Asha Pande

Dr. Asha Pande (born 1954) is a professor and the first Indian woman to receive the Légion d'honneur<ref name='Awarded Légion d'honneur'>Awarded Légion d'honneur</ref>^[2][1] She is founder-director of Rajasthan University's Master in European Studies programme and heads the Department of Dramatics at Rajasthan University, and Center for French and Francophone Studies.^[3]Dr. She has been honored for promoting French language in India.

Early life and education

She passed higher secondary in 1971 from Pune and moved to Delhi with her eldest brother, the late Dr. M.P. Pande, who had a doctorate degree in Russian and was an assistant professor of the language at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). On her brother, Murli Pande's (also a student of Russian at JNU) suggestion she decided to join five-year integrated post-graduate course in French language, literature and civilization. She completed her post graduation from JNU (1976) after completing her fellowship from Sorbonne University, Paris (1974).

Marriage

She has been married to Ashok Pande (Rajasthan's election commissioner, 1973-batch, IAS officer) and was blessed with two sons, Siddhartha and Gautam during the period 1978-81.

Work

After working at Banaras Hindu University for a few months in 1977 prior to her marriage, she served as a teacher in Jaipur's Maheshwari Public School before founding the Indo-French Cultural Society for promoting academic and cultural relations between France, the Francophone countries and India in 1982. In 1987, she got an offer from Rajasthan University as 'Assistant Professor'. Seventeen years later, despite being the only permanent faculty in French, in 2004, she started the Masters and PhD courses in French. Her tireless efforts resulted in mentoring and training teachers for more than 25 institutions teaching French at school level and 10 at the college level in the state of Rajasthan. Her recent efforts are for university level cooperation which can benefit universities student and faculty exchange programmes. She is currently Director of International Cooperation Cell, Professor and Head at the ELLCS (European Languages, Literature and Culture Studies) Department, University of Rajasthan. She is also founder co-ordinator of Centre for European Studies, a Centre created under UGC Area Studies programme since September 2012.

Honors

• Légion d'honneur (2010) - First Indian Woman to receive Highest French Civilian Award by President Sarkozy.
• Medal and Citation by the Vice President, Regional Council of Besaçon, France, in 1995 for her exemplary efforts in the field of Indo French Cooperation.
• Silver Jubilee National Award by Association of Indian Teachers of French in 2010, in appreciation of the services rendered to the development of French & Francophone Studies in India.
• Shiksha Vibhushan Samman by Rajasthan Yuva Chatra Sangh, in 2010, for her services rendered to development of European languages.
• Bade Dilwale Award by 93.5 Red FM in March 2013 for exemplary services in the field of Education. She was placed in Star category for getting maximum number of message responses to her interview telecast on Red FM.

Notes

September 28, 2009, French Ambassador, Jérome Bonnafont, sent a letter mentioning that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had signed the decree nominating her for the honour. She is one of few Indians who have received this honour, other Indians being Satyajit Ray, Ravi Shankar, R.K. Pachauri, Amitabh Bachchan and Amartya Sen. The award was conferred on her by the Ambassador of France on 22 January 2010 at Bonjour India Festival during Jaipur Literary Festival at Jaipur.

External links