Aung San Suu Kyi is a symbol of hope, non-violence resistance and peace to her Burmese countrymen and an international champion of democracy. She has tirelessly fought militant regimes for a free and democratic Burma, living under house arrest for 15 of the last years. She was released in late 2010. Suu Kyi has been internationally recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize, Europe’s Sakharov Prize and the United States Medal of Freedom.

Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19 June 1945. Ms Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero, General Aung San. He was assassinated when she was only two years old, just before Myanmar gained independence from British colonial rule in 1948. In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Myanmar’s ambassador in Delhi. Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics. She married Michael Aris in 1972.

She arrived back in Rangoon (now Yangon) in 1988 – to look after her critically ill mother – Myanmar was in the midst of major political upheaval. Thousands of students, office workers and monks took to the streets demanding democratic reform. She went on to lead the revolt against the then-dictator, General Ne Win. She organized rallies and travelled around the country, calling for peaceful democratic reform and free elections.

Ms Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years in detention between 1989 and 2010. Her personal struggle to bring democracy to then military-ruled Myanmar (also known as Burma) – made her an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.

In November 2015 she led the National League for Democracy (NLD) to a landslide victory in Myanmar’s first openly contested election for 25 years.

She is the state counsellor of Myanmar.  This was a position newly created by the legislature and signed into law by Htin Kyaw; the post was similar to that of prime minister and potentially more powerful than the president.

Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was born on 29 June 1945. She is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the fifth President of Sri Lanka. This dates from 12 November 1994 to 19 November 2005.

Amongst her many other honor’s, she is the country’s only female president till date. She hails from a political family and is the daughter of two former prime ministers and was the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) until the end of 2005. In 2015 she was appointed as the chairperson of office for national unity and reconciliation.

Chandrika won the presidential election in 1994 gaining a majority of of 62.28% of the vote. Becoming the first female President of Sri Lanka in November 1994, she appointed her mother to succeed her as prime minister.

Her political career take another intense turn when in the year 1999, Kumaratunga lost vision in her right eye (permanent optic nerve damage) in an assassination attempt, by the Tamil Tigers. This made her call an early presidential election. Once again, she came out victorious and managed to defeat her opponent, Ranil Wickremasinghe in the election held on 21 December 1999 and was sworn in for another term the next day.

Her second term was one of the most challenging periods for the country. It saw the civil war aggravating with her government suffering major defeats against the opponents during the famous Second Battle of Elephant Pass and Bandaranaike Airport attack. This not only affected the political scene of the country but also saw the country’s economy going into recession for the first time in history.

She was listed 25th by Forbes magazine in its “100 most powerful women” in 2005.

In 2006, having remained the leader of the SLFP after leaving office, she “temporally” stepped down from the party leadership citing “continuous harassment she has faced after Mahinda Rajapaksa took office as president” and soon after left the country to self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom.

Kumaratunga is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders and the Global Leadership Foundation. In November 2009, Kumaratunga was appointed to the 12-member board of directors of the Club de Madrid. She is a frequent panelist and member of the Clinton Global Initiative and advisor to its annual meeting held every September

Begum Khaleda Zia served as Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first woman in Bangladesh’s history and second in the Muslim world (after Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan) to lead a democratic government as prime minister.

Khaleda Zia was born in the Dinajpur district in northwestern Bengal in 1945. In 1960, she married Zia ur Rahman. Her husband, one of the prominent heroes of the country’s liberation war, later became President of the Republic and formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in April 1977.

Khaleda Zia was elected as a vice-chairperson of the BNP in March 1983. The party appointed her as chairperson in August 1984.  In 1991, Khaleda Zia became the country’s first woman prime minister through a free and fair general election on February 27, 1991.

Khaleda Zia became the prime minister for a second consecutive term in 1996 after the BNP had a landslide victory, but due to strikes and protests, she resigned after a month.

Khaleda Zia was re-elected in 2001, regaining power by promising to eliminate corruption and terrorism. In 2006, she stepped down from office, passing power to a caretaker administration.

When in power, the government of Khaleda Zia made considerable progress in the education sector by introducing compulsory free primary education, free education for girls up to 10th grade, an education “stipend” for girl students, and food for education programs. Her government also increased the age-limit for entry into government services from 27 years to 30 years and made its highest budgetary allocation to the education sector. She also took revolutionary steps for women inclusion in political sphere and increased the number of seats for women in parliament.

Kamala Harris
Vice President of the United States of America

Kamala Harris makes history as she has risen higher in the country’s leadership than any woman ever before her. Born and raised in Oakland, California, she is a U.S. politician who was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in the year 2016. The following year Kamala started her first term representing California in that body. Kamala is the second African American woman and the first Indian American to serve as a U.S. senator. Currently, she has been elected as Vice President of the United States on Joe Biden’s democratic ticket in US elections 2020.

She has the honor of previously being the attorney general of the state from 2011 to 2017. Kamala received a law degree (1989) from Hastings College after studying political science and economics (B.A., 1986) at Howard University.

A little about her career background is that she successfully worked in Oakland as a deputy district lawyer (1990-98). In this time, she gained a reputation for bravery as she prosecuted gang crime, drug trafficking, and sexual assault cases.

