'Powerful reminder of courage': Former ISRO chairman Dr Somanath praises women classmates in X post

Recounting the college days, the official wrote on reflecting how they studied together at a time when very few women opted for engineering.

A heartfelt appreciation post by the former chairman of ISRO on his women classmates' courageous initiative to take up Mechanical Engineering has gone viral on social media.

The ex-ISRO chief noted that 'few women dared to enter a noisy, male dominated space' in STEM fields when it was not common.

In a recent X post, Dr Sreedhara Panicker Somanath's shared a selfie clicked with his women college mates from KVM college in Kerala.

Recounting the college days, the official wrote how they studied together at a time when very few women opted for engineering.

The official's post read as "Many years later, a simple selfie with my Mechanical Engineering classmates from TKM College of Engineering (1980–85) became a powerful reminder of courage. Shurafat, Jayasree, and Lila chose Mechanical Engineering when few women dared to enter a noisy, male dominated space."

By not limiting themselves with marks, education and instituitions, Dr Somanath lauded saying 'They went on to serve academia and oil industry with distinction.'

For their contribution in shaping inclusive proffessional spaces that young women now benefit from, he credited them as "True Pioneers".

The post quickly gained traction online, with users sharing similar experience and lauded for the brave decisions the women had made for themselves.

Rajesh Pattanayak, a software engineer lauded saying "Wow! Just imagine how brave these women must be to take that call and go on to complete engineering at that time. Good to see this, Sir."

Second user commented on the key part of technological intiatives to include women in male dominated fields.

"On introducing the computers in the engineering course so many number of girl students are started to pursue the B.E, B.Tech. courses."

Third user wrote, "Well when I studied mechanical at SRM (2012-2016) there were no girls in my section. Guys from other branches often made jokes like mechanical has boy to girl ratio of 500:3 or whatever."

Another user criticised the continued prevalence of the situation in recent years.

'Still not many women in Physics and Allied subjects even in 2020s. Somewhere the effort is getting lost in an extensive loss."