top of page

The Most Influential Women – 2020-21

The capacity to impact the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something or the effect itself is influence. Women are breaking the norms on all grounds and are young achievers. Inclusion in self-made, powerful, and wealthy people’s lists makes their motivation in the society. Not only the women breaking age-old patriarchal norms but are excelling in what is considered a male-dominated arena.

Few such names are inculcated in this particular piece, which influenced many lives around the globe, despite being in a pandemic situation.

Kamala Harris

Kamala Devi Harris is the current Vice-President of America. She had served previously as Attorney General of California and in U.S. Senate as well. She earned a reputation for toughness as she prosecuted against gang violence, drug trafficking, and sexual abuse. She has completed her education in Political Science and Economics from Howard University. Later on, she completed her law degree from Hastings College of Law.

She marked history by becoming the 49th Vice-President of America, the first African-American, and the first Asian-American to hold the post. In Jan 2017, she became the first Indian to be in the Senate and the second black woman. Also, she notably became the leading advocate for social-justice reform following the death of George Floyd in May 2020.

Harris’s book, Smart on Crime, was considered a model for dealing with criminal relapse.

Divya GokulNath:

An education entrepreneur and a co-founder and director of Byju’s.

She was born in Bengaluru in 1987 in a well-educated family and was also concerned about her studies. She joined Byju’s as a student for GRE; later, she started teaching Mathematics, English, and logical reasoning in Byju’s. In 2015, Byju’s launched an online application, where she appeared in video lessons as a teacher.

She got married to Byju Raveendran, the founder of Byju’s. Together the couple makes 3.05 billion dollars. She gave the Company a new turn by her techniques and good teaching process. Divya Gokulnath provides a unique platform in online studies with full detail and easy methods with Byju’s application. Divya, with her husband, made Byju’s world’s most valuable educational technology start-up.

Today this app covers over 42 million registration and 3 million annual paid subscriptions. The app provides learning with fun and visual lessons. The company is backed up by several prominent investors like Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Sofina Verlinvest, IFC, Aarin Capital, TimesInternet, Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global Atlantic, Tencent, and many more.

Divya is now a famous personality. Her hardship took her in the place of recognition. In 2019 and 2020, she was a top voice on Linkedin. In 2020, she was covered up by the Business today As a Most Powerful Women in an Indian Business. She was also featured in Femina Power List. She also got recognition from the American magazine Forbes. And 2021 brings with it the power of superwomen. She makes India Conference, entrepreneur of the Year, and women who make India Awards.

TN Advocate Sneha

MA Sneha Parthibaraja, 36, a practising advocate in Tirupattur (Vellore), scripted history when she received a no caste, no religion certificate, being the first Indian to do so.

The minute someone is born in India, they are given a caste or religion certificate. To break this norm, Sneha identified herself as a woman without caste and religion.

According to her,” these are made up by man for their convenience.” She also added, “ I am not breaking any rule by procuring a no caste, no religion certificate, nor I am asking for any additional rights. Instead, I am giving up on my rights which are provided to me because of my caste and religion”.

The path to achieving the certificate was ridden with obstacles. But determined to challenge every baseless issue that came her way, she fought a long and arduous battle for nine years before she succeeded. She fought this battle simply to replace the existing caste certificate and letting go of the very rights that came with the Certificate.

Aishwarya Sridhar

Aishwarya Sridhar is the first Indian woman to win Wildlife Photographer of the year 2020. She won the ‘Highly Commended award in Behaviour Invertebrate Category’’ award at the 56th Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020 show organised by the Natural History Museum in London recently.

Among 50,000 entries from 80 different countries, Aishwarya’s click of a tree surrounded by fireflies illuminating light was chosen. She is the youngest girl to be awarded by Sanctuary Asia young naturalist Award at 14. Also won the International Camera Fair award. Her work has also been featured in BBC Wildlife, Sanctuary Asia, Bombay Times, and many more.

She has also made a feature film on a wild Bengal Tigress named Maya titled ‘The Queen of Taru’, which received the Best Amateur Film Award at the 9th Wildlife Conservation Film Festival (WCFF), New York City. Aishwarya is also actively involved in environmental conservation. She also won the Princess Diana award last year, which is given to young talents who bring positive change with their contribution to society.

