On Women’s Day, Author Sudha Murty Makes It To Rajya Sabha

It is only in fitness of things that author Sudha Murty was nominated to the Rajya Sajya on March 8, International Women’s Day by President Droupadi Murmu. With a  reputation of having breached many glass ceilings including becoming the first female engineer to be  hired at India’s largest auto manufacturer Tata Engineering & Locomotive Company (TELCO), Pune (now Tata Motors) in the early 70s, Sudha’s nomination to Rajya Sabha could not  have come on a better day. PM Narendra Modi in a post on X said that “Sudha Ji’s contributions to diverse fields including social work, philanthropy and education have been immense and inspiring. Her presence in the Rajya Sabha is a powerful testament to our ‘Nari Shakti'”. Her elevation was not entirely unexpected considering only last year she was honoured with a Padma Bhushan. Interestingly, Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivkumar came out greeting Sudha’s nomination to RS. Married to Infosys founder NR Naryana Murthy, Sudha is credited with playing her bit role in sustaining the software giant by lending a small sum of money to her husband in the initial years. How she got a job at TELCO makes for interesting reading. The 1950 born Sudha had written a postcard to the company’s Chairman JRD Tata complaining of the “men only” gender bias at TELCO. As a result, she was granted a special interview and hired immediately. In 1996, she started Infosys Foundation and to date has been the Trustee of Infosys Foundation. She has written and published many books which include novels, non-fiction, travelogues, technical books, and memoirs. Her daughter Akshata is married to UK PM Rishi Sunak, while her US-based son Rohan runs Soroco, a technology company.