Happy Birthday Ma’am Going down the lane……

The super cop, perhaps the most dynamic lady police officer in India may be world over. Decorated with the famous Magsaysay Award, she has many firsts to her credit. She was the first Sub-Divisional Lady Police Officer in the country way back in 1975. In 1995, the then US –President Bill Clinton invited her to the White House for a breakfast meeting. Earlier in January 1975, the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi bestowed upon her a similar honor on January 27.She was 26, then and led the Delhi Police contingent at the then Republic Day Parade.

             A tough officer, known for discipline and perfection, she was nicknamed as ‘Krane Bedi’ when she was DCP (Traffic) in 1981-83. Subsequently, as a traffic police officer, she oversaw traffic arrangements for the 1982 Asian Games in Delhi and was appreciated by the common people of Delhi. She refused many a request for pardon and advised all those who telephoned her to pay the fine and get their cars released for wrong parking. She has not learnt to surrender, however, high one may be, if she is right and she is always right. It was because of these qualities the then U.N.Secretary General Kofi Annan picked her for a two year United Nations Assignment. She has been greatly influenced by great thinkers and writers like Hazrat Mohammed Saheb, Guru Nanak Dev ji, Lord Krishna and above all the ordinary human beings.       

         She served the nation for 35 years before taking voluntary retirement in 2007 as Director General of Police, Bureau of Police Research and Development and still serving to the people of Puducherry as Lieutenant Governor.

         How can Delhites forget her? Probably she too will not be able to forget Delhi. It’s as if Delhi missed its golden opportunity to shine and rise under a supreme leadership.

         During her school days, she became the National junior tennis champion in 1966 and won several titles at National and State-level Championships between 1965 and 1978,

Before she joined IPS, a student of political science taught as a lecturer at Khalsa College for Women in Amritsar from 1970-72. Later, during her career in the Indian Police Service, she also earned a law degree from Delhi University in 1988 and a Ph.D. from IIT Delhi's Department of Social Sciences in 1993.

       In May 1993, she was posted to the Delhi Prisons as Inspector General (IG) and introduced several reforms at Tihar Jail,(still going on)  which gained worldwide acclaim and got Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1994.

                                           She still had to go a long way to achieve further goals as soaring high was her nature  

      In 2003, she became the first Indian woman to be appointed as a Police Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations, in the Department of Peace Keeping Operations.

          She resigned in 2007, to focus on social activism and have written several books, namely Creating Leadership, What went wrong and why , हिम्मत है, As I see …It is always possible and also run an NGO named as ‘the India Vision Foundation’

          Then comes political era ……She was one of the key leaders of the 2011’s Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement, but difference ripped within the team and after some negotiations, in January 2015, she joined BJP and offered a CM post but unsuccessfully contested the 2015 Delhi Assembly election.  

         There was a time in between her remarkable journey when she shifted her vision towards the needy people and became a reformer after hosting a court show Aap Ki Kachehri during 2008–11 which displays a truth winning the war against lies and betrayal.

A thousand salutes to the kind of personality you are……

                                                        Ma’am Kiran Bedi