Kashmiri woman Iram Habib gives wings to her aspirations

coastaldigest.com web desk
August 31, 2018

When the teenage Kashmiri girl Iram Habib expressed her wish to join the aviation sector after Class XII, no one was ready to support her. But, she did not give up on her dreams. Now, the 30-year-old has become the only woman pilot from Srinagar to fly a commercial aircraft. She will join a private airline next month.

It took her six years to convince her parents to allow her to pursue her dream and to find a new lease of life at a flying school in the US. Her parents were understandably apprehensive about allowing their daughter to join the aviation sector as they thought commercial flying wasn’t meant for women living in conflict-torn Kashmir, but looking at her passion, they gave up. Iram’s father Habibulah Zargar is a supplier of surgical equipment to government hospitals.

Iram succeeds Tanvi Raina, a Kashmiri Pandit, who joined Air India as the Valley’s first woman pilot in 2016. In April last year, 21-year-old Ayesha Aziz, also from Kashmir, became India’s youngest student pilot. Iram’s road to becoming a pilot was never easy since it passed through the conservative Kashmiri society.

She completed her training from Miami in the US in 2016 and became a commercial pilot there. “Everyone was surprised to find that I am a Kashmiri Muslim doing flying but I went ahead to achieve my goal,” she said.

“I had to study hard and pass exams. In the US, I had 260 hours of flying experience, which is important for the licence. I got a commercial pilot licence in the US and Canada on the basis of my flying hours but I wanted to work in India,” she said.

Today, with offers from IndiGo and GoAir, she has become the first and the youngest commercial pilot from Srinagar. But despite her accomplishments, her choice of career is still frowned upon by relatives. “They still can’t believe I chose this profession and got a job too!”

Iram has also been trained in Bahrain and Dubai in Airbus 320. In an official statement by Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir, Iram's alma mater. “It is a proud moment for the Faculty of Forestry, SKUAST-K that one of our M.Sc Forestry pass outs, namely Iram Habib has been selected as a first officer in the aviation sector,” it said.

Comments

Sangita Kurla
 - 
Friday, 31 Aug 2018

Perfect match for Salman Khan

Mbeary
 - 
Friday, 31 Aug 2018

Cmin coastaldigest. Atleast u can be reponsible by not posting so many of her unwanted photos.

.now all our beary brothers will comment sarcastically, teaching her islam

 

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News Network
January 20,2020

Davos, Jan 20: India's richest 1 per cent hold more than four-times the wealth held by 953 million people who make up for the bottom 70 per cent of the country's population, while the total wealth of all Indian billionaires is more than the full-year budget, a new study said on Monday.

Releasing the study 'Time to Care' here ahead of the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), rights group Oxfam also said the world's 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 per cent of the planet's population.

The report flagged that global inequality is shockingly entrenched and vast and the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade, despite their combined wealth having declined in the last year.

"The gap between rich and poor can't be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these," said Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar, who is here to represent the Oxfam confederation this year.

The issues of income and gender inequality are expected to figure prominently in discussions at the five-day summit of the WEF, starting Monday. The WEF's annual global risks Report has also warned that the downward pressure on the global economy from macroeconomic fragilities and financial inequality continued to intensify in 2019.

Concern about inequality underlies recent social unrest in almost every continent, although it may be sparked by different tipping points such as corruption, constitutional breaches, or the rise in prices for basic goods and services, as per the WEF report.

Although global inequality has declined over the past three decades, domestic income inequality has risen in many countries, particularly in advanced economies and reached historic highs in some, the Global Risks Report flagged last week.

The Oxfam report further said "sexist" economies are fuelling the inequality crisis by enabling a wealthy elite to accumulate vast fortunes at the expense of ordinary people and particularly poor women and girls.

Regarding India, Oxfam said the combined total wealth of 63 Indian billionaires is higher than the total Union Budget of India for the fiscal year 2018-19 which was at Rs 24,42,200 crore.

"Our broken economies are lining the pockets of billionaires and big business at the expense of ordinary men and women. No wonder people are starting to question whether billionaires should even exist," Behar said.

As per the report, it would take a female domestic worker 22,277 years to earn what a top CEO of a technology company makes in one year.

With earnings pegged at Rs 106 per second, a tech CEO would make more in 10 minutes than what a domestic worker would make in one year.

It further said women and girls put in 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day -- a contribution to the Indian economy of at least Rs 19 lakh crore a year, which is 20 times the entire education budget of India in 2019 (Rs 93,000 crore).

Besides, direct public investments in the care economy of 2 per cent of GDP would potentially create 11 million new jobs and make up for the 11 million jobs lost in 2018, the report said.

Behar said the gap between rich and poor cannot be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these.

He said women and girls are among those who benefit the least from today's economic system.

"They spend billions of hours cooking, cleaning and caring for children and the elderly. Unpaid care work is the 'hidden engine' that keeps the wheels of our economies, businesses and societies moving.

"It is driven by women who often have little time to get an education, earn a decent living or have a say in how our societies are run, and who are therefore trapped at the bottom of the economy,” Behar added.

Oxfam said governments are massively under-taxing the wealthiest individuals and corporations and failing to collect revenues that could help lift the responsibility of care from women and tackle poverty and inequality.

Besides, the governments are also underfunding vital public services and infrastructure that could help reduce women and girls' workload, the report said.

As per the global survey, the 22 richest men in the world have more wealth than all the women in Africa.

Besides, women and girls put in 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day -- a contribution to the global economy of at least USD 10.8 trillion a year, more than three times the size of the global tech industry.

Getting the richest one per cent to pay just 0.5 per cent extra tax on their wealth over the next 10 years would equal the investment needed to create 117 million jobs in sectors such as elderly and childcare, education and health.

Governments must prioritise care as being as important as all other sectors in order to build more human economies that work for everyone, not just a fortunate few, Behar said.

Oxfam said its calculations are based on the latest data sources available, including from the Credit Suisse Research Institute's Global Wealth Databook 2019 and Forbes' 2019 billionaires list.

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coastaldigest.com news network
July 4,2020

Mangaluru, Jul 4: In the wake of mounting coronavirus cases in Dakshina Kannada, all jewellery shops district will be closed for five days from July 5 to July 9.

The decision was taken by the Dakshina Kannada district unit of Jewellers’ Association.

All the jewellery shops including corporate jewellery shops in Manglauru and other parts of district will remain closed for five days, a media release said.

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News Network
July 11,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 11: Karantaka Congress chief DK Shivakumar on Friday raised questions over claims that Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Power Project Madhya Pradesh was "largest in Asia" and said a 2000 MW had been built in the state.

"BJP central government is claiming today that it inaugurated Asia's largest solar plant of 750 MW at Rewa, MP. What then is the 2000 MW Solar Plant in Pavagada, Karnataka which was built in just 3 years by Karnataka Congress government and has been operational since 2018?" Shivakumar said in a tweet.

The Congress leader further said that the most unique thing about the solar project set up in Karnataka was that the farmers were being paid yearly rents for the land upon which it was constructed as it had been leased and not purchased from them, helping them retain ownership.

"The unique thing about the 2000 MW Pavagada Mega Solar Park was that not a single acre of land was acquired from the farmers. All 13,000 acres have been leased from the farmers who are being given yearly rent. Karnataka model of renewable energy was accepted as the best in India," he said.

"Union power minister must answer as to how the Central Government can claim that the Rewa Solar Park (750 MW) opened today is Asia's largest when clearly the Pavagada Park in Karnataka is much larger (2000 MW) and was opened two years back!" he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Power Project to the nation on Friday. 

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