Six women bikers of the IndianArmy were surprised by a bar-rage of innocent questionsposed to them by school stu-dents in rural India, as they setout to promote awarenessabout women joining the Armyas well as womenempowerment.

The offi��cers of the Corps ofElectronics and Mechanical En-gineers (EME) had left on aweek-long sojourn from Bhopal,reaching Secunderabad afterhalting in Mhow (Madhya Pra-desh), Vadodara (Gujarat),Mumbai, Pune and Solapur(Maharashtra) as part of the10th reunion celebrations of theCorps of EME under the bannerof ‘EME Naari Shakti MotorcycleExpedition’.

The team included Capt. KURoji, Lt. Priya Kashyap, Maj.Deepti Bhatt, Maj. Gazelle Sa-reen, Major R.K. Nirban and the

expedition leader Lt. ManmeetKaur.

Spreading awarenessTheir purpose was to make peo-ple aware about the idea andpossibility of women taking uppositions in the Indian Army,something they found was alto-gether unknown in rural partsof the four States they visited.

Talking to The Hindu on theirreturn to Secunderabad, the of-fi��cers recounted how schoolchildren in rural areas had noawareness of women’s recruit-ment in the Indian Army andwere also clueless about womenempowerment. One of themsaid the students asked them ifwomen were allowed to useguns in the Army, go to the bat-tlefi��eld or fl��y fi��ghter jets, and soon.

“They were so innocent. Wehave answered all their queriesand tried to motivate them tojoin the forces,” said Major

Nirban.The offi��cers rode for 1,720

km. to mark women empower-ment, spread awareness onPrime Minister Narendra Modi’sprogramme of ‘Beti Bachao’,Beti Padhao’ and motivateyoung girls to join the armedforces.

Through their seven-dayroad campaign, the team mem-bers also interacted with VeerNaaris, Armed Forces veteransand college students.

Lieutenant General ParamjitSingh fl��agged in the expedition,which was attended by actorAmala Akkineni and DuteeChand, a double silver medalwinner in women’s 100 metresand 200 metres at Jakarta AsianGames.

The concluding ceremonywas also attended by a largenumber of serving offi��cers, vet-erans, schoolchildren, includ-ing girl students of the Army Pu-blic School, Bolarum.

Campaign drives younggirls to join armed forces Bike expedition by women offi��cers of Indian Army comes to an end

Abhinay DeshpandeHyderabad

Actor Amala Akkineni with the women offi��cers of EME Naari Shakti Motorcycle expedition, which startedfrom Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and concluded in Secunderabad on Thursday. * K.V.S. GIRI