Manasi Pradhan | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | Indian |
Education | M. A. in Odia literature, LL.B. |
Alma mater | Utkal University, G.M. Law College, Puri |
Occupation(s) | Women's rights activist, author and poet |
Organization(s) | Nirbhaya Vahini, OYSS Women, Nirbhaya Samaroh |
Notable work | Urmi-O-Uchchwas, Akasha Deepa, Swagatika |
Movement | Honour for Women National Campaign |
Awards | Stree Shakti Puraskar 2013 Outstanding Women Award 2011 |
Manasi Pradhan (born 4 October 1962) is an Indian women's rights activist and author. She is the founder of Honour for Women National Campaign, a nationwide movement to end violence against women in India. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] In 2014, she was conferred with Rani Laskhmibai Stree Shakti Puraskar by the President of India. Along with Mary Prema Pierick, global head of the Missionaries of Charity, she won the 'Outstanding Women Award' in 2011. [8] [9] [10] [11]
Pradhan is frequently featured by international publications and organizations. In 2016, the New York–based Bustle named her among 20 most inspiring Feminists Authors and Activists. [12] In 2017, the Los Angeles–based Welker Media Inc. named her among 12 most powerful feminist change makers. [13] In 2018, the Oxford Union of University of Oxford invited her to address the union. [14] [15] [16] [17]
She is the founder of Nirbhaya Vahini, Nirbhaya Samaroh and OYSS Women. [18] [19] She has served on the panel of Central Board of Film Certification (Censor Board) for India [20] and Inquiry Committee of the National Commission for Women. [21] [22] [23] [24]
Born to a poor family in a remote village of Odisha, she fought successfully the widely prevalent social taboo against educating women, walked 15 km daily amidst hilly terrain and swamp to the only high school in the entire region to emerge as first woman matriculate of her village and subsequently the first woman law graduate of her region. The life story of Manasi Pradhan has been adopted as documentaries in United States and Israel. [25] [26] [27] [28]
Pradhan was born to a poor family in a remote village called Ayatapur in Banapur block of Khordha district, Odisha. [8] She was the eldest among two daughters and a son born to Hemalata Pradhan and Godabarish Pradhan. Her father was a farmer and mother a house wife. [29]
Female education was considered a major taboo in most rural areas of Banapur then. Girls were rarely allowed to attend high school. After completing her middle school in the village, there was strong pressure to end her studies. Further, there was no high school in the nearby areas. [30]
She walked 15 km daily, amidst hilly terrain and swamp, to the only high school in the entire region, to emerge as the first woman to pass high school examination in her village. [8] [31]
After completing her schooling from Patitapaban High School in Gambharimunda, the family shifted to Puri for her college education. With little earning from the village farmland, it became difficult to sustain. Soon after passing the intermediate examination, she had to work to support her family and her studies. She earned a B.A. in economics from Government Women's College, Puri, and M.A. in Odia literature from Utkal University. She obtained Bachelor of Laws from G.M. Law College, Puri. [32] [33] [34]
She worked with the finance department, Govt. of Odisha and Andhra Bank for a short period but left both to pursue her own passion. In October 1983, at the age of 21, she began her own printing business and a literary journal. In few years time, the business grew exponentially, putting her in the league of few successful women entrepreneurs of her time. [32] [36] [37]
In 1987, she founded OYSS Women. The initial motive was to help girl students achieve higher education and develop them as future leaders in the society. OYSS Women has been organizing leadership workshops, education and vocational training camps, legal awareness and self-defense camps, nurturing thousands of young women as prospective leaders in their chosen field. [38]
Apart from the above, the organization undertakes numerous activities and events and is widely credited for pioneering contribution in empowering women. The organization is also spearheading the Honour for Women National Campaign. [39]
In November 2009, she launched the Honour for Women National Campaign, a nationwide movement to end violence against women in India. The movement has been instrumental in galvanizing the nation against women atrocities. [40] [41]
The movement employs a multi-pronged strategy to fight the menace of violence against women in India.
It uses a plethora of vehicles i.e. women's rights stall, women's rights festival, women's rights meets, women's rights literature, audio-visual displays, street plays etc. to raise awareness on legal and institutional provisions to fight atrocities on women. [42]
On the other hand, it puts pressure on the state by mobilizing public opinion and sustained campaigning for institutional changes and correctional measures to contain violence against women. [43]
In 2013, after a four-year long churning involving a series of national seminars, workshops and consultations involving stakeholders from across India, the movement came up with a detailed draft charting its fight to end violence against women.
