Female members of aviation family honoured on Women’s Day

The theme “Embrace Equity” reverberated through the 4th floor conference room of ATS complex, as the members of ATC Guild (India), Western region, International Women Professionals in Aviation & Aerospace (IWPA) and Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI) joined hands to honour the female member of aviation family on the occasion of International Women’s day and to discuss the various concerns and ideas related to enhance female representation in the field of aviation. The event was also attended by pilots from Indigo Airlines, Thakur Institute of Aviation Technology, Kandivali and Nehru Science centre, Mumbai.

The “AVIATION GENDER EQUITY CONFERENCE” started with the kind wishes to all women from GM (ATM), Mumbai, AAI Rajiv Mehta who then formally invited the Regional Execute Director, WR, AAI J.T. Radha Krishna to welcome all the participants. While expressing his sincerest regards towards women, RED raised the pertinent concern towards the less representation of women in senior management. The issue was further addressed by none other than Maya Lavanya, GM (Human Resources), Mumbai. Having herself steered the way to the top of the ladder, Maya added a certain weight to the discussion by throwing light at the various societal challenges acting as roadblocks in the path of aspiring women.

Dr. Harpreet A. De Singh, the chairperson of IWPA and AeSI, currently the Executive Director of Air India delivered  her keynote address by stating the fact that India has the highest number of female pilots in the world.

Further, she empahsised that it is equally incumbent on working women to work diligently and continuously strive for excellence instead of getting complacent or trying to play “woman card” at the work place. Giving example of paternity leave, she made a point that equity actually is a two-way process. She briefly touched upon the topic of time management and multitasking and inspired all young attendees to work hard and keep going. She concluded by saying that if we all inculcate the humane tenderness and love and try to be fair to other fellow human beings, then gender equity shall come automatically.

The invigorating atmosphere got further bolstered as Capt Mohini Shroff- the founder of IWPA and the decorated veteran pilot with over 60 years of experience shared some moving stories front the days of yore about how some aspiring females challenged not just the societal outlook but the very formal eligibility criteria on their way to becoming the most capable pilots of their generation.

Adding to the joy of attendees, Dr. Manjula Yadav from Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai shared some enriching nuggets of wisdom while Prof. Vivek Kulkarni, Secretary AeSI and professor at Thakur institute of Aviation Technology, Kandivali added a new dimension to the discussion by elaborating the UN theme "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality".

Highlight of the event was a PowerPoint presentation on theme of Gender Equity delivered by CSR Murthy, AGM (ATM) on behalf of ATC Guild. A strong aspirant of Sustainable Development Goals- Murthy passionately explained, through various examples, how equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome, and emphasised the use of gender-neutral terms like "chairperson" instead of masculine term as "chairman".