International Women's Day: Centre honours 'Web Wonder Women' for driving exceptional reforms via social media

Ahead of International Women's Day, the Ministry of Women and Child Development hosted a felicitation event for Web Wonder Women on Wednesday. The event was organized to celebrate the exceptional achievements of women, who have been driving social reforms via social media. 

As many as 30 women were selected after an extensive research process. They were honored by the Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi in New Delhi on 6th March 2019.

Meet  some of the women achievers honoured by the Centre under the third leg of 'Web Wonder Women' this year.

(Text: pib.nic.in)

Adhunika Prakash is the founder and CEO of Breastfeeding Support for Indian Mothers (BSIM).

She is a social entrepreneur using technology to enable 85,000+ expectant and new parents to take informed decisions about breastfeeding.

She used Twitter to raise awareness about the importance of breastfeeding and the various policies that need to change in the country to enable and protect breastfeeding.

#FreedomToNurseevents,via BSIM, were held in 3 cities and they virtually reached out to several across the country through the events.

(Image courtesy- @adhunikaP)

Chavi Vohra is a development professional, experienced in promoting children rights, women’s empowerment and youth development through programme development, advocacy, social media advocacy, and capacity development.

She has worked with UN (UNICEF, etc), national and international civil society organizations (Save the Children, Plan International, etc, foundations, HCL Foundation) media (NDTV) and academics institutions (Schools and Universities) at local, national and international levels.

She is the co-curator of @SDG2030 that promotes people’s action in the localization of SDGs. It’s recent chat created over 100 Million impressions on Twitter.

(Image courtesy: @Chavivohra)

Dr Angela Chaudhuri is a B.D.S, M.P.H and P G Diploma in Journalism. She is Director, Swasti Health Catalyst, on the board of Catalyst Group of
Institutions, IDEX Global Accelerator, AIDS Asia Pacific, PMNCH and part of the MIT Solve Leadership group.

With 18+ years of experience in Public Health, Angela’s expertise lies in country programme evaluations, research, capacity building, fundraising and knowledge management in HIV, TB, Malaria, Health Systems Strengthening. Angela works closely with governments, civil society, community groups and corporates and uses Twitter to add value to those working for social impact.

 (Image courtesy- @Angela_Swasti)

Dr Saundarya Rajesh - One of India's most impactful thought leaders on diversity, Dr Saundarya Rajesh tweets not only about the influence of inclusion and second career opportunities for women in India but also a wide list of topics ranging from skilling, intentionality, self-confidence, focus and gratitude. Social entrepreneur, Founder-President of AVTAR.
Group - Dr Rajesh has created the largest impact on adolescent girls through her Project PUTHRI.

(Image courtesy- @SaundaryaR)

Dr Debarati Halder, Ph.D, is an Advocate & Honorary Managing Director of the Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling. She is the Founder- Secretary of the South Asian Society of Criminology and Victimology and the Global advisory committee member for International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence.

She has created a hashtag in Twitter #cybercrimesagainstwomen to spread awareness about the issue, as well as spread awareness about related laws, cyber victimology, etc.

She strongly advocates for the rights of women and child victims of online crimes through Twitter. She spreads awareness about revenge porn and is trying to generate support for a focused revenge porn prohibition law for India.

(Image courtesy- @DrDebaratiH)

Japleen Pasricha smashes the patriarchy for a living. She is the founder & editor-in-chief of Feminism in India, an award-winning digital feminist media platform.

She is also a TEDx speaker and a UN World Summit Young Innovator. Japleen uses Twitter to share feminist resources with the hashtag #femresources. She regularly RTs the voices of Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women so as to amplify voices at the margins and she also calls out trolls on Twitter and sends solidarity hugs to her sisters.

(Image courtesy- @japna_p)

Nmami Agarwal is the founder of Nmami Life - a platform for spreading awareness and educating people about the therapeutic benefits and holistic healing powers of food in its most natural or unprocessed form.

A huge platform like Twitter has ensured that her voice and opinion reach masses, and draw people closer to the motto she believes in, which is - “Eat Today for Tomorrow”. The ever-growing Twitter family has helped her establish many B2B and B2C relations that impacted her business model positively.

(Image courtesy- @NmamiAgarwal)

Dr Shruti Kapoor is the founder of Sayfty and an award-winning gender equality activist. Shaken by the horrific gang rape in Delhi 2012, she founded her organization, Sayfty to educate and empower women and girls of India against gender-based violence.

She is a recognized Twitter user and mentor. She has built a global community that engages weekly in discussions on girl’s / women’s empowerment, safety, and action against gender-based violence.

These inclusive discussions make 10-15 million impressions weekly and address taboo topics often not discussed openly in our society.

(Image courtesy- @kapoor_s)

Shweta Pathak is a Human Resources Professional, with extensive experience in industry & consulting.

She has leveraged social media platforms like Twitter to bring people with the same purpose & passion together, for positive change.

She has been actively involved in building & managing communities to drive positive change by collaboration, overcoming internal & external barriers by leveraging Twitter.

Some of these communities include National Human Resources Development Network (NHRDN), Human Library Mumbai, Society for Human Resource Management and so on.

(Image courtesy- @shweta_hr)

Vinita Deshmukh is an Award-winning author Vinita Deshmukh is a senior journalist of 30 years vintage and presently, Consulting Editor of Corporate Citizen magazine and Moneylife online finance daily.

Vinita uses the dual power of the Right to Information Act for her investigative stories and Twitter to amplify them.

Vinita has intelligently used Twitter for consumer-related complaints and got the issues promptly resolved. Vinita also uses Twitter to spread public awareness on several issues.

She has authored four books including co-authoring Vinita Kamte’s `To the last bullet’ on her husband Additional Commissioner Ashok Kamte who was martyred in the 26/11 Mumbai Terror attack. 

(Image courtesy- @VinitaDeshmukh)