In 2014, the movement released a Four-Point Charter of Demand for all state governments of India. In the same year, it launched Nirbhaya Vahini, consisting of over 10,000 volunteers spread across India to mobilize public opinion and engage in a sustained campaign for implementation of its four-point charter of demand. [44]
In 2014, the Honour for Women National Campaign headed by Manasi Pradhan released a four-point charter of demand for all state governments of India. The charter forms a cornerstone of the movement and has led several state governments to make suitable amendments.
Manasi Pradhan is an acclaimed author and poet. Her fourth book Urmi-O-Uchchwas ( ISBN 81-87833-00-9) has been translated into eight major languages. [20] [46] [47]
Khordha is a town and a municipality area in Khordha district in the Indian state of Odisha. Bhubaneswar, is the capital of Odisha located within the Khordha district and is only 25 km from Khordha town. Odisha State Highway 1 and National Highway 16 runs via this town.
Jetsun Pema is the sister of the 14th Dalai Lama. For 42 years she was the President of the Tibetan Children's Villages (TCV) school system for Tibetan refugee students.
Dr. Vartika Nanda is an Indian prison reformer and a media educator. With her experience of the industry and academia, she has dedicated her life to the cause of prison reform. She is a recipient of Stree Shakti Puraskar, the highest civilian honour for female empowerment in India and entered Limca Book of Records twice.
The 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder, commonly known as the Nirbhaya case, involved a rape and fatal assault that occurred on 16 December 2012 in Munirka, a neighbourhood in South Delhi. The incident took place when Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling with her male friend, Avnindra Pratap Pandey. There were six others in the bus, including the driver, all of whom raped the woman and beat her friend. She was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi for treatment and transferred to Singapore eleven days after the assault, where she succumbed to her injuries 2 days later. The incident generated widespread national and international coverage and was widely condemned, both in India and abroad. Subsequently, public protests against the state and central governments for failing to provide adequate security for women took place in New Delhi, where thousands of protesters clashed with security forces. Similar protests took place in major cities throughout the country. Since Indian law does not allow the press to publish a rape victim's name, the victim was widely known as Nirbhaya, meaning "fearless", and her struggle and death became a symbol of women's resistance to rape around the world.
Nirbhaya Fund was an Indian rupee 10 billion corpus announced by Government of India in its 2013 Union Budget. The Finance Minister P. Chidambaram expected the fund to support initiatives protecting the dignity and ensuring safety of women in India. Nirbhaya (fearless) was the pseudonym given to the 2012 Delhi gang rape victim. The Ministry of Women and Child Development and several other ministries decided the application of the fund. One use was to open One Stop Centres to support women who are victims of violence.
The Nari Shakti Puraskar is an annual award given by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of the Government of India to individual women or to institutions that work towards the cause of women empowerment. It is the highest civilian honour for women in India, and is presented by the president of India on International Women's Day at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. The award was instituted in 1999 under the title of Stree Shakti Puraskar, renamed and reorganised in 2015. It is awarded in six institutional and two individual categories, which carry a cash prize of 200,000 and 100,000 rupees, respectively.
Nirbhaya Samaroh is an annual dance and music festival held by the Honour for Women National Campaign to raise awareness on women’s rights. The festival named after the 2012 Delhi gang rape victim is presented as a tribute to all victims of Violence against women.
The Honour for Women National Campaign is a nationwide movement in India to end violence against women. The movement was founded by women’s rights activist Manasi Pradhan in the year 2009.
OYSS Women is a non-profit organization engaged in empowering women in India. It was founded in 1987 by women's rights activist Manasi Pradhan.
Nirbhaya Vahini is a volunteer unit of the Honour for Women National Campaign. It was founded in January 2014 to help mobilize public opinion and launch a sustained campaign for the implementation of the movement's Four-Point charter of demand.
Sailakshmi Balijepally was an Indian paediatrician and the founder of Ekam Foundation, an NGO working in the areas of child and maternal health and well-being. She was awarded the Nari Shakti Award for the year 2014 by the president of India.
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Media related to Manasi Pradhan at Wikimedia Commons