Padma Bandopadhyay

First woman Air Marshal of the Indian Air Force

Air Marshal

Padmavathy Bandopadhyay

PVSM, AVSM, VSM, PHS

Bandopadhyay in 2012

Birth name| Padmavathy Swaminathan
Nickname(s)| Padma
Born|  (1944-11-04) 4 November 1944 (age 80)
Tirupathi, Madras Presidency, British India (now Andhra Pradesh)
Allegiance| India
Service / branch| Indian Air Force
Years of service| 1968–2005
Rank|  Air Marshal
Service number| 11528 MED (MR-2246)
Commands| DGMS(Air)
Awards| PVSM, AVSM, VSM, Padma Shri
Alma mater| Armed Forces Medical College, Pune
Spouse(s)| Wg Cdr Sati Nath Bandopadhyay (m. 1968–2015; his death)
Children| 2

Air Marshal Padma Bandopadhyay, PVSM, AVSM, VSM, PHS (born 4 November 1944) is a decorated former flight surgeon in the Indian Air Force. She was the first woman to be promoted to the rank of Air Marshal in the Indian Air Force. She is the second woman in the Indian Armed Forces to be promoted to a three-star rank, after Surgeon Vice Admiral Punita Arora.

## Early life

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Bandopadhyay was born as Padmavathy Swaminathan on 4 November 1944 at Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh into a Tamil speaking Iyer family. When Padma was four or five years old, her mother contracted tuberculosis and eventually became bedridden. As a result, Padma's thoughts have been consumed with medical difficulties since she was a small child, and she also took on the role of her mother's primary caretaker while she was still quite young. In addition, her neighbor in the Gole Market neighborhood in New Delhi was Dr. S. I. Padmavati, Professor of Medicine at Lady Hardinge Medical College. Padma has said that her experience with her mother's illness and hospitalization at Safdarjung Hospital, and having a neighbouring lady doctor with the same name as her were early motivations to become a doctor.[1]

## Education

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She studied at Delhi Tamil Education Association Senior Secondary Schools in the humanities stream. After graduating from school, she made the difficult and uncommon transition from humanities to the science stream in Delhi University. She studied pre-medical at Kirori Mal College and then joined the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, in 1963.

## Career

[edit]

She joined the Indian Air Force in 1968. She married Wing Commander S. N. Bandopadhyay, a fellow air force officer.[2] She was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM)[3] for her conduct during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Sati Nath and Padma were the first IAF couple to receive a President's award in the same investiture parade.[4]

She was the first woman to become a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Society of India and the first Indian woman to conduct scientific research at the North Pole.[5] She is also the first woman Armed Forces officer to have completed the Defence Services Staff College course in 1978.[6] She was the Director General Medical Services (Air) at the Air Headquarters.[7] In 2002, she became the first woman to be promoted to air vice marshal (two-star rank). She subsequently became the first woman air marshal of Indian Air Force. Bandopadhyay is an aviation medicine specialist and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.[8]

## Military awards and decorations

[edit]

|  |  |
|  |  |
Ati Vishisht Seva Medal | Vishisht Seva Medal | Paschimi Star

|
|

Sangram Medal | Operation Vijay Medal | High Altitude Service Medal | 50th Anniversary of Independence Medal
25th Anniversary of Independence Medal | 30 Years Long Service Medal | 20 Years Long Service Medal | 9 Years Long Service Medal

## Awards and honors

[edit]

* Vishist Seva Medal, January 1973
* Indira Priyadarshini award
* Ati Vishist Seva Medal, January 2002
* Param Vishist Seva Medal, January 2006
* Padma Shree Award, January 2020[9]

## See also

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* Women in the Indian Armed Forces
* Punita Arora
* Madhuri Kanitkar
* Sheila S. Mathai
* Rajshree Ramasethu
* Arti Sarin

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Bandopadhyay, Padma (21 December 2017). The Lady in Blue: The memoirs of First Lady Air Marshal. Zorba Books - via Amazon.
2. ^ "तेजस्विनीः भारत की पहली महिला एयर मार्शल, डॉ. पद्मा बंधोपाध्याय से ख़ास बातचीत". Archived from the original on 15 December 2021 - via www.youtube.com.
3. ^ "Service Record for Air Marshal Padmavathy Bandhopadhyay 11528 MED at Bharat Rakshak.com". Bharat Rakshak.
4. ^ Limca Book of Records: India at Her Best. Hachette India. 5 May 2018. ISBN 9789351952404.
5. ^ "Success Story". anusandhan.net.
6. ^ "Marching Ahead: 14 Incredibly Brave Women in Indian Armed Forces Who Broke the Glass Ceiling". The Better India. 24 January 2017.
7. ^ Kumar, Anshika (15 September 2017). "Padmavathy Bandopadhyay – Inspiring story of the first woman Air Marshal of the Indian Air Force". indianyouth.net.
8. ^ "First woman Air Vice Marshal". The Times of India. 26 November 2002. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
9. ^ "Padma Awards 2020 Conferred To 13 Unsung Heroes Of Medicine". Medical Dialogues. 27 January 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2020.

