3 of 7 who handled PM Narendra Modi's accounts get Nari Shakti Award

NEW DELHI: Taking a day off from social media, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose seven women from different walks of life and different regions of the country to take over his social media accounts on International Women’s Day.

Three of them were later in the day awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar, 2019. Sources in the know said a meticulous week-long exercise was carried out to identify the seven “inspiring women” about whom not much was known widely but had done remarkable work and belonged to diverse regions like Srinagar in Jammu & Kashmir, the heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, rural Maharashtra and urban centers. Interestingly, four out of the chosen seven women were not even active on social media and did not have Twitter accounts.

The oldest among the chosen women were 58-yr-old Kalavati Devi who as a lady mason has been a driving force towards reducing open defecation in Kanpur by helping build over 4000 toilets in villages in and around Kanpur. She was also awarded Nari Shakti Puraskar on Sunday. Another Nari Shakti winner, 43-year-old Bina Devi from Munger in Bihar also tweeted from PM’s account. She is a mushroom grower who motivated 1500 more women in the field and was ‘Sarpanch’ of Dhauri Panchayat, Tetiabamber block for five years.

33-year-old Arifa from Srinagar also took over PM’s social media accounts and got the Nari Shakti Puraskar. She is an entrepreneur and the founder of Numdha Handicrafts and responsible for reviving the lost art of Numdha handicrafts and training more than 100 women in Kashmir.

The PM also chose Vijaya Pawar, who works for handicrafts of the Banjara community in rural Maharashtra for the last 2 decades and has been assisted by a 1000 women.

The PM also chose disability activist and Nari Shakti Awardee in 2017, Malvika Iyer, to tweet from his account. She as a 13-year-old lost both her hands in a bomb blast in Rajasthan. The other two women chosen by the PM were Kalpana Ramesh, a Go Green water warrior champion and Sneha Mohandoss – the founder of Foodbank India and a philanthropist who started a mission for ‘Hunger Free Nation’ by starting a Facebook page in 2015.