Ms. Lalitha Kumaramangalam took over as the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women w.e.f. 29th September, 2014. She is a graduate in economics honours from St.Stephens College, Delhi University and Masters in Business Administration from Madras university. She speaks many languages fluently owing to her great family background. She belongs to powerful, illustrious political family, comprising Governor, Cabinet Ministers, Army General and Members of Parliament.
Ms. Kumaramangalam is a prominent political leader in her own right, who has been working relentlessly for decades for the empowerment and advancement of women belonging to the vulnerable and under-privileged sections of society.
She runs an NGO named Prakriti (in Indian Samkhya philosophy, Prakriti, or the nature, signifies woman). She has worked on issues dealing with healthcare, HIV/AIDS prevention and worked with dis- empowered communities like truckers, sex-workers, the LGBT community, migrant and construction workers, SHGs and urban slum women.
Recently she was at the ThinkBig 2016 Summit Inaugural ceremony in Bengaluru and addressed the gathering of women entrepreneurs and commanded all the attention, owing to her frank and impressive speech. Her speech stirred the audience and her words on condition of women in rural and sub-urban India made us realise the mammoth task of empowering them. They need to be heard and listened to and this is a moral obligation of us, the privileged sections of society, the educated lot, to reach out to them. In her speech she told how men in her life, have been the pillars of support and usually it’s a man who stands behind a woman who does well and breaks from the chain of ever present prejudices and suppression.
ThingBig summit was radiant with the presence of such truly inspiring lady who is so honest and transparent in her ideas and actions. The message that we gathered was that we must, as a society, be steady in our actions towards the upliftment of underprivileged women and be a guiding light, be their voice, and not just be a flicker of hope for a while which gets exhausted as soon as there is rough weather. Here is a short conversation with the stalwart who commands attention and respect as she speaks, Ms Lalitha kumarmangalam.
Place- BIEC Bengaluru,
Date- 14 Nov 2016