Space entrepreneur to eco-warrior - 9 Indian women feature on BBC’s 100 women list 2019

The BBC 100 Women list this year has nine Indian women that includes a slam poet and a yogini.

Tuesday October 29, 2019 , 4 min Read

Every year, the BBC announces a list of 100 women to watch out for. The list for 2019 while featuring some obvious names like Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg and American politician and activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also has nine Indian women on the list that includes eco-warrior Vandana Shiva and slam poet Aranya Johar.

Here are some of the Indian women who made it to the prestigious list.

BBC women list — Clockwise from L-R: Pragati Singh, Subhalakshmi Nandi, Sushmita Mohanty, Vandana Shiva, Aranya Johar, Natasha Noel and Parveena Ahanger

Vandana Shiva

Named by Time magazine as an ‘environmental hero’, Vandana Shiva is an author, environmental activist and the founder of Navdanya, an organisation that defends farmer’s rights, helps protect biodiversity, and promotes organic farming. She has also played an active role in the global eco-feminism movement. In a message on Navdanya she states, “For me, ecology and feminism have been inseparable. And Diverse Women for Diversity is one expression of combining women's rights and nature's rights, celebrating our cultural diversity and biological diversity.”

Shubhalakshmi Nandi

Shubhalakshmi Nandi is the Director of the International Center for Research on Women. Previously, she has worked with UN Women. She has spent more than a decade working on gender equality in Asia. She has been addressing multiple issues such as gender-based violence, unpaid work, organising and advocating for Dalit and rural tribal women of South Asia, among others.

Parveena Ahanger

Parveena Ahanger is a human rights activist, and the Co-founder and Chairperson of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in Jammu and Kashmir. She is also called the ‘Iron Lady of Kashmir.’

The disappearance of her own son led her to start APDP in 1994. The association provides support to family members of missing persons. In 2005 she was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Pragati Singh

Dr Pragati is a medical graduate from Maulana Azad Medical College in Delhi. She is the Founder of

Indian Aces. Started in 2014 as a self/non-funded collective of/for/by asexual from or India. In 2017, it was relaunched and as an initiative with both offline and online space it and since then has broadened its horizon to include not just asexuality but also gender, sexuality, diversity and LGBTQIA++. Indian Aces address and initiates conversation on the following through meetups, events, research, and workshops.

Susmita Mohanty

Space entrepreneur Susmita Mohanty is the CEO and Co-founder of Earth2Orbit, a private space startup. In 2017 she was featured on the cover of Fortune magazine. She also co-founded Moonfront in San Francisco (2001-2007) and Liquifer in Vienna in 2004. She resides in Bengaluru and has studied in different parts of the world including France, Sweden and India and holds multiple degrees including a PhD. Before she turned entrepreneur, she worked in business development for the International Space Station programme at Boeing in California.

Natasha Noel

Natasha Noel is a wellness coach and a yogini. As a social media influencer she has been very vocal about topics such as abuse, body positivity, and depression. Natasha faced abuse as a child and since then has spoken extensively about it. She overcame some of her challenges by immersing herself in dance, but a knee injury put an end to her dancing. Not one to give up so easily she found yoga and is now a trained yoga practitioner.

Aranya Johar

Aranya Johar is a poet who uses slam poetry to address issues like mental health, equality, gender equality, body positivity, etc. Her body of work includes - “A Brown Girl’s Guide to Gender”, “A Brown Girl’s Guide to Beauty”, “To Bleed Without Violence”, “To India: With Love”, “Buy Now or Panic Later”, among others.

She was featured in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Harper's Bazaar in 2017. In 2018 she was also part of the Goalkeepers in New York city with renowned names like Bill and Melinda Gates, Ed Sheeran, and others.

(Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan)