President Ram Nath Kovind on Sunday honoured 16 women with the ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ to recognise their exceptional work towards women empowerment, a release from the Rashtrapati Bhavan said.

The award, instituted by the Union ministry of women and child development, ceremony is held on March 8 every year to mark the International Women’s Day and recognise the contribution of the awardees towards women empowerment.

Flight lieutenants Avani Chaturvedi, Mohana Singh and Bhawana Kanth, who became the country’s first women fighter pilots to take a solo flight in a MiG-21 last year, were among the awardees.

The decision to allow women to fly warplanes was taken on an experimental basis in 2015 for a period of five years. At present, the Indian Air Force has nine women fighter pilots.

At 26, Chaturvedi is the youngest awardee this year.

The oldest awardee is Bhageerathi Amma (105). Amma cleared the Class IV literacy equivalent examination last November. The examination is conducted by the Kerala State Literacy Mission in Malayalam, mathematics and environment studies. She is the oldest literacy equivalent learner under the mission.

The second winner from Kerala is Karthyayini Amma (98), who appeared for the fourth standard equivalency course under the Kerala Literacy Mission in August 2018, and scored 98%.

The awardees also included the 103-year-old Mann Kaur (known as Miracle from Chandigarh) who started her athletic career at the age of 93 and has won several top honours at international events in her age category. She set a record by becoming the world’s fastest centenarian at the American Masters Game in 2016.

The President also honoured Tashi and Nungshi Malik, the first female twins to scale Mount Everest in 2013.

Before the award presentation ceremony, a special screening of ‘Swachh Bharat – India’s Sanitation Story’ was held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

‘This short film showcases the massive behaviour change that occurred across rural India under the Swachh Bharat Mission, and the role that women played in leading over 55 crore people to shun the age-old practice of open defecation,’ the release said.

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