Kamala rose through the ranks and, in 2004, became district attorney. She was narrowly elected California Attorney General in 2010, winning by less than 1%, becoming the first female and the first African American to hold the post.

She showed political independence after taking office the following year, refusing, for instance, interference from the government of Pres. For her to settle a national case against mortgage lenders for unfair practices by Barack Obama. Instead, she pressed the case in California and received a verdict five times higher than the one initially given in 2012.

Kamala started sitting on both the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Judiciary Committee, among other duties, since taking office in January 2017. During hearings, she was distinguished for her prosecutorial style of interviewing witnesses, which attracted criticism from Republican senators-and occasional interruptions. In January 2019, Harris’s memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey was published.

Kamala Harris is seen as the feminist role model. During the vice-presidential debates, she showed girls how to take command, claim their power, and stand their ground. According to CNN, she is giving children of color the ability to see themselves as a presidential candidate.

Angela Merkel – First Female Chancellor of Germany, was born in Hamburg, West Germany in July 1945. Merkel finished her high school from Templin in 1973 and later went to Leipzing to study Physics. After getting diploma she worked as member of academic Faculty at Central Institute of Physical Chemistry of The Academy of Science In East Berlin. In 1986, Merkel was awarded as Doctorate for her thesis on QUANTUM CHEMISTRY. Merkel participated in State’s Youth Organizations and became member of Young Pioneers from 1962 and in 1968 also joined Free German Youth. Her involvement with free German youth has led to controversy that she was active as secretary for agitation and propaganda at institute, though Merkel maintained her responsibility for cultural affairs. Merkel neither applied for membership of Socialist Unity Party nor she accepted any proposal by Personnel of Ministry for State Security.

After the fall of Berlin Wall in 1981, Merkel joined newly founded Democratic Awakening and in 1990 became party’s press spokesperson and later on she became Deputy Spokesperson of Government. Merkel also won a seat in Bundestag (lower house of parliament) representing Stralsund – Rugen-Grimmen. In Jan 1991, Merkel was appointed as Minister for Women and Youth by Chancellor – Helmut Khol. Khol’s choice of young female political newcomer appealed to several demographics and earned Merkel nickname “Khol’s Madchen’’ (Khol’s girl). In Sep 1992, CDU’s Chairman resigned from his position because of accusation and Merkel was elected to replace him. Merkel became Minister of Environment, Conversation and Reactor Safety in 1994 and in 1995 she presided over the first United Nations Climate Conference on Berlin. Merkel was elected as Secretary General of CDU and later in 2000 appointed as Head of CDU becoming first Women and first non-Catholic to lead the party. As leader she faced lingering effects of finance scandal and divided party. On Nov 2005, she became first female chancellor of Germany at age 51 and youngest person to date to hold the office and is serving her fourth term. In 2018, Merkel stepped down as leader of Christian democratic union and announced she wouldn’t seek another term as chancellor in 2021

Merkel remains the de facto leader of Europe, leading the region’s largest economy after steering Germany through financial crisis and back to growth. Her leadership is marked by her steely reserve by allowing more than million Syrians refugees into Germany. For now, Merkel leads a coalition government unpopular with voters, facing continuing storms from Brexit and growing anti-immigrants’ sentiments in Europe.

With many firsts on her credit as an African American woman, Condoleezza Rice is a politician, writer and educator who won her struggle with racism brought herself to mainstream politics with a broader stance of women in decision making through extensive political participation.

The first Black woman to serve as the United States’ national security adviser, as well as the first Black woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is first woman and first African American to serve as provost of Stanford University. These firsts in the African American history are not achieved with petty efforts but a long history of struggle on her credit. Born in 1954, Rice grew up in an environment surrounded by racism. She joined Stanford University as a political science professor in 1981 upon completion of her PhD. In 1993, Rice became the first woman and first African American to serve as provost of Stanford University — a post she held for six years. During that time, she also served as the university’s chief budget and academic officer.

Her political career started in 1980s when she spent a good period in Washington, D.C., working as an international affairs fellow attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1989, she became director of Soviet and East European affairs with the National Security Council, and special assistant to President George H.W. Bush during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender-Integrated Training in the Military. In 2001, Rice was appointed national security adviser by President George W. Bush, becoming the first African American woman (and woman) to hold the post. She went on to become the first African American woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State — she became the nation’s 66th Secretary of State in 2004, following Colin Powell’s resignation, and served from 2005 to 2009.

As Secretary of State, Rice dedicated her department to “Transformational Diplomacy,” with a mission of building and sustaining democratic, well-governed states around the world and the Middle East in particular.

Apart from her political affiliations, she is an author of various books which include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984).

She defines herself as a politician as well as an educator which reflects in her speeches. One of her speeches in the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida reflects her deep commitment to education stating “”I’ll go back and be a happy Stanford faculty member,” Rice said, “And, obviously, I’ll do what I can to help this ticket. But my life is in Palo Alto. My future is with my students at Stanford and in public service on issues that I care about like education reform.”