* v
* t
* e

Recipients of Padma Shri in Medicine

1950s|

* Bir Bhan Bhatia (1954)
* V. R. Khanolkar (1954)
* Perakath Verghese Benjamin (1955)
* Mahesh Prasad Mehray (1955)
* Murugappa Channaveerappa Modi (1956)
* Chintaman Govind Pandit (1956)
* Isaac Santra (1956)
* Khushdeva Singh (1957)

1960s|

* Hilda Mary Lazarus (1961)
* George William Gregory Bird (1963)
* Hakim Abdul Hameed (1965)
* Jerusha Jhirad (1966)
* Edith Helen Paull (1967)
* Amar Prasad Ray (1967)
* Natteri Veeraraghavan (1967)
* B. K. Anand (1969)
* Ram Kumar Caroli (1969)
* Vulimiri Ramalingaswami (1969)
* Krishna Gopal Saxena (1969)

1970s|

* Ajit Kumar Basu (1970)
* Coluthur Gopalan (1970)
* Perugu Siva Reddy (1970)
* B. N. B. Rao (1971)
* Krishnaswami Srinivas Sanjivi (1971)
* Dorothy Chacko (1972)
* Thayil John Cherian (1972)
* Balasubramaniam Ramamurthi (1972)
* Balu Sankaran (1972)
* K. N. Udupa (1972)
* R. Marthanda Varma (1972)
* Mary Verghese (1972)
* K. T. Dholakia (1973)
* M. K. Krishna Menon (1973)
* J. M. Pahwa (1973)
* Prakash Narain Tandon (1973)
* Jamshed Vazifdar (1973)
* Govindappa Venkataswamy (1973)
* Mani Kumar Chetri (1974)
* Nagarur Gopinath (1974)
* L. S. N. Prasad (1974)
* Kadiyala Ramachandra (1974)
* Reuben David (1975)
* Stanley John (1975)
* Mary Poonen Lukose (1975)
* Kadiyala Ramachandra (1975)
* Durga Deulkar (1976)
* Lucy Oommen (1977)

1980s|

* Jasbir Singh Bajaj (1981)
* P. K. Sethi (1981)
* K. Vardachari Thiruvengadam (1981)
* C. P. Thakur (1982)
* Raj Vir Singh Yadav (1982)
* S. S. Badrinath (1983)
* Raj Baveja (1983)
* Shishupal Ram (1983)
* Purshottam Lal Wahi (1983)
* B. K. Goyal (1984)
* Vera Hingorani (1984)
* K. P. Mathur (1984)
* N. Balakrishnan Nair (1984)
* Hariharan Srinivasan (1984)
* Ramniklal K. Gandhi (1985)
* Samiran Nundy (1985)
* Usha Sharma (1985)
* M. S. Valiathan (1985)
* Gopal Krishna Vishwakarma (1985)
* Santosh Kumar Kackar (1986)
* V. Shanta (1986)
* Prabhu Dayal Nigam (1987)
* Daljit Singh (1987)
* Harbans Singh Wasir (1987)

1990s|

* N. H. Antia (1990)
* M. G. Deo (1990)
* P. K. Rajagopalan (1990)
* M. M. S. Ahuja (1991)
* Sneh Bhargava (1991)
* K. M. Cherian (doctor) (1991)
* G. N. Malviya (1991)
* Shiela Mehra (1991)
* S. C. Munshi (1991)
* M. N. Passey (1991)
* Jai Pal Singh (1991)
* Naresh Trehan (1991)
* Rathin Datta (1992)
* Khalid Hameed, Baron Hameed (1992)
* Anil Kohli (1992)
* Ramesh Kumar (nephrologist) (1992)
* Usha Kehar Luthra (1992)
* J. S. Mahashabde (1992)
* P. V. A. Mohandas (1992)
* E. T. Neelakandan Mooss (1992)
* Kameshwar Prasad (1992)
* Luis Jose De Souza (1992)
* Amrit Tewari (1992)
* G. S. Venkataraman (1992)
* Ranjit Roy Chaudhury (1998)
* K. A. Abraham (1999)
* Raj Bothra (1999)
* Balendu Prakash (1999)
* Devendra Triguna (1999)
* P. K. Warrier (1999)

