Celebrating Womanhood – Aparajita 2017

“A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water”- Eleanor Roosevelt

Aparajita 2017 was a felicitation ceremony of such women, with ovaries of steel and hearts of gold at J W Marriott on 8th March, 2017. This year the highlight of the event was Lifetime Achievement Award to Girja Devi (Legendary Thumri Singer) and a Pride of Bengal award to Vidya Balan (Renowned Indian Actress) for her contribution in Indian Cinema. Besides these, there were nine other categories of women achievers who were felicitated.

Aparajita is a premier award in eastern India for recognizing exceptional talent and excellence in women. On its sixth year, Aparajita an initiative of Sanmarg (Eastern India’s largest Hindi daily) to salutes women who have excelled in their chosen field and create new benchmarks. “Aparajita is just not an award programme. It is an effort to Celebrate Womanhood” gushed Ruchika Gupta– conceptualizer and the brain behind Aparajita and Director, Sanmarg.

About Aparajita 2017

There are ten categories and two winners for each category- Veterans & Young Achiever.

Art– Reena Lath, Reena Dewan, Aban Desai , Meghna Agarwala , Isha Mody Patodia

Education – Sr. Monica Suchiang, Neena Singh, Angela Thelma Roberts, Dr. Deepali Singhee, Sangeeta Tandon

Gourmet – Pritha Sen, Mrs Alim, Smriti Sarawgi, Shraddha Singhania, Saloni Jhunjhunwalla, Prachi Saraogi, Kirti Bhoutika

Music – Pramita Mallick, Meena Banerjee, Mrs Arpita Chatterjee, Anwesha Datta Gupta, Rupashree Bhattacharya

Creative Arts – Nidhi Harlalka, Priyanka Sonthalia, Ms Sunandini Banerjee, Neha Jhunjhunwala, Neha Rungta

Fashion – Komal Sood, Nandita Raja, Vedika Merh, Sneha Arora, Paromita Banerjee

Lifestyle – Shanta Ghosh and Sulagna Ghosh, Malavika Banerjee & Rumi Biswas, Avantika Saraogi, Avarna Jain, Maitreyi Kandoi

Sports – Rumeli Dhar, Nisha Mohota, Neeta Kothari, Pinki Paramanik, Mayurakshi Mukherjee

Corporate (Veteran) – Modhurima Sinha, Paroma Roy Chowdhury, Madhumita Basu

Straight Awards – Girija Devi (Lifetime Achievement Award), Neerja Kothari (Art- young Achiever/You Shine), Mithu Sen (Art- Veteran/You Inspire), Nandita Saha (Special Award), Mimi Chakraborty(Screen- You shine) , Moon Moon Sen (Screen- You inspire), Amrita Das (Special award)

Around 1.5 lakh – 2 lakh votes were received through the Newspaper & Online for choosing the winners in various categories. Awards were presented to the winners by leading personalities from the city like Utsav Parekh, Madhu Neotia (Director, Ambuja Group Companies), Usha Uthup (Singer), Debojyoti Mishra (Music Composer), Jogen Chowdhury (Painter), Alokananda Roy (Actress Dancer), Agnimitra Paul (Fashion Designer), etc. The Jury for Aparajita 2017 consist of Shri Harshavardhan Neotia (Chairman of the Ambuja Neotia Group), Sri Pawan Dhoot (Managing Director of Dhoot Group) and Smt. Nayantara Pal Choudhury (Director, Washabarie Tea Company Private Ltd, Partner | Mohurgong & Gulma Tea Estates).

Every year, Aparajita also recognises a woman for her outstanding contribution and awards her with the Lifetime Achievement Award. This year “the Queen of Thumri” Smt. Girja Devi (Padma Vibhusan) was conferred the award.