Indian Air Force Day: Meet The Women Officers Who Created A History In The IAF!

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India celebrates October 8 as Indian Air Force Day to mark the foundation day of the Air Force. Indian Air Force was established in 1932 and currently ranks fourth amongst the air forces of the world.

While the Indian Air Force is filled with the glory of war and male officers who brought the nation utmost pride and respect, the recent induction of women officers in the IAF has also witnessed some of the priceless golden moments.

On the 88th foundation day of Indian Air Force, here’s a quick bite on the female officers of the IAF who would go deep down in history and be remembered as the source of inspiration and pride.

Air Marshal Padmavathy Bandopadhyay, PVSM, AVSM, VSM

She is the first female Air Marshal of the Indian Air Force. She is also the first woman officer to complete her Defence Service Staff College course in 1978. Besides this, she is also the first woman officer to be promoted to the rank of Air Vice Marshal, the first woman to conduct scientific research at the North Pole and first woman officer to become an aviation medicine specialist.

Flight Lieutenant Nivedita Choudhary

She is the first woman officer from the Indian Air Force to summit Mount Everest and the first woman from Rajasthan to do so. Her teammates, Squadron Leader Nirupama Pandey and Flight Lieutenant Rajika Sharma achieved this feat five days later.

Squadron Leader Deepika Misra

She is the first woman aerobatics pilot of IAF. The Indian Air Force trained her for Sarang, the helicopter aerobatic team. She was one of the firsts to be inducted into the indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter squad.

Flight Lieutenant Gunjan Saxena

She is the first woman IAF officer to fly in a combat zone during the Kargil War. She is also one of 25 young women who formed the first batch of women IAF trainee pilots. She is the first woman officer awarded with the Shaurya Vir Award.

Flight Lieutenant Harita Kaur Deol

She is the first female officer in the Indian Air Force to fly without a co-pilot. She achieved this feat at a young age of 22 and created history by soaring at the height of 10,000 ft.

Flight Lieutenant Avani Chaturvedi

She is the first woman officer from the Indian Armed Forces to fly a supersonic jet fighter all alone. She is also the first woman combat pilot along with two of her cohorts, Mohana Singh Jitarwal, and Bhawana Kanth.

Flight Lieutenant Mohana Singh Jitarwal

She is the first woman fighter pilot from the Indian Armed Forces to fly on a Hawk advanced jet aircraft during the daytime. She created history by qualifying to undertake such missions.

Flight Lieutenant Bhawana Kanth

She is the first woman fighter pilot from the Indian Armed Forces who is capable of undertaking any mission during the daytime. She is also the second woman pilot of Indian Air Force to fly solo in a fighter aircraft.

Wing Commander Shaliza Dhami

She is the first female officer of IAF to become a Flight Commander of a flying unit. She is also the first woman flying instructor of IAF and the first woman to get a permanent commission of the flying branch.

Other noteworthy women in Indian Air Force’ history:

Flight Lieutenant Parul Bharadwaj (Captain), Flying Officer Aman Nidhi (Co-Pilot) and Flight Lieutenant Hina Jaiswal (Flight Engineer) are the country’s first ‘All Women Crew’ to fly a medium-lift helicopter.

Flight Lieutenant Parul Bharadwaj is also the first woman to fly the Mi-17 V5 helicopter.

Flying Officer Aman Nidhi is the first woman IAF pilot from Jharkhand.

Flight Lieutenant Hina Jaiswal is the first woman flight engineer of the Indian Air Force.

Sub Lieutenant Shivangi Singh is the first woman Indian naval pilot and first woman officer set to fly a Rafale fighter jet in India.

Stay tuned to know more about iconic women who shaped Indian history and the ones who are shaping it! #InfanoWomen #IndianAirForceDay

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While celebrity and stardom may look all glitzy and glamorous to the outside world, little do we realise that even celebs and famous personalities are after all vulnerable humans like us and are fighting their own battles. While some fall sick and quickly recover, many illnesses are fatal, chronic, and invisible with pain being one of the long term issues that can hinder every minute of your existence. While looking beautiful and happy on the outside, here are 10 lady celebs who have not had it easy and have battled with chronic pain disorders in their life.

Padma Lakshmi

Endometriosis

The Emmy-nominated host of Bravo TV’s Top Chef, Padma Lakshmi, now 48, suffers from endometriosis. Padma told in an interview to a magazine in April 2009 that she found out in a very hard, difficult way–and had to be operated on. In endometriosis, during each menstrual cycle, tissue builds up, breaks down, and bleeds, leading to very painful menstrual cramps, chronic lower back and pelvic pain, painful sex, bleeding, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, and nausea. What started as cramps at age 13 for her, got worse over time. For more than two decades, Lakshmi had struggled to manage the chronic pain that arrived with her periods. She is now an advocate on women’s health and works to destigmatize the topic of menstruation.

Sonali Bendre

Metastatic Cancer

Sonali Bendre was been diagnosed with metastatic cancer also known as high-grade cancer where cancer cells spread to the rest of the body through the circulatory or lymphatic system. Sonali Bendre revealed that she was suffering from continuous pain in her body which led to her getting tested in the first place, and that was how she found out about the disease.

