavaria signed the Treaty of Troyes, which granted the succession of the French throne to Henry V and his heirs instead of her son Charles. This agreement revived rumors about her alleged affair with the late duke of Orléans and raised fresh suspicions that the Dauphin was illegitimate rather than the son of the king.^[15] Henry V and Charles VI died within two months of each other in 1422, leaving an infant, Henry VI of England, the nominal monarch of both kingdoms. Henry V's brother, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, acted as regent.^[16]

By the beginning of 1429, nearly all of northern France and some parts of the southwest were under foreign control. The English controlled Paris and Rouen while the Burgundians controlled Reims, the latter city being the traditional site of French coronations. This was an important consideration since neither claimant to the throne of France had yet been officially crowned. The English had laid siege to Orléans, one of the few remaining loyal French cities and a strategic position along the Loire River, which made it the last obstacle to an assault on the remainder of the French heartland. In the words of one modern historian, "On the fate of Orléans hung that of the entire kingdom." No one was optimistic that the city could long withstand the siege.

GROUP 11 ( NIDHIN , ANSHAD, SHAJEEM , MUHAMMED ASIF )

AKKAMMA CHERIYAN

She was born on 14 February 1909 at Kanjirapally, Travancore, as the second daughter of Thomman Cherian and Annamma Karippaparambil. She was educated at Government Girls High School, Kanjirapally and St. Joseph's High School, Changanacherry. She earned a B.A. in History from St. Teresa's College, Ernakulam.

After completing her education in 1931, she worked as a teacher at St. Mary's English Medium School, Kanjirapally), where she later became head mistress. She worked in this institution for about six years, and during this period she also did her L. T. degree from Trivandrum Training College.

In February 1938, the Travancore State Congress was formed and Accamma gave up her teaching career in order to join the struggle for liberty .Under the State Congress, the people of Travancore started an agitation for a responsible government. C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, the Dewan of Travancore, decided to suppress the agitation. On 26 August 1938, he banned the State Congress which then organized a civil disobedience movement. Prominent State Congress leaders including its President Pattom A. Thanu Pillai were arrested and put behind bars.^[6] The State Congress then decided to change its method of agitation. Its working committee was dissolved and the president was given dictatorial powers and the right to nominate his successor. Eleven ‘dictators’ (Presidents) of the State Congress were arrested one by one. Kuttanad Ramakrishna Pillai, the eleventh dictator, before his arrest nominated Accamma Cherian as the twelfth dictator.

Accamma Cherian led a mass rally from Thampanoor to the Kowdiar Palace of the Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma to revoke a ban on State CongressThe agitating mob also demanded the dismissal of the Dewan, C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, against whom the State Congress leaders had leveled several charges. The British police chief ordered his men to fire on the rally of over 20,000 people . Accamma Cherian cried, "I am the leader; shoot me first before you kill others". Her courageous words forced the police authorities to withdraw their orders. On hearing the news M. K. Gandhi hailed her as ‘The Jhansi Rani of Travancore’. She was arrested and convicted for violating prohibitory orders in 1939

In October 1938, the working committee of the State Congress directed Accamma Cherian to organize the Desasevika Sangh (Female Volunteer Crops). She toured various centers and appealed to the women to join as members of the Desasevika Sangh.

The first annual conference of the State Congress was held at Vattiyoorkavu on 22 and 23 December 1938 in spite of the ban orders. Almost all leaders of the State Congress were arrested and imprisoned. Accamma, along with her sister Rosamma Punnose (also a freedom fighter, M.L.A., and a C.P.I. leader from 1948), was arrested and jailed on 24 December 1939. They were sentenced to a year's imprisonment. They were insulted and threatened in the jail. Due to the instruction given by the jail authorities, some prisoners used abusing and vulgar words against them. This matter was brought to the notice of M.K. Gandhi by Pattom A. Thanu Pillai. C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, however, denied it. Accamma’s brother, K. P. Varkey, also took part in freedom movement.

Accamma, after her release from jail, became a full-time worker of the State Congress. In 1942, she became its Acting President. In her presidential address, she welcomed the Quit India Resolution passed at the historic Bombay session of the Indian National Congress on 8 August 1942. She was arrested and awarded one year imprisonment. In 1946, she was arrested and imprisoned for six months for violating ban orders. In 1947, she was again arrested as she raised her voice against C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar’s desire for an independent Travacore.

