Women achievers to claim stage at Jaipur summit

The Jawahar Kala Kendra here will throb with the spirit of resilient womanhood on October 27-28, as a line-up of women trailblazers from diverse backgrounds will take stage at the second edition of Woman Up! Summit.

Organised by Siyahi, a literary consultancy, and its founder and writer Mita Kapur, the two-day summit is all set to hold 17 sessions around shining the spotlight on women.

As per the organisers, some of the notable speakers to look forward to include: actor Divya Dutta, north-west railways first female coolie Manju Devi, IPS officer Tejaswani Gautam, Jaipur's women patrol police members Nirmala Kumari and Suman Kumari, and youngest Indian Antarctic expeditioner Aanya Soni.

Rajasthan's child sex ratio, currently at a bleak 888 as per 2011 census, will make for the topic of one of the Summit's opening discussions, with others being the pink city's all-woman patrolling team, and poetry that will peel off society's "misogynistic layers".

Other themes include rural women grappling with clean energy resources, how an actor breaks barriers, gainful employment of sex workers, changing narratives of women in cinema, and a young expeditioner scaling new heights at the age of 13.

"The summit was born to kick-start conversations around the need to empower Indian women with financial independence.

"This idea also led to the birth of the #WomenAtWork campaign that motivates organizations to increase the female workforce," the organisers said in a statement.

Along with the sessions, there will be mentoring sessions with distribution company Frontier Markets' founder & CEO Ajaita Shah and yoga practitioner Dolly Singh, the organisers said.

The Summit will run from October 27-28.

--IANS

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