Archana Sharma: An Indian Woman Botanist, a Cytogeneticist, Cell Biologist and a Cytotoxicologist

Suresh Narayana Pathiki*, Pullaiah Thammineni**, Varalakshmi Dharani***

*Principal (Retired), S. S. B. N. Junior College

**Professor of Botany (Retried), S. K. University

***Lecturer (Retired), Government Degree College

Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, India

Archana Sharma

Archana Sharma, an Indian Woman Botanist, a renowned Cytogeneticist, Cell biologist and a cytotoxicologist, a founding editor of The Nucleus, an international journal of Cytology, was born on 16th February 1932, in Pune, into a family of academicians. 

She had all her early education in Rajasthan. She completed her B.Sc., from Bikaner and later joined the Department of Botany, University of Calcutta and obtained her M.Sc. degree (1951), followed by her Ph.D. degree (1955). She got her D.Sc. (1960) from the University of Calcutta specializing in Cytogenetics, Human Genetics and Environmental Mutagenesis. She had a brilliant academic career throughout and was the second lady to have secured a D. Sc. degree from the Calcutta University, the second oldest in India. She began her professional career by joining the faculty of the University of Calcutta (1967), later became a Professor of Genetics (1972) in the Centre of the Advanced Studies in Cell and Chromosome Research, and the Head of the Department of Botany (1981- 1983) succeeding Prof. A. K. Sharma. 

Dr (Mrs) Pushpa Srivastava : A Devoted Motivator for Emerging Indian Women Botanists and Tribal Women

Dr. Ichha Purak

University Professor (Retd.)

Department of Botany 

Ranchi Women’s College, Ranchi

Jharkhand, India

"Women empowerment is the strong foundation of a peace loving calm society which is prospective"

India is one of the fastest growing countries in terms of the population and the economics. It is no doubt a developing country in many aspects but to date a majority of the rural population is still surviving below the poverty line and hence suffering from malnutrition.

One of the major causes for malnutrition in India is gender inequality. Due to the low social status of Indian women, their diet often lacks both quality and quantity. Women who suffer from malnutrition are less likely to have healthy babies. 

Sipra Guha Mukherjee - An Inspiration to Many Indian Women Botanists

Tweet

Rabish Chandra

@rabishchandra on twitter

Happy International Women's Day 2014!

Since the days of my higher secondary school, I have observed Botany is always dominated by female. In a class of thirty postgraduate students at Ranchi University, India, each year the average admission of male students were five to six in number. Whereas in other departments like physics and chemistry the ratio was reverse. However when it comes to male and female ratio among teachers in the department of botany, again the number of male professor were  higher than that of female professors. Lower number of female botanists cannot be linked to inspiring girls and female students to consider science as a career path. Perhaps problem lies in retaining women in academia after they have obtained their degrees. Science subjects including plant sciences have the history of lower female scientists and academician than male.

Indian Botanists Remembers One Among Many Indian Women Botanists : Dr. Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal

 (On the Occasion of International Women's Day )

Dr. Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal

 Born - 4th November 1897

Schooling - Tellichery, Kerala

Bachelor’s degree - Queen Mary’s College, Madras (now Chennai)

Honours degree in Botany- Presidency College , Madras in 1921

Master’s degree - Universityof Michiganin, USA in 1925

DSc (Oriental Barbour Fellow)- Michigan in1931

Professor of Botany - Maharaja’s College of Science, Trivandrum Kerala (1932-34)

Geneticist - Sugarcane Breeding Institute at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu (1934-1939)

Assistant Cytologist - JohnInnes Horticultural Institution, London (1940-50)

Cytologist -Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley during 1945–51

Special Officer - BotanicalSurvey of India (BSI), 1951

Served Govt. of India in various capacities - 1951 to 1970

Associated with Centre for Advanced Study in Botany, Universityof Madras as Emeritus Scientists.