12 MP women achievers among 100 feted by President

BHOPAL: President Pranab Mukherjee hosted a lunch for 100 women achievers on Friday at Rashtrapati Bhavan on the occasion of first anniversary of 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' scheme. Among these 100, 12 women achievers from Madhya Pradesh were also present.
These 100 women achievers were selected by the ministry of women and child development (MWCD) in collaboration with Facebook through a nationwide contest and public nominations.The lunch was also attended by Union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi. Of the 12 from MP, 7 are from Bhopal - Suneha Gadpande, Dr Vinita Mewada, Rashida Bi, Poonam Shroti, Bhakti Sharma and mother-daughter duo Swati Tiwari-Dr Pallavi Tiwari.
Suneha is the only Indian female working as a chief officer (Master's License) in NYK Lines, a foreign (Japanese) company, for the last 12 years in Merchant Navy. Dr Vinita has been working in the field of nutrition, to eradicate malnutrition in various communities for past many years. She's a chief dietician at Bansal Hospital. Rashida Bi is founder of one of the six NGOs working tirelessly for victims of Bhopal gas tragedy since last 30 years.
Suffering from Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Poonam is a little over two feet in height. She converted her disability into an opportunity and started Uddip Social Welfare Society to help physically challenged people. US returned, sarpanch of village Barkhedi Andullah, Bhakti Sharma, all of 26 years, has worked relentlessly towards development and also donated her two-month salary for every girl child born in the village.
Swati Tiwari is a noted Hindi writer who has received several awards for her book on the lives of widows of Bhopal gas tragedy while her daughter Dr Pallavi Tiwari is a young scientist in the US for last nine years, doing research on cancer and brain tumours. She has developed a new MRI-based technique to predict survival of patients with aggressive brain tumours. Besides, three achievers are from Indore - Monica Sharma, Seema Parihara and Dr Lalita Anant. The other two achievers from the state are Dr Nandita Pathak from Chitrakoot and Dr Leena Joshi from Ratlam.
The social media contest namely #100Women was announced on the Facebook page of the MWCD on July 15, 2015 through which nominations were invited in 20 categories. The 200 women nominees were shortlisted by a Jury from 474 nominations received across the 20 categories. From Madhya Pradesh alone, there were 20 women shortlisted from various fields like women empowerment, education, arts and culture and environment, forests and wildlife etc. The 200 shortlisted women nominees went for public voting from December 3 to December 20, 2015 out of which these 100 women were selected.