She was born to the Peshawaria family as the 2nd of the four daughters. Her father, Prakash Lal Peshawaria was keen to educate his daughters even in the scenario where women were limited to their households. After completing her schooling from Sacred Heart Convent, Amritsar, she obtained her B.A. degree in English from the Government College for Women (1964-68). She has a Masters degree in Political Science from Punjab University, Chandigarh (1968-70). This was the time where she realized the responsibility as a citizen.

Beginning of her career was marked at Khalsa College for Women where she started as a Lecturer in Political Science(1970-72). She states her reason for joining the Police a “because of my urge to be outstanding”. She has unlimited contributions made to the society be it any area of control; narcotics, traffic management or VIP security. One of her major contributions being the one while her stint as the Inspector General of prison, Tihar Jail(Delhi), where she started a number of rehabilitation activities like yoga, vipassana meditation, detoxification programs, and redressing of complaints by prisoners. She also established 2 voluntary organizations, Navjyoti(1988) and India Vision Foundation(1994) with an objective of rehabilitating drug addicts and improving the condition of poor people. her organizations was awarded the Serge Sotiroff Memorial Award for drug abuse prevention by the United Nations. This being not enough, she has a Doctorate in the field of drug abuse and domestic violence, and is an author and subject of many films (Tejaswini) and books.

She continued to pursue her education even while in active service with Indian police and obtained a Law degree(LLB) in 1988 from Delhi University. Right from her childhood she was an active sports person. Nevertheless she is also a former not just all-India but also all-Asian tennis champion, and had won the Asian Ladies Title at the age of 22.

Her service to a number of tough assignments like Traffic Commissioner of New Delhi, Deputy Inspector General of Police in insurgency prone Mizoram, Advisor to Lieutanent Governor of Chandigarh, Director General of Narcotics Control Bureau and also a United Nations Depution is more than just worth saluting. This not being enough she once towed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s car for parking Violation impressed by which she was invited for breakfast by Indira Gandhi. (came to be known as crane bedi)

She had been the Police Advisor in the United Nations peacekeeping department and has also been honored with the UN medal for outstanding service. In May 2005, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law In recognition of her “humanitarian apoach to prison reforms and policing”.

This lady fearlessly moved ahead on the road of revolutionizing the country for better, may be firstly with small steps and later taking larger leaps for making this nation better and the best.

I have no amazements by the number of awards that she has received for her contribution to this society.

• President’s Gallantry Award (1979)
• Women of the Year Award (1980)
• Asia Region Award for Drug Prevention and Control (1991)
• Magsaysay Award (1994) for Government Service
• Mahila Shiromani Award (1995)
• Father Machismo Humanitarian Award (1995)
• Lion of the Year (1995)
• Joseph Beuys Award (1997)
• Pride of India (1999)
• Mother Teresa Memorial National Award for Social Justice (2005)
• Zee Astitva Awards(2007) Lifetime Achievement

It is not just like that , that Gautam Kaul, DGP Indo-Tibetan Border Police(was Kiran Bedi’s guru in Delhi Police), call her hard-nose and soft-hearted. It takes guts and vision to accomplish your dreams for your country, and being a woman what Kiran Bedi had done in the world of men is just so incomparable. I respect and salute her for the milestones she has achieved and more to come.

PS: You can read her old blog here.

Sunita Williams is born on September 19, 1965 in Euclid, Ohio. She is a United States Naval officer and a NASA astronaut. She was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15. The most important thing is Willams is the second women of Indian origin who has been selected by NASA for space mission after DR. Kalpana Chawla (First Indian American to fly the US space shuttle).

Williams is married to Michael J. Williams, a Federal Police Officer in Oregon. Although they have no children, Labrador retrievers and a crazy Jack Russell Terrier named Gorby have added their share of excitement to their lives. Her hobbies are running, swimming, biking, triathlons, windsurfing, snowboarding and bow hunting.

She received her commission as an ensign in the US Navy from the US Naval Academy in May 1987. She was designated a Naval Aviator in 1989, and graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School in 1993.

Her missions was STS-116 , Expedition 14 , Expedition 15 , STS-117. As a girl, I’m proud to say that she holds three records for female space travelers: longest spaceflight (195 days), number of space walks (four), and total time spent on spacewalks (29 hours and 17 minutes). She has logged over 2770 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft.

She completed three spacewalks from the ISS. During one of these walks a camera became untethered, probably due to failure of the attaching device, and floated off to space. On the third spacewalk, Williams was in space for 6 hours 40 minutes to complete an unprecedented three space walks in nine days. She has logged 29 hours and 17 minutes in four space walks, eclipsing the record held by Kathryn C. Thornton for most spacewalk time by a woman. She did break the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman. Space shuttle Atlantis touched down at the Edwards Air Force Base in California at 03:49 EDT on June 22, 2007 bringing Sunita Williams back to earth after a record of 195-day stay in space.

Due to poor weather at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape, mission managers had to divert Atlantis to Edwards in the Mojave Desert, forced mission managers to skip three landing attempts there over the last 24 hours. We all were tensed at that time.

Now Sunita Williams is in India. She arrived at Ahmedabad to a warm and cheerful welcome. This is her second visit to Gujarat; the first was in 1998. She planned to visit Gandhi Ashram at Sabarmati and Jhulasan – her ancestral village. She is having a really busy shedule and on this monday 24th sep she is going to attend 58th International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad. I feel Indian scientist going to have lots of fun as Williams will share her space experience.

She brings back the memories of late Kalpana Chawla who met with a tragic accident while the shuttle was re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, and was burned to ashes. May be everyone remembers the TV clipping of the space shuttle burning in the upper atmosphere. We all are happy that Sunita added more pride to our contry.

Among the personal items Williams took with her to the International Space Station (ISS) are a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a small figurine of Ganesha, a letter written in Hindi by her father Deepak Pandya and some samosas. She always does charity. She was not OK in studies. Being an Astronaut was not her number-one career choice. When she was five years old or so, she saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and she thought, Wow –that’s cool. And she decided to be an astronaut.

Once Williams said to her father, “You just sort of take what you get, Maybe you don’t get the first thing that you want. If you are good at what you do and you try hard, some things sort of fall into place”.

As an Indian, and as a woman I’m proud of Sunita Williams. Her life shows true dedication towards work. She enjoyed her work. One thing I’ve learned from her is that nothing is impossible if one tries hard enough. Dont think about anything just do your work with loyalty and dedication. Hats off to her!!

Congratulation on her great mission and welcome to India.