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<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|West Bengal's first woman engineer (1930–2019)}}<br />
'''Ila Ghose''' (née Majumdar) (24 July 1930 - 11 December 2019) was a [[Mechanical engineering|mechanical engineer]] and [[West Bengal]]'s first woman engineer. She was the first female alumna of the [[Bengal Engineering College]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=First Female Engineer Alumnus of BEC Passes Away.|url=https://www.gaabesu.in/blog/first-female-engineer-alumnus-of-bec-passes-away/|access-date=2021-03-10|website=www.gaabesu.in|language=en}}</ref> <br />
[[File:Woman_Engineer_Ila_Ghosh_(née_Majumdar).jpg|thumb|Ila Ghose in circa 1947 (née Majumdar)]]<br />
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== Early life and education ==<br />
Ila Majumdar was born in the Madaripur subdivision, [[Faridpur district]], [[East Bengal]] in 1930. She was one of six sisters and two brothers.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Lone woman in the classroom|url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/lone-woman-in-the-classroom/cid/1256946|access-date=2021-03-10|website=www.telegraphindia.com}}</ref> Her father, Jatindra Kumar Majumdar, was a deputy magistrate and her mother was a housewife. From a young age her interest in engineering was recognised.<ref name=":0" /> The family moved to West Bengal, before moving to [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] in 1945. She was admitted to study at the Bengal Engineering College, where there was only one other woman in her cohort. In an interview in [[The Telegraph (India)|''The Telegraph'' (India)]] in 2008, she said "There was only one other woman in the entire batch. The boys were shocked, but we soon became good friends. We would chat and crack jokes with them and cheer them on at cricket matches. Never did we feel uncomfortable."<ref name=":1" /> Her fellow female student dropped out after one year, making her the first woman to graduate from the college.<ref name=":0" /> She graduated in 1951.<ref name=":0" /><br />
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== Career ==<br />
For her postgraduate training, she travelled to the United Kingdom to work for Glasgow-based company [[Barr and Stroud]].<ref name=":0" /> Once back in India, she worked in an ordnance factory in [[Dehradun|Dehra Dun]], before taking up a lecturer's post at [[Delhi Polytechnic]] in 1955.<ref name=":0"/> After her marriage, she moved back to Calcutta where she became a lecturer at the [[Institute of Jute Technology]], followed by the principal of the Women's Polytechnic on Gariahat Road.<ref name=":1" /> In 1985, she was approached by [[UNESCO]] to set up Mahila Polytechnic in Dhaka, Bangladesh.<ref name=":0" /><br />
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In 1967, she attended the second [[International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists]] held in Cambridge, United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Koerner|first=Emily Rees|date=2020-12-04|title=Who went to the International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES) in 1964 and 1967?|url=https://electrifyingwomen.org/who-went-to-the-international-conference-of-women-engineers-and-scientists-icwes-in-1964-and-1967/|access-date=2021-03-10|website=Electrifying Women|language=en-GB}}</ref><br />
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In an interview with the Global Alumni Association of Bengali Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, she spoke of the gender bias she faced in her career:<blockquote>“Of course, I have faced gender bias all the time in my professional life. I think it will take a long time to change the mindset of the society, and there is no other way to bear it. But it hurts when the cases of selection / promotion comes, how the authorities find flimsy excuses not to offer a woman her rightful place as they feel she is not supposed to boss over men. One had to tolerate this.”<ref name=":0" /></blockquote><br />
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== Personal life ==<br />
Ila Majumder married in 1959, taking her husband's surname Ghose. The couple had a son in 1960, lost a daughter to stillbirth in 1963 and had a second son in 1967.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Chakraborty|first=Tanusree|title="Ila Ghose ('51ME), the first woman engineer from Bengal Engineering College." Alumni Link – a publication of the Global Alumni Associations of Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur.|url=https://www.gaabesu.in/mt-content/uploads/2020/03/1576861504ila_ghose_interview_gaabesu_may2009.pdf}}</ref><br />
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== References ==<br />
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[[Category:20th-century Indian women engineers]]<br />
[[Category:1930 births]]<br />
[[Category:2019 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:People from West Bengal]]<br />
[[Category:20th-century Indian engineers]]<br />
[[Category:Indian mechanical engineers]]<br />
[[Category:Engineers from West Bengal]]</div>SharronKifer8