My Science School

At the age of fourteen, Lakshmi Bai was married to Gangadhar Rao, the Raja of Jhansi. When Gangadhar Rao died, Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor-General, ordered the Rani to hand over the state to the British. “I will not give my Jhansi”, said Lakshmi Bai. Jhansi witnessed an uprising against the British on June 5, 1857.

The Rani was an inspirational leader and the people fought for her. She bravely proclaimed that her reign had begun.

However, the British forces led by Sir Hugh Rose laid siege to Jhansi. The Rani defended Jhansi with all her might, but the British broke through. She escaped with a band of soldiers and joined other revolutionary leaders at Kalpi. They took Gwalior as the Rani fought in a man’s dress at the head of fifty horse-men. She died heroically while defending Gwalior against the British.

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If there is one voice that epitomizes the musical legacy of Bollywood, it is Lata Mangeshkar’s.

Also known as the ‘Nightingale of India’, her distinctive voice and incredible vocal range, which extends over more than three octaves, is legendary in the Indian film industry. Over a span of six decades, she has recorded the songs for the soundtracks of more than 1,000 Indian films.

Mangeshkar was born on September 28, 1929 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh to Shevanti Mangeshkar and Dinanath Mangeshkar. Her father was a well-known theatre actor and Hindustani classical vocalist who began training her from the age of five. She also trained under maestros such as Ustad Aman Ali Khan and Ustad Amanat Khan.

In 1942, when Mangeshkar was 13, her father passed away. In the following years, Lata struggled to help support her family and establish herself as a playback singer in the Hindi film industry. Her first hit was “Aayega Aanewaala” from the movie ‘Mahal’ in 1949 and after that the hits just kept coming! In a career spanning more than 70 years, she has sung for actresses from Madhubala to Priyanka Chopra and worked with several legendary music directors including Madan Mohan, R D Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and A R Rahman.

In 1974, she became the first Indian to perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London. She is the recipient of three National Film Awards and holds the distinction of being the most recorded artist in the history of Indian music. She received the ‘Dadasaheb Phalke Award’ in 1989, and India’s highest civilian honour, the ‘Bharat Ratna’, in 2001.

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Anshula Kant became the first woman to be appointed Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director of the World Bank and is one of the top finance leaders of the world today.

Born on September 7, 1960 in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, she graduated in economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Delhi in 1979 and did her post-graduation from the Delhi School of Economics in 1981.

Kant joined the State Bank of India as a probationary officer in 1983. She has also held the posts of chief general manager of SBI, deputy managing director of operations for National Banking Group and chief executive officer of SBI (Singapore).

In September 2018, she became the managing director of SBI for a period of two years. On 12 July 2019, she was appointed chief financial officer and managing director of the World Bank Group.

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Chitra Ramkrishna is a former MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE). She is the first woman to have ever held the post in the exchange’s history. She is also the third woman to head an exchange in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ramkrishna was born on January 1, 1963 in Chennai, to a family of chartered accountants. Influenced by her father and grandfather, who were both accountants, she earned a degree in commerce from RA Podar College in Mumbai and accountancy from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Delhi. She started her career as a chartered accountant in 1985 when she joined the Project Finance Division of the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI).

She later joined the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). In 1992 she was chosen by the then IDBI chairman, SS Nadkarni, to join the core team to set up the NSE from scratch. She has played an integral role in its growth along the years.

She was made the NSE head in April 2013. Under her leadership the NSE became a transparent market ecosystem with a reach in 1,500 locations in India.

Ramkrishna was named Forbes ‘Woman Leader of the Year’ in 2013 and was ranked 17th in the list of ‘Top Global Women Business Leaders’ by Fortune Magazine.

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Most of us are familiar with swimming in controlled environments like swimming pools, but there are a class of swimmers that venture into water bodies such as oceans, seas, lakes and rivers. Such swimmers are called ‘open water swimmers’.

Bhakti Sharma is an Indian open water swimmer from Udaipur, Rajasthan. She was born on November 30, 1989 in Mumbai, Maharashtra to Chandra Shekar Sharma and Leena Sharma. She started swimming at age 2 with her mother Leena Sharma doubling as her coach.

Her first open water swim was a 16-km stretch from Uran harbour in Navi Mumbai to the Gateway of India in 2003, at the age of 14.

Sharma shares the Asian record for the first swim by a 3-member Women’s relay team across the English Channel with her friend Priyanka Gehlot and mother Leena Sharma. Sharma and her mother also hold the world record for the first mother-daughter duo to swim across the English Channel in 2008.

She is the first Asian woman and the youngest in the world to set a record in Antarctic waters. She swam 1.4 miles in 41.14 minutes at a temperature of 1°C, in January 2015. Sharma also holds a swimming record for swimming in all five oceans of the world.

Sharma received the ‘Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award’ in 2010. She is a popular speaker who has given motivational talks about her inspiring journey from the deserts of Rajasthan to the icy waters of Antarctica.

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