Who was Rosalyn Yalow? Janet Rowley? No idea? How about Marie Curie? Rosalind Frankin? Give up? Well these are all women who made tremendous contributions to the world of science and through them, improved all of our lives. Without these women we would not know today how to measure hormone levels in people (Rosalyn Yalow), or know how chromosomes cause a kind of leukemia known as Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (Janet Rowley) or know anything about radiation (Marie Curie) or even know much about DNA itself (Rosalind Frankin).
What am I getting at? What I am getting at is that women have contributed greatly to human understanding and scientific growth. Without the women mentioned above – and many others whose achievements have not been as celebrated as the ones mentioned above – our lives would be much worse. All of our lives – men included of course – would be so much diminished if not for the brains and the intelligence of these wonderful women.
This is why I applaud very much the suggestions made last week by the Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Smriti Irani. Acting on minister Irani’s suggestions, on Tuesday April 5th, 2016 the University Grants Commission (UGC) made the decision to relax the criteria for women and for selected disabled candidates with at least a 40% disability to allow them more time in which to complete their MPhil and PhD degrees.
Women make up the other half of the human race. Without women none of us would have arrived on this earth and none of us would have had the nurturing, loving person in our lives which made our very lives possible. However, women in today’s world are capable of these noble things and more – much more. Women today can be that wonderful nurturing presences in our lives while at the same time help to discover how DNA is formed. They can give birth to us while at the same time become one of the most famous researchers in the world of radioactivity. In short, women can – and do – live to their potential every day. And we should help them to do so.
Under the new UGC criteria announced last Tuesday, women and those with more than a 40% disability will now be allowed an extra year to complete their MPhil degree and two extra years to submit their PhD theses. How wonderful! What this means is that women can now take some time off to have their children and still be able to come back and finish their degrees. This means that the Rosalyn Yalow of tomorrow, the Janet Rowley of the future will have the opportunity to give to the world the fruits of their excellent and wonderful minds.
We at IndiaFreelancers.com have been celebrating the keen and wonderful contributions which our women programmers and web developers give to the technical world for a long time. We have many Freelancers who are women and we celebrate their achievements every day.
Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com