<span style="color: #333333;">On International Women's Day today, AIR celebrates the indomitable spirit of Indian women, who have made their mark not only nationally, but internationally too, across various fields. Names like Kamala Harris, Gita Gopinath, Indra Nooyi, Kalpana Chawla make us proud amidst the comity of nations.<br />”<br />”A report :<br />”&nbsp;<br />”Vice President of United States of America, Kamala Harris, has many firsts to her name, including being United States' first female vice president, the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, and the first Asian American vice president. Harris's maternal ancestry comes from Tamil Nadu, India, as her mother, biologist Shyamala Gopalan, moved to the United States from India in 1958 to pursue higher studies in nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California.&nbsp;<br />”&nbsp;<br />”Priyanca Radhakrishnan is New Zealand's first Minister of Indian origin. She holds multiple portfolios including being the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities, Minister for Youth and Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment. Born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu,&nbsp; Radhakrishnan was conferred Pravasi Bharatiya Samman award in January 2021 for public service, by the Indian president in a virtual ceremony.<br />”&nbsp;<br />”Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, was born in 1971 in Kolkata. Awarded Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the President of India in 2019, she completed her graduation and post graduation in Economics from University of Delhi. Later, she also studied at Washington University and completed her Ph.D from Princeton University.&nbsp;<br />”&nbsp;<br />”Indra Nooyi, former chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo., is perhaps the most famous women business executive globally. Currently on the boards of Amazon and the International Cricket Council, she has consistently been ranked among the world's 100 most powerful women, being ranked ranked the 2nd most powerful woman on the Fortune list in 2015 and 2017. Nooyi is a passout from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and later attended Yale School of Management.<br />”</span><br />”<span style="color: #222222;">Kalpana Chawla, a name most dear to all Indians, was the first woman of Indian origin to go to space. She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator,&nbsp;In 2003,&nbsp;she&nbsp;was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Chawla&nbsp;is regarded as a national hero in India and&nbsp;was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.</span>