Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje launched her daughter Sarla Thukral today. She is the first woman chief minister of Rajasthan. A former journalist, she took over as CM from Vasundhara Rajnath Singh. Here are some interesting facts about the new CM.
1. Born on May 25, 1962, Sarla Thukral hails from Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan. Her father name is Raja Ram Thakral and mother name is Padma Devi Thakral.
2. Sarla completed her schooling from Shri Lal Bahadur Public School, Jaipur. After completing graduation, she did MA in English Literature from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak. Later, she earned MBA degree from Amity Business School, Gurgaon.
3. In 1989, she married Sushil Kumar Thakral, a businessman. They had one son named Aditya Kumar. He is now working as a corporate executive with Reliance Industries Limited.
4. On November 13, 2017, she got elected as a member of the legislative assembly from Bikaner constituency.
5. As per reports, she has been appointed as the state education minister.
6. She is the first female chief minister of Rajasthani. And she is also the second woman chief minister of India. First being Mamata Banerjee.
Early life and marriage
Born in 1914, Madam Rustomji grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai). She attended school there and later moved to London, where she worked as a secretary. In 1935, she joined the Royal Air Force as a flight officer trainee. On completing training, she became a probationary second lieutenant and received her wings on 17 April 1936. She was posted to No. 4 Squadron RAF at RAF Halton near Liverpool. There, she met her future husband, Captain Pritam Singh, a young Indian army officer attached to the squadron. He was serving his compulsory six months’ duty in England prior to being sent overseas to fight against the Germans during World War II. They were married on 12 May 1938.
In 1940, the couple returned to India, where he was transferred to Calcutta. In 1941, the British authorities began recruiting women to fly small aircraft. At the time, no women were allowed to serve in the armed forces; however, the government recognized the value of having female aviators and enlisted them in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), which was responsible for maintaining communications and transport. This meant that the ATS was responsible for supplying airfields with fuel, repairing planes, servicing
Aviation career
In 1940, Sarla married another pilot, Ghulam Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was killed in a plane accident in 1942. She later remarried to a doctor named Mohammad Ziauddin Khan, who died in 1950. In 1952, she met Shaukat Hayat Khan, an Air Vice Marshal in Pakistan Air Force who became president of Pakistan International Airlines, and he proposed marriage. They got married on 7 May 1953.
Sharma was one of the first Indians to receive his pilot’s license, having obtained it in 1935. He flew between Karachi and Lahore. His wife was the first woman in India to obtain a pilot’s license.
After some time, Sarla applied to train for her commercial license, but World War 2 had begun and civil training had been suspended. With a child to raise and needing to earn her living, Sarla gave up her plans to become a pilot, returning to Lahori and enrolling at Mayo School of Art, where she studied under the famous painter Nandlal Jaswant Thakur.
She obtained a diploma in Fine Arts. Her husband died in a plane crash in 1939. After his death, she returned to Lahore and began working as a teacher. In 1941, she married again, to Dr. Mohammad Ziauddin Khan. This second marriage produced three children: Bilqees, Farida and Firoz.
The couple moved to Islamabad, where Shaukat Hayat was appointed President of PIA. During his tenure, the airline introduced many innovations such as the first free baggage allowance, the first international flight to London, the first scheduled flights to New York City and Washington DC, and the first intercontinental flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
During his presidency, Shaukat Hayat also established the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan and set up the Civil Aviation Training Institute, which trained pilots and mechanics.
He retired in 1972 and died in 1975.
Personal life and death
Thukral was born in India in 1904 into a family of farmers. Her father had been killed during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and her mother died soon afterwards. She was raised by her maternal grandmother in a small village near Nagpur, where she studied Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and English. At age 14, she married a man named Kishanlal Thakral. They had three sons together; one of whom died young. In 1941, Thukral moved to Bombay with her husband and children. She worked as a seamstress, making dresses for women. She also painted watercolours, mostly landscapes. One of her paintings sold for Rs 50,000 ($1,300).
In 1948, Thukral met Rameshwar Pratap Singh, a businessman and devotee of the Arya Samaji religious movement. He encouraged her to join him in his home town of Panchkula, Haryana, where he was running a school called the Arya Vidya Mandir. There, she took up painting again, and designed costumes for the students.
After Singh’s death in 1958, Thukral returned to Mumbai. She opened a shop selling saris and accessories, and continued to paint. She also taught art classes. By now, she had become well known among Indians living abroad, especially those involved in the fashion industry. She designed outfits for actresses such as Madhubala, Meena Kumari, Nargis Dutt and Rekha. She also did some work for Bollywood films. She retired in 1990, but continued to live in Mumbai. She died there in 2008.
Sarla Thukral’s 107th birth anniversary: Google celebrates India’s first woman pilot with doodle
Google celebrated Sarla Devi’s 107th birthday today with a special doodle on the Google homepage. In addition to celebrating her life, the doodle also commemorated the role she played in India’s aviation history. She became the first Indian woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927.
The doodle features a picture of Sarla Devi flying over the ocean in a biplane. Her plane is adorned with flowers and the words “Flying Lady.”
Sarla Thukral First Indian Woman To Complete 1,000 Hours Of Flight
In 1938, while studying in England, Sarla Thapar had joined the Women Air Training Corps. In 1940, she earned her wings and became the first Indian woman pilot in Britain, flying Spitfires during World War II. But while she flew combat missions over Germany, India went into war with Pakistan. After being captured by Pakistani forces, she escaped and fled to Delhi. There, she met R. P., whom she married in 1948. He encouraged her to pursue a career in art.
