Sandhya Dhar (born 1980) is an Indian disability rights activist. She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at an early age and is a wheelchair user. She founded the Jammu Institute of General Education and Rehabilitation (JIGER) in 2015 to support disabled people and was awarded the 2020 Nari Shakti Puraskar.
Sandhya Dhar was born in early 1980 in Srinagar, the summer capital of erstwhile Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir into a Kashmiri Pandit family. At a few months old she had a fever which led to paralysis and she was diagnosed to have cerebral palsy. [1] Her parents prioritised her care and she was sent to the Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute for the Physically Handicapped in New Delhi for two years. At five, she went to the local school and then her family moved to Jammu, where the care facilities were better. She attended the Adarsh Shiksha Niketan school and then the M. Dass school. [1] She continued her education at the Government Degree College Parade Ground Jammu, studying for a Bachelor of Commerce, Master of Commerce, a Diploma in Computer Science and Master of Business Administration (MBA). She then worked in the finance department of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. [1] Dhar plays boccia and in 2022, she won a bronze medal at the Boccia National Championship. [2]
Dhar is a wheelchair user. [3] She became a disability rights activist and founded the Jammu Institute of General Education and Rehabilitation (JIGER) in 2015. It supports disabled people and offers lessons taught by disabled teachers. [4] In 2022, it supported over 400 disabled children. [5]
In 2022, she received the 2020 Nari Shakti Puraskar from President Ram Nath Kovind. [4] Manoj Sinha, the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, said in 2022 that Dhar, alongside Nasira Akhtar and Nasheeman Ashraf, was an inspiration for women in the region. [6]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
The Paralympic sports comprise all the sports contested in the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games. As of 2020, the Summer Paralympics included 22 sports and 539 medal events, and the Winter Paralympics include 5 sports and disciplines and about 80 events. The number and kinds of events may change from one Paralympic Games to another.
The Summer Paralympics, also known as the Games of the Paralympiad, are an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete. This includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. The Paralympic Games are held every four years, organized by the International Paralympic Committee. Medals are awarded in every event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that the Olympic Games started in 1904.
ADAPT – Able Disabled All People Together is an Indian non-profit and non-governmental organization, working to help people with neuro-muscular and developmental disabilities. It was started on 2 October 1972 by Mithu Alur, to provide education and treatment services for the "spastics".
BC3 is a boccia classification. The class is open to people with several different types of disabilities, including cerebral palsy. BC3 players have events open to them in boccia on the Paralympic Games program.
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.
Royal Fables is an exposition that presents art, design and fashion by patrons who belong to Indian royal families. It features traditional crafts as practiced in royal courts. Royal Fables features 30 royal and noble families engaged in keeping the art and craft of India alive.
Les Autres sport classification is system used in disability sport for people with locomotor disabilities not included in other classification systems for people with physical disabilities. The purpose of this system is to facilitate fair competition between people with different types of disabilities, and to give credibility to disability sports. It was designed and managed by International Sports Organization for the Disabled (ISOD) until the 2005 merger with IWAS, when management switched to that organization. Classification is handled on the national level by relevant sport organizations.
Mehvish Mushtaq Hakak is an Application and Software developer, who created a Business Directory App for Kashmir called "Dial Kashmir", in 2013, for the Kashmir valley, which made her the first Kashmiri female to develop an Android app.
The Cerebral Palsy Games are a multi-sport competition for athletes with a disability, which under the former name of the International Stoke Mandeville Games were the forerunner of the Paralympic Games. The competition has been formerly known as the International Cerebral Palsy Games or the Stoke Mandeville Games. Since the 1990s the Games have been organized by Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association (CPISRA), so they called also CPISRA World Games.
Justice Gita Mittal is a retired Indian judge. She is the former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and the first woman judge to serve in that capacity. She has also served as the Acting Chief Justice of Delhi High Court while she was serving as a Judge of the Delhi High Court.
Gargi Gupta is the founder and secretary of Voice Of World (NGO), a multi-unit non-profit organization for visually impaired, disabled, and orphaned children in Eastern India, headquartered in Kolkata, India.
Arifa Jan is an Indian activist for felt rug making in Srinagar in Kashmir. Jan was awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar on 8 March 2020.
Pushpa Preeya also known as either Pushpa NM or Pushpa N. M. is an Indian scribe, IT professional and volunteer. She is well known for her voluntary service of writing exams for visually impaired people.
Hekani Jakhalu Kense is an Indian politician and social entrepreneur from Nagaland. She set up the non-governmental organization YouthNet to help the youths of Nagaland pursue business opportunities. She was recognised with the Nari Shakti Puraskar award in 2018.
A. Seema is an Indian scientist from Kerala who led a team that developed a bra that indicates whether the person wearing it has breast cancer. After it was sent for commercial development, she was awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2019 for her work.
Madhuri Barthwal née Uniyal is a folk singer of Uttarakhand, India. She is the first woman to be a music composer in All India Radio. She is said to be the first female musician from Uttarakhand to become a music teacher. On International Women's Day in 2019 she was awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar by Ram Nath Kovind. She was awarded the Padma Shri India's fourth highest civilian award in 2022 by the Indian government in the field of art.
Kalyani Pramod Balakrishnan is an Indian textile designer based in Chennai in Tamil Nadu. She has worked with weavers through the Ministry of Rural Development. She received the 2016 Nari Shakti Puraskar.
Sruti Mohapatra is a disability inclusion expert. Her expertise is in inclusive education and inclusive disaster management and planning.
Padma Yangchan is an Indian entrepreneur from Ladakh. She trained as a fashion designer. She is the owner of Namza Couture and Namza Dining and known for reviving the indigenous art and craft of Ladakh as well as the food. She has received the Nari Shakti Puraskar in recognition of her achievements.
Nasira Akhter is an Indian inventor from Kulgam in Jammu and Kashmir. She dropped out of school and became interested in the uses of herbs. Akhter worked at the Kashmir University Science Instrumentation Centre for over eight years to develop a means to make polythene biodegradable. She found a solution using an undisclosed herb in 2008. The herb is made into a paste and this is applied to the polythene before it is set alight. The polythene is disposed of without any reported pollution. In recognition of her achievements, she received the Nari Shakti Puraskar on International Women's Day 2022 from the President of India Ram Nath Kovind.