Women Teachers are Green-fingered Gardners

‘Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress’ is theme of 2024 International Women’s Day.

I recall an amazing book called ‘Braided River’ published under the leadership of Eric Falt, my creative friend, when he was UNESCO’s Director and Representative based in New Delhi for a region comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Now he is Regional Director at UNESCO Office for the Maghreb region: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia and is based in Rabat (Morocco). I knew Eric from my UNEP days where he set the innovative communication strategies to spread the message of exigent and insistent need for multilateral environmental regeneration.

‘Braided River’ was unusual title, that reflects Eric’s creative mind, of well-structured coffee-table-style book published in 2022. It is on ‘Indian women in Science’ , particularly illustrating what has been achieved in India and role played by Indian women in science education, research and their single minded initiatives. Their contributions to India’s progress as described in the book is worth remembering on this International Women’s Day! The barriers faced by women and the opportunities to overcome them have been displayed in the carefully researched statistics. Indeed, there is long way to travel yet, as the ways to improve the situation to use their amazing potential in the fullest possible manner would need social reforms.

What I liked most was the title itself! It is “Braided River’! The book visualises lives of Indian women scientists which are never linear. Their careers are like rivers which are replete with different braids that we notice for rivers like Brahmaputra. ‘Rivers are forced to change the course, but they are perennial and resilient’, he explained to me when he presented the book to me in 2022.

A braided river never falters on its way to the sea, just as Indian woman scientists who invariably demonstrate their goal-oriented intellect, grit and power in their accomplishment. The book is an homage to all Indian Scientists.

The fact that the recent achievements by Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO) are mainly led by Indian Women, is testimony to the fact that they not only ‘define the orbits’ of their career but they have expertise to calculate the

‘escape velocity’ and fire the ambitious rockets to break-away from the ‘defined orbits’ to leap towards the moon and even to the Sun!

The Regional Director of UNESCO in New Delhi who replaced Eric is Tim Curtis, a great orator, thinker and supporter of the Green TERRE Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that I lead.

My suggestion is : similar grand book be published on Indian Women Teachers and Professors! Women teachers sow the seeds in minds of students, nurture their green-growth and their career in very characteristic and motherly style.

My unsolicited suggestion for the title of that would-be book: ‘Green-fingered Gardner’!

UNESCO Narendra Modi Prakash Javadekar AICTE UNESCO New Delhi Erik Solheim Nirmala Sitharaman University Grants Commission (UGC) NITI Aayog United Nations Smart Campus Cloud Network Smriti Irani ISRO - Indian Space Research Organization Ministry of Women & Child Development Anil Sahasrabudhe