With Pratibha Patil’s election as India’s first woman president, a group working for women's rights plans to launch a campaign for a new nomenclature for the top constitutional post, given the masculine gender of the current Hindi term Rashtrapati.

“How can you address a woman president as Rashtrapati? Considering that a woman will be occupying the nation’s top office for the first time, we need to change the nomenclature to either Rashtradhyaksha or Rashtrapramukh - someone has to take a call on that,” observed Kumkum Tripathi, deputy chief of Mahila Samakhya in Uttar Pradesh.

The NGO had first raised the issue five years ago, when the outgoing president, A P J Abdul Kalam, was fresh in office. “We did it earlier in 2002 as well by sending a signature campaign to President Kalam, who promised to take appropriate steps in that direction. However, sadly, nothing happened thereafter”, she lamented.

“A delegation under our former head Manju Agarwal had also met President Kalam during his 2004 visit to the state capital here and he had promised to bring the issue before a committee”. Tripathi plans to undertake a fresh signature campaign to renew the battle for a gender-neutral title.

“We will send this to the new president and hope that the issue would not gather dust any more,” she said, adding, “The issue becomes absolutely pertinent now and the earlier we can strike a solution, the better”.

Simple and spiritual, with a love for spices
Jaipur, PTI: A “simple” person with an austere lifestyle, President-elect Pratibha Patil loves to eat daal and Uthappam but avoids spinach and potatoes and plays harmonium.

Employees at the Raj Bhavan here, are excited that they once served the person who will be sworn in as country’s first woman President.


They describe the 72-year-old leader as “a sheer example of Indian values and simple lifestyle”.

“She prefers a very simple food on her table with less oil and spices,” says Kailash, official butler at the governor’s residence.

“During her stay here she had daal almost every day but was always reluctant to have spinach,” he adds.
“Other things that she always avoided were rice and potato but always liked Uthappam for breakfast,” he says.
Most of the employees found Patil humble and non-complaining. “She always looked after us like a mother. She had never complained of anything.

“Sometimes even we spotted some mistakes in the food, but she only had words of encouragement for us,” says cook Madan Singh.

Patil, who is spiritually inclined, plays harmonium.

“Many people don’t know that Pratibha Patil is a very good player of harmonium.

During summer vacation in Mount Abu recently she took her harmonium trainer with her and practiced a lot,” said another employee, narrating his experiences with the President elect.

A driver at the governor’s house says Patil had “never been extravagant”. “She taught us the same lesson of austerity,” he says.

Like her stint in Raj Bhavan, the employees feel that Patil would win millions of hearts while performing her duties as President of India.