In 1947, after independence, Accamma was elected unopposed to the Travancore Legislative Assembly from Kanjirapally. In 1951, she married V.V. Varkey, a freedom fighter and a member of Travancore Cochin Legislative Assembly. They had one son, George V. Varkey, an engineer. In the early 1950s, she resigned from the Congress Party after being denied a Lok Sabha ticket and in 1952, she unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary election from Cochin-Meenachil as an independent. In the early 1950s, when the parties ideologies were changing, she quit politics.^[4] Her husband V. V. Varkey Mannamplackal,Chirakkadavu. served as an MLA in the Kerala Legislative Assembly from 1952–54. In 1967, she contested the Assembly election from Kanjirapally as a Congress candidate but was defeated by the Communist Party's candidate. Later, she served as a member of the Freedom Fighters’ Pension Advisory Board.

GROUP 12 ( SRUTHY P B, SREELEKSHMI M S, ANFAL S, FOUSIYA S, ARYA R S)

THE FIRST

· WOMAN PRIME MINISTER …….. INDIRA GANDHI

· WOMAN PRESIDENT ………………PRATHIBHA DEVI SINGH PATEL

· WOMAN SPACE TRAVELLER ……KALPANA CHAULA

· WOMAN RECEIVED NOBEL PRIZE ……..MOTHER TERESA

· WOMAN GOVERNOR ……………..SAROJINI NAIDU

· WOMAN DOCTOR ……………KATHAMBINI GANGULI

· WOMAN CHIEF MINISTER …………. SUJETHA KRIPALINI

· WOMAN WHO LIVED 6 MONTHS IN SPACE…..SUNITHA WILLIAMS

· WOMAN MINISTER ……………………….RAJAKUMARI AMRIT KAUR

· WOMAN I PS ……………………………………………………KIRAN BEDI

· WOMAN CABINET MINISTER ……………. VIJAYALEKSHMI PANDIT

· WOMAN MOUNTAINEER ……… ………………….BANCHENDRI PAL

· DIFFERENTLY ABLED TO CLIMB THE EVEREST……ARUNIMA SINHA

GROUP MEMBERS : ASWATHY K S, ANAGHA SURESH, ARATHY S P, NEETHU R G

QUOTE “ IF YOU WANT SOMETHING SAID ASK A MAN; IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE ASK A WOMAN “

MARGRET THATCHER

FACT FILE : PRESENTED BY

SURYA M S , VAISHNA R U, ASWATHY AS, VINCY R PRINCE, ADITYA S NAIR

PRINCESS DIANNA

BORN ………. …………………….. JULY 1, 1961

PLACE………………………………….NORFOLK

NAME…………….DIANNA FRANCES SPENCER

KNOWN AS ……….…….PRINCESS OF WHALES

FATHER……………..……………..JOHN SPENCER

MOTHER…………..……FRANCES BRUKE ROCHE

HUSBAND ………….……………………..PRINCE CHARLES

CHILDREN ….……....PRINCE WILLIAM , PRINCE HENRY

DEATH ……………………………………….AUGUST 31 1997

BURIED AT ………………………………….…….ALTHROPE

SEMINAR PROCEDURE

SANU S S

Ø INTRODUCTION

o INSTRUCTION

Ø PLANNING

o PRESENTATION

Ø DISCUSSION

o CONCLUSION

Ø SEMINAR REPORT

CONCLUSION

TAKEN FROM : SANU S S, AMAL MOHAN, ANANTHU A S, VISHNU SURESH

Human development is going on as part of evolution .There was a time when women were looked down. They were marginalized by the society. They have come out to the brave new world. Thanks to the many women who worked and suffered for their cause.

Now our society has accepted equal importance for women and men in society. Lets hope of such a society which stop all cruelties to women and shoulder equal responsibilities………

THANK YOU

VOX The English Voice Of Neduveli

Friday 20 September 2013

OCTOBER

Saturday 14 September 2013

SEPTEMBER

Friday 13 September 2013

WATCH YOUTUBE UPCOMING ACTIVITY

Sunday 1 September 2013

DEBATE

SEMINAR

GROUP 10 ( AMRITHA V NAIR , ANCY JOSE, ARATHY R S, MEENU V, MIDHULA B RAJ)
Joan of Arc

Friday 20 September 2013

OCTOBER

Saturday 14 September 2013

SEPTEMBER

Friday 13 September 2013

WATCH YOUTUBE UPCOMING ACTIVITY

Sunday 1 September 2013

DEBATE

SEMINAR

GROUP 10 ( AMRITHA V NAIR , ANCY JOSE, ARATHY R S, MEENU V, MIDHULA B RAJ) Joan of Arc

GROUP 10 ( AMRITHA V NAIR , ANCY JOSE, ARATHY R S, MEENU V, MIDHULA B RAJ)
Joan of Arc