We often see people fighting for their own rights and that of others but it isn’t everyday that we see a differently abled person coming out right on to the field with their disabilities and actually fighting, working and spreading the word for their rights and the rights of others of their kind.

Moreover, for ages now, we’ve thoroughly known the importance of Women Empowerment and if we have to bring in a person who blends in these two concepts beautifully then the perfect name for that would be Dr. Sruti Mohapatra.

 The Nari Shakti Puraskar winner, Sruti Mohapatra is a disability rights activist from Bhubaneswar, Odisha who is the true example that a woman, can not only do all that a man can do, but also do what a man can not do.

In 1987, her aspiration was to become an Indian Administrative Service officer, having successfully passed the Union Public Service Commission examination, but her plans were thwarted due to a car accident that resulted in injury to her spinal cord and since then she is a wheelchair user campaigning for disability rights spreading the word all throughout the country.

She had held the position of chairperson for the Odisha State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights and is a member of the National Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

 Apart from her many contributions, a well noted one was made in 2009 when she and other activists achieved a victory when they successfully made the Jagannath Temple at Puri accessible to people using wheelchairs thereafter which in 2010 she received the Real Heroes Award which truly is what a woman like her is— A real Hero, beyond her gender and beyond her disability.