‘Snow ceiling’ cracks as IMF gets woman chief | India News – Times of India
UTTARKASHI: Mountains fascinated Harshwanti Bisht as a little girl. She grew up to conquer some of the toughest ones like the Nanda Devi and Mount Everest. The 62-year-old has scaled another peak. She has become the first woman in the history of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation to become its president.
The award-winning climber, educationist and environmentalist got 70 out of 107 votes in the 60-year-old organisation’s polls to clinch the top post, breaking a “snow ceiling” as some of her contemporaries joked. IMF is the apex body for mountaineering and allied sports activities in the country.
“As IMF president my priority will be to encourage more girls to take up climbing,” Bisht said. “We will focus on promoting activities like sport climbing, which was recently included as an Olympic event. We will also emphasise on mountaineering policies, disaster management and coordination with other training institutes.”
After completing her BA and MA in economics, Bisht joined the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi from where she did a course in climbing in 1975. In 1981, she became one of the first three women to scale the main peak of Nanda Devi. That year she won the Arjuna award for mountaineering.
Three years later, in 1984, she summited the Everest. It was during this expedition that she came across the work of Edmund Hillary in conserving mountains and wanted to follow that path. She then founded the ‘Save Gangotri Project’ to safeguard the region around the origin of the Ganga. In 1991, she started a campaign to preserve Bhojpatra trees, a species native to the Himalayas, and planted hundreds of saplings in the Gangotri national park region. For this, she was awarded the Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy medal in 2013.
The award-winning climber, educationist and environmentalist got 70 out of 107 votes in the 60-year-old organisation’s polls to clinch the top post, breaking a “snow ceiling” as some of her contemporaries joked. IMF is the apex body for mountaineering and allied sports activities in the country.
“As IMF president my priority will be to encourage more girls to take up climbing,” Bisht said. “We will focus on promoting activities like sport climbing, which was recently included as an Olympic event. We will also emphasise on mountaineering policies, disaster management and coordination with other training institutes.”
After completing her BA and MA in economics, Bisht joined the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi from where she did a course in climbing in 1975. In 1981, she became one of the first three women to scale the main peak of Nanda Devi. That year she won the Arjuna award for mountaineering.
Three years later, in 1984, she summited the Everest. It was during this expedition that she came across the work of Edmund Hillary in conserving mountains and wanted to follow that path. She then founded the ‘Save Gangotri Project’ to safeguard the region around the origin of the Ganga. In 1991, she started a campaign to preserve Bhojpatra trees, a species native to the Himalayas, and planted hundreds of saplings in the Gangotri national park region. For this, she was awarded the Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy medal in 2013.