Karthayayani Amma

She is a 98-year-old woman from Kerela who showed no age boundaries to gain knowledge and is a living example of the same. She quit her studies at a young age due to family problems.

At the age of 96, she scored 98 out of 100 in her first examination under the Kerala Literacy Mission’s ‘Aksharalaksham’ or the Million Letter program. The exam focused on reading, writing, and mathematics as three core areas. Amma scored 38 out of 40 in writing, and full scores in reading and mathematics, clearly breaking the grounds and coming out with flying colours.

She didn’t just stop there. She wants to complete her class 10 at the age of 100. This inspirational and undying attitude drove her to be selected as the Commonwealth of Learning Goodwill ambassador, including about 53 countries.

On Women’s Day this year, she was also awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind. She also expressed her desires to PM Narendra Modi on completion of class 10. She wants to learn the basics of computers. It shows age had nothing to do with fulfilling your dreams!

Jacinda Adern

Jacinda Kate Laurell Adern is the 40th Prime minister of New Zealand served since 2017 and also a leader of the Labour Party. Adern, as Prime Minister, was sworn by the governor-general in 2017. She became the world’s youngest head of the Government at the age of 37. In March 2019, she led the country through the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings, rapidly introducing strict gun laws in response, and throughout 2020 she directed the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which had been praised worldwide.

  1. Forbes magazine placed her at 38 among the 100 most powerful women in the world in 2019.

  2. She was included in the 2019 Time 100 list and shortlisted for Time’s 2019 Person of the Year.

  3. In 2020, she was listed by Prospect as the second-greatest thinker for the COVID-19 era.

  4. On 19 November 2020, Ardern was awarded Harvard University’s 2020 Gleitsman International Activist Award.

  5. In mid-May 2021, Fortune magazine gave Ardern the top spot on their list of the world’s greatest leaders, citing her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as her handling of the Christchurch mosque shootings.

Megha Rajagopalan

Megha Rajagopalan is an award-winning international correspondent for BuzzFeed News, based in London. She has reported from 23 countries in Asia and the Middle East on stories ranging from the North Korean nuclear crisis to the peace process in Afghanistan.

Rajagopalan was the first journalist to find and visit an internment camp for Uighur Muslims in China’s far west — the work for which she won the Human Rights Press Award in 2018. In 2019, she won a Mirror Award for an investigation uncovering the links between Facebook and religious violence in Sri Lanka.

Indian-origin Megha Rajagopalan has been awarded by Pulitzer Prize, considered the most significant award in journalism. She exposed the truth of China’s detention camp and, through satellite, pictures analysed and told the world how China had imprisoned millions of Uighur Muslims.

Naomi Osaka

Naomi Osaka, a Japanese professional tennis player, has been ranked No. 1 by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). She is the first Asian player to hold the top ranking in singles. She is a four-time Grand Slam singles champion. She is the reigning champion at the US Open and the Australian Open.

Osaka is one of the world’s most marketable athletes. She has been ranked eighth among all athletes in endorsement income in 2020. She was also the highest-earning female athlete of all time by annual income that year.

Osaka has gained significant recognition as an activist, having showcased support for the Black Lives Matter movement in conjunction with her matches. She was named one of the 2020 Sports Illustrated Sportspersons of the Year for her activism, largely as part of her US Open championship run. Also included on Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in both 2019 and 2020. Moreover, she was the 2021 Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year.

About The Author

Dipanshu is a Limitless Stree Member. She is enthusiastic, vibrant, driven, and full of life. She is a very good listener and that makes her sociable. She tends to think out of the box, believes to have equality in society in all aspects, and wants to play a part in bringing the change.

<img loading="lazy" data-tf-not-load src="https://www.reachingsky.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/PSX_20210508_001301-1-771x1024-100x100.jpg" width="100" height="100" class="wp-post-image wp-image-2287" title="Dipanshu" alt="Dipanshu" srcset="https://www.reachingsky.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/PSX_20210508_001301-1-771x1024-100x100.jpg 100w, https://www.reachingsky.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/PSX_20210508_001301-1-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px" />

Dipanshu Limitless Stree Member

7 views0 comments
bottom of page