2000s|

* Mahendra Bhandari (2000)
* Vipin Buckshey (2000)
* Vaidya Suresh Chaturvedi (2000)
* Kirpal Singh Chugh (2000)
* P. K. Dave (2000)
* Mathew Kalarickal (2000)
* Kakarla Subba Rao (2000)
* G. S. Sainani (2000)
* Immaneni Sathyamurthy (2000)
* Jyoti Bhushan Banerji (2001)
* Alaka Deshpande (2001)
* Sharad Kumar Dixit (2001)
* Chittoor Mohammed Habeebullah (2001)
* M. Krishnan Nair (2001)
* Dasari Prasada Rao (2001)
* Laishram Nabakishore Singh (2001)
* Bhupathiraju Somaraju (2001)
* Suresh H. Advani (2002)
* Pradeep Chowbey (2002)
* Vijay Kumar Dada (2002)
* Prakash Nanalal Kothari (2002)
* Harsh Mahajan (2002)
* Vikram Marwah (2002)
* Atluri Sriman Narayana (2002)
* Kamaljit Singh Paul (2002)
* Karimpat Mathangi Ramakrishnan (2002)
* Gullapalli Nageswara Rao (2002)
* D. Nageshwar Reddy (2002)
* Prahlad Kumar Sethi (2002)
* J. S. Guleria (2003)
* Narayana Panicker Kochupillai (2003)
* Rajagopalan Krishnan (2003)
* Ashok Seth (2003)
* Vijay Prakash (2003)
* Sharad Moreshwar Hardikar (2004)
* S. C. Manchanda (2004)
* Ashwin Balachand Mehta (2004)
* S. K. Sama (2004)
* Rajan Saxena (physician) (2004)
* Devi Shetty (2004)
* Gopal Prasad Sinha (2004)
* G. Bakthavathsalam (2005)
* Jitendra Mohan Hans (2005)
* P. N. V. Kurup (2005)
* Veer Singh Mehta (2005)
* Lavu Narendranath (2005)
* Cyrus S. Poonawalla (2005)
* Sanjeev Bagai (2006)
* Mohan Kameswaran (2006)
* Upendra Kaul (2006)
* Tsering Landol (2006)
* Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (2006)
* Harbhajan Singh Rissam (2006)
* Kamal Kumar Sethi (2006)
* Tehemton Erach Udwadia (2006)
* Harpinder Singh Chawla (2007)
* Narmada Prasad Gupta (2007)
* Ashok Kumar Hemal (2007)
* Atul Kumar (ophthalmologist) (2007)
* C. N. Manjunath (2007)
* Anoop Misra (2007)
* P. Namperumalsamy (2007)
* Mayilvahanan Natarajan (2007)
* K. R. Palaniswamy (2007)
* Mahipal S. Sachdev (2007)
* B. Paul Thaliath (2007)
* Sheo Bhagwan Tibrewal (2007)
* Mohsin Wali (2007)
* S. N. Arya (2008)
* Dinesh K. Bhargava (2008)
* Tony Fernandez (ophthalmologist) (2008)
* Rakesh Kumar Jain (2008)
* Raman Kapur (2008)
* T. P. Lahane (2008)
* Keiki R. Mehta (2008)
* M. C. Pant (2008)
* Arjunan Rajasekaran (2008)
* Malvika Sabharwal (2008)
* Indu Bhushan Sinha (2008)
* Randhir Sud (2008)
* C. U. Velmurugendran (2008)
* Kalyan Banerjee (2009)
* Balswarup Choubey (2009)
* Saibaba Goud (2009)
* Yash Gulati (2009)
* P. R. Krishna Kumar (2009)
* Arvind Lal (2009)
* D. S. Rana (2009)
* Thanikachalam Sadagopan (2009)
* Ashok K. Vaid (2009)
* G. Vijayaraghavan (2009)

