Jun 30, 2005 :: Viji Srinivasan is no more

Viji Srinivasan, the Week magazine’s Woman of the Year for 2004, passed away on Jun 13, 2005. She was born in an illustrious, affluent family in Chennai. But since the 1980s has worked with poor women of Jharkhand. A trained sociologist, she ran Adithi, an NGO that has improved the lives of more than 100,000 women and children in th etribal belt.

She battled female infanticide, educated young girls, found markets for their craft products and brought in cash incomes. She went about barefoot, slept on the floor and shared simple meals with her female flock. She neglected her own health putting in 18 hours of work a day.

In an incident that typifies the bridges she built, Viji spotted 20 year old Archana Kumari’s talent and trained her to get into the elite National Institute of Fashion Technolgy- and Viji paid her course fees. Read her full story here.

Ever the feminist, Viji had willed that her daughter perform her last rites. Despite many raised brows, Rekha fulfilled her mother’s wish.