”As women we are thought to bear the pain as a part of our life and so we don’t take our aches and pains seriously and that is what made me delay my diagnosis,” she said in a TV interview. She underwent treatment in New York.

Selena Gomez

Lupus

28 years old Selena Marie Gomez the singer, songwriter, actress, and producer from Texas, USA said in 2015 that she suffers from lupus, an inflammatory disease that causes the immune system to attack its own tissues. Apart from skin rashes, lupus is known to cause achy joints (arthralgia), swollen joints (arthritis), constant or severe fatigue, ankle swelling. Lupus harmed her kidneys, and she underwent a kidney transplant in 2017.

Lady Gaga

Fibromyalgia

Stephanie Germanotta is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and businesswoman. Two years back, Gaga revealed her struggle with fibromyalgia, a condition that affects the nervous system and causes widespread pain throughout the body.

She also came up with a documentary about it. “In our documentary the #chronicillness #chronicpain I deal with is #Fibromyalgia,” she tweeted in September 2017. “I wish to help raise awareness & connect people who have it.” Fibromyalgia causes widespread muscle pain, along with fatigue and issues with sleep and memory.

“I get so irritated with people who don’t believe fibromyalgia is real,” the singer said in an interview to the media. “For me, and I think for many others, it’s really a cyclone of anxiety, depression, PTSD, trauma, and panic disorder, all of which sends the nervous system into overdrive, and then you have nerve pain as a result.”

Gigi Hadid

Hashimoto’s disease

International model Gigi Hadid or Jelena Noura (also the wife of Zayn Malik of One Direction band fame) suffers from Hashimoto’s disease is an autoimmune disorder in which your immune system creates antibodies that damage your thyroid gland and what causes the immune system to attack the thyroid gland is still unknown. Muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, joint pain and stiffness, and muscle weakness are common symptoms among other issues.

“For those of you so determined to come up [with] why my body has changed over the years, you may not know that when I started [at] 17 I was not yet diagnosed [with] Hashimoto’s disease,” she tweeted in February 2018. “Those of [you] who called me ‘too big for the industry’ were seeing inflammation & water retention due to that.”

Venus Williams

Sjogren’s syndrome

The former world No. 1 tennis Player Venus was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome, an auto-immune disease whose symptoms include joint pain and fatigue. Williams has struggled since her diagnosis, pulling out of the 2011 US Open after being overwhelmed with fatigue. In Srojen’s syndrome, the body’s immune system attacks its own healthy cells that produce saliva and tears. Sjögren’s syndrome often occurs with other such disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Muscle or joint pain, swelling between the jaw and ears (swollen salivary glands), and some other symptoms of this disease.

“The fatigue is hard to explain unless you have it,” she told in a media interview The New York Times in 2011 of her struggle with Sjogren’s syndrome. “Some mornings I feel really sick, like when you don’t get a lot of sleep or you have the flu or cold. I always have some level of tiredness. And the more I tried to push through it, the tougher it got.”

Swara Bhaskar

Slipped disc

A couple of years back, actress Swara Bhasker revealed in an Instagram story that she had to be on bed rest for 10 days because of a slipped disk problem. Not taking adequate rest, there are chances that she might need 8 weeks of bed rest after 2 weeks. This condition occurs when the soft centre of a spinal disc pushes through a crack in the tougher exterior casing of a vertebra. Though Some herniated discs cause no symptoms, Others can irritate nearby nerves and result in pain, numbness or weakness in an arm or leg. Not every disc needs intervention but some may need to be treated with medication, physiotherapy and possibly surgery.

Sneha Ullal

Autoimmune disorder

Cast against Salman Khan in ‘Lucky — No Time For Love’ (2005), she was called Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s look alike. But she disappeared from the industry as she was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder.

“It’s a blood-related illness where my own immune system kept me unwell”, she said. “My body would become so weak that I would not be able to stand on my feet for more than 30 to 40 minutes and because I kept shooting for films even with this illness, it got worse. Beyond a point, I didn’t have the strength to do what an actress is expected to do — running around, dancing and continuous shooting etc. That’s when I had to stop and start my medication, because there was no point in doing films and then falling sick every other day.

Lisa Ray
Cancer (Multiple Myeloma)

The famous actor and model, Lisa Ray was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2009, a rare cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow. Lisa announced she was cancer-free in 2010 but not completely cured as disease is treatable but incurable. Bone pain, Bone weakness, Broken bones (fractures) are some symptoms of this disease amongst many others.

Samantha
Polymorphous Light Eruption

Samantha, the popular actress down south, suffers from called PLE or Polymorphous Light Eruption in 2012. This is a skin condition called by sunlight wherein the person starts feeling very itchy and it leads to a lot of pain. This usually happens to those having fair skins. Symptoms of polymorphic light eruption. An itchy or burning rash appears within hours or up to 2 to 3 days after exposure to sunlight and lasts for 2 weeks. The rash usually appears on the parts of the skin exposed to sunlight, typically the head, neck, chest,and arms but disappears without leaving a scar.