Rami Chhabra

Rami chhabra is a wetron media person and social-activist whose life and work represent sustained commitment to women and social-development issues, addressed through multiple roles. Her expertise in public-service communication, population, women and development has been utilised by Government, national/international NG0s/agencies, including World Bank WHO. UNFP. A graduate (Eng. Hons, Miranda House, Delhi University) she has also pursued post-graduate courses in Law and Sociology. Known as a pioneer woman journalist, Rami is amongst the handful who broke into the all-male newspaper-bastions in the late-fifties; anchored regularly on Doordarsan since its inception. She carved independent columnist-space: Hindustan Times (1960-63); The Statesman (1969-1980); The Indian kxpress (1974-80). "A Feminist Viewpoint" (The Indian Express, 1977-80) broke ground-space for women's issues, while her daring entry into Vietnam, after Saigon's collapse, and 2000- kilometer road-odyssey became an internationally-published world-scoop. Post-Emergency. family-planning programme critiques of this 'silent-emergency' took her beyond media to leading NGO, Family Planning Foundation (1978-86), spearheading work to depoliticise and re-energise family-planning in the country. Appointed in 1986 as Advisor/Additional Secretary in the Union Health & Family Welfare Ministry by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, she brought a paradigm shift to family welfare communication and a breakthrough on TV with the path-breaking one-minute spots with social messages on 'prime time'. The past two decades have witnessed