2010s|

* K. K. Aggarwal (2010)
* Philip Augustine (2010)
* Anil Kumar Bhalla (2010)
* Kodaganur S. Gopinath (2010)
* Laxmi Chand Gupta (2010)
* Jalakantapuram Ramaswamy Krishnamoorthy (2010)
* Vikas Mahatme (2010)
* B. Ramana Rao (2010)
* Rabindra Narain Singh (2010)
* Arvinder Singh Soin (2010)
* Madanur Ahmed Ali (2011)
* Pukhraj Bafna (2011)
* Mansoor Hasan (2011)
* Indira Hinduja (2011)
* Shyama Prasad Mandal (2011)
* Jose Chacko Periappuram (2011)
* A. Marthanda Pillai (2011)
* Sivapatham Vittal (2011)
* Nitya Anand (2012)
* Mukesh Batra (2012)
* Mahdi Hasan (2012)
* Jugal Kishore (2012)
* V. Mohan (2012)
* J. Hareendran Nair (2012)
* Vallalarpuram Sennimalai Natarajan (2012)
* Jitendra Kumar Singh (2012)
* Shrinivas S. Vaishya (2012)
* Sudarshan K. Aggarwal (2013)
* Rajendra Achyut Badwe (2013)
* Krishna Chandra Chunekar (2013)
* Taraprasad Das (2013)
* T. V. Devarajan (2013)
* Saroj Chooramani Gopal (2013)
* Vishwa Kumar Gupta (2013)
* Pramod Kumar Julka (2013)
* Gulshan Rai Khatri (2013)
* Ganesh Kumar Mani (2013)
* Amit Prabhakar Maydeo (2013)
* Sundaram Natarajan (2013)
* C. Venkata S. Ram (2013)
* Kiritkumar Mansukhlal Acharya (2014)
* Subrat Kumar Acharya (2014)
* Balram Bhargava (2014)
* Indira Chakravarty (2014)
* Ramakant Krishnaji Deshpande (2014)
* Pawan Raj Goyal (2014)
* Rajesh Kumar Grover (2014)
* Amod Gupta (2014)
* Daya Kishore Hazra (2014)
* Thenumgal Poulose Jacob (2014)
* Shashank R. Joshi (2014)
* Hakim Syed Khaleefathullah (2014)
* Milind Vasant Kirtane (2014)
* Lalit Kumar (2014)
* Mohan Mishra (2014)
* Vamsi Mootha (2014)
* Siddhartha Mukherjee (2014)
* Nitish Naik (2014)
* M. Subhadra Nair (2014)
* Ashok Panagariya (2014)
* Narendra Kumar Pandey (2014)
* Sunil Pradhan (2014)
* Ashok Rajgopal (2014)
* Kamini A. Rao (2014)
* Sarbeswar Sahariah (2014)
* J. S. Titiyal (2014)
* Om Prakash Upadhyaya (2014)
* Mahesh Verma (2014)
* Manjula Anagani (2015)
* Yogesh Kumar Chawla (2015)
* Bimola Kumari (2015)
* Randeep Guleria (2015)
* K. P. Haridas (2015)
* Rajesh Kotecha (2015)
* Alka Kriplani (2015)
* Harsh Kumar (2015)
* Dattatreyudu Nori (2015)
* Tejas Patel (2015)
* Raghu Ram Pillarisetti (2015)
* Narendra Prasad (2015)
* Saumitra Rawat (2015)
* Yog Raj Sharma (2015)
* Nikhil Tandon (2015)
* Hargovind Laxmishanker Trivedi (2015)
* Gopi Chand Mannam (2016)
* Praveen Chandra (2016)
* John Ebnezar (2016)
* Daljeet Singh Gambhir (2016)
* A. G. K. Gokhale (2016)
* Murli Manohar Joshi (2016)
* Ravi Kant (2016)
* Shiv Narain Kureel (2016)
* T. K. Lahiri (2016)
* Anil Kumari Malhotra (2016)
* Yarlagadda Nayudamma (2016)
* Sudhir V. Shah (2016)
* Ram Harsh Singh (2016)
* M. V. Padma Srivastava (2016)
* T. S. Chandrasekar (2016)
* Harkishan Singh (2017)
* Suniti Solomon (2017)
* Bhakti Yadav (2017)
* Abhay and Rani Bang (2018)
* Yeshi Dhonden (2018)
* Lakshmikutty (2018)
* M. R. Rajagopal (2018)
* Sanduk Ruit (2018)
* Ilias Ali (2019)
* Omesh Kumar Bharti (2019)
* Mammen Chandy (2019)
* Sudam Kate (2019)
* Ravindra and Smita Kolhe (2019)
* Jagat Ram (2019)
* Ramaswami Venkataswami (2019)

2020s|

* Yogi Aereon (2020)
* Padma Bandopadhyay (2020)
* Sushovan Banerjee (2020)
* Digambar Behera (2020)
* Leela Joshi (2020)
* Arunoday Mondal (2020)
* Shanti Roy (2020)
* Gurdip Singh (2020)
* Sandra Desa Souza (2020)
* Kushal Konwar Sarma (2020)
* Ravi Kannan R (2020)
* Krishna Mohan Pathi (2021)
* Jitendra Nath Pande (2021)
* Himmatrao Bawaskar (2022)
* Prokar Dasgupta (2022)
* Sunkara Venkata Adinarayana Rao (2022)
* Lata Desai (2022)
* Vijaykumar Vinayak Dongre (2022)
* Dr Narendra Prasad Misra (Posthumous) (2022)
* Veeraswamy Seshiah (2022)
* Bhimsen Singhal (2022)
* Balaji Tambe (Posthumous) (2022)
* Kamlakar Tripathi (2022)
* Munishwar Chandar Dawar (2023)
* Ratan Chandra Kar (2023)
* Nalini Parthasarathi (2023)
* Hanumantha Rao Pasupuleti (2023)
* Manoranjan Sahu (2023)
* Gopalsamy Veluchamy (2023)
* Ishwar Chander Verma (2023)

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