AGARTALA, Jan 21 (TIWN): Tripura gymnast Dipa Karmakar has received First Ladies award by the Ministry of Women & Child Development.

Total 112 Women Achievers Including India's First Female Autorickshaw Driver Shila Dawre and stars like Aishwarya Rai have received the award.

"Delighted to have been felicitated with the First Ladies award by the Ministry of Women & Child Development", said Dipa.

The women are being felicitated at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Saturday evening under the banner of “First Ladies”. “Keeping up with the solemn spirit of Empowered Nari, the Ministry conceptualised ‘First Ladies’. These First Ladies rose through barriers, standards and oppressive notions to become the first women to excel in the fields which were thought to be beyond them,” said Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi.

The 112 women have been selected from a list of 227 women. The list was compiled through various sources including Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Sports, Limca Book of Records, press clippings and Internet.

The list has women from different fields including sports, defence, health and fitness, culinary, fashion and railways. Flying Officer Bhawana Kanth, Avani Chaturvedi and Mohana Singh of Indian Air Force’s first batch of female fighter pilots are also among the 112 women to be honoured. The list also includes Delhi’s first woman bus driver Vankadarath Saritha and India’s first female autorickshaw driver Shila Dawre. Sucheta Pal, first Indian to attain the position of Global Brand Ambassador for India as the Master Trainer in Zumba, also figures in the list of the 112 women achievers.

‘First Ladies’ is the second leg of the ‘100 Women Achievers’ campaign of the Ministry. The Ministry had collaborated with Facebook in 2015 to recognise ‘100 Women Achievers’ who have excelled in diverse sectors of public work.