6 girl prodigies to get International Women’s Day awards

Mumbai, March 4 (IANS) In an unique initiative, six young female achievers with outstanding feats in different fields to their credit, will be conferred the International Womena's Day honours here on Sunday, an official said.

The six young girls are from different parts of India and will be presented the Shanmukhananda Fine Arts Sabha (SFAS) annual International Women's Day awards at the hands of Governor C.V. Rao on Sunday (March 5).

The selected girls are 10-year-old Rida Zehra from Meerut, a blind Muslim girl who can recite the entire Bhagwad Gita though she has never seen or learnt the holy book in Braille. Her school teacher read out the Bhagwad Gita to her and she committed it entirely to her extraordinary memory since the past three years.

Then there is eight-year old Tajamul Islam from Srinagar, who is the country's youngest kick-boxing World Champion and is the daughter of a driver Ghulam Mohammad Lone.

The next is 13-year-old Malavath Purna, daughter of farmer labourers in Pakala village, in Nizamabad district of Telangana and she achieved global fame in May 2014 by becoming the youngest Indian to climb Mt. Everest.

There are two prodigal sisters from Lucknow -- 17-year-old Sushma Verma and her four-year old sibling Ananya Verma, both daughters of illiterate labourers.

Sushma shot to fame when she completed her SSC at the age of seven, graduation at 13 and post-graduation at 15 and is currently the youngest Indian pursuing her Ph.D. in Science.

Her equally brilliant sister Ananya can recite and is fluent in the Hindu holy book, the epic Ramayana, and impressed by her grasping powers, the education department granted her admission directly to Class IX. She could be on way to beat her elder sister Sushma's record (SSC at age seven) by completing SSC at the age of 5 next year.

The final is 27-year-old Prema Jayakumar, the daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver from Malad, in Mumbai, who grabbed national attention by topping the Chartered Accountancy exams in 2013 and was directly appointed as Branch Manager with PSU, Indian Bank.

Governor Rao will present each girl a cash prize of Rs 50,000, a high-version laptop, including a Braille laptop for Rida Zehra, a trophy, brass lamp and shawl.

The SFAS President V. Shankar said that this year the focus was on the girl child and all the awardees hail from ordinary backgrounds but with extraordinary achievements to their credit.

"Each awardee had a singular focus on their goals, unremitting devotion, determination, as the hallmark of their character which proves that poverty is no bar to realize their professional goals," Shankar added.

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