Indian Women Scientists: Unsung Stories

‘Indian Women Scientist: Unsung stories’ is a very absorbing and inspiring account of four eminent women scientists Dr Malti Goel, Dr Krishnamma Reddy, Dr Kiran Kumar and the author herself Dr Vijaya Sinha. These pioneers did not only chase their dreams successfully but also made our nation proudly realize its dream in the realm of research and development in science. These science luminaries belong to an era when the concept of higher education in the field of science was quite alien to women. The threshold of the institutes of science and technology was beyond their access. Their appearance in the research laboratories was a rare phenomenon. The gender discrimination saw to it that many women talents got nipped in the bud.Their achievement was no mean feat. They broke the barriers of socio-cultural gender-baseddogma and stormed the male bastion. Not only did they survive but scaled academic heights and excelled in the field .The four women scientists are drawn from the different regions of the socio-cultural spectrum of the country Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar respectively. There is one common thread which runs in each of the stories, which is unfortunately that of inequality and discrimination in the field of higher science education for women. Their struggle against this all pervasive bias is very much palpable in these stories.               ---- Vishwmohan