BusinessDay, By Pratap Chakravarty: The ‘Missile Woman’ behind India’s
test launch Tessy Thomas juggles domestic duties with her day job — as India’s top ballistic missile expert Hailed as a trail blazer in male-dominated India, Tessy Thomas juggles domestic duties with her day job — as the country’s top ballistic missile expert. Ms Thomas was project director for the Agni V long-range nuclear-capable missile which was test-fired last week in a major military advance that will enable India to hit all rival China’s cities for the first time. Celebrated as "Missile Woman" in the local media, she has lent a new and unusual face to the secretive world of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation. But while the woman from southern Kerala state has changed perceptions of her profession and challenged tradition along the way, she says she remains a doting wife and mother at home. "In Indian culture, we feel women are also supposed to be taking care of the home, so a little bit of challenges are there," she says. "But all my lady colleagues are doing the same. It was slightly tough, but I could do it by balancing my time between home and work. Although i t was tough when my son was in school." Not all of her female colleagues have risen to such a position of prominence, though. The Agni V was a prestige project for India. Its 5000km range is seen as vital for national defence and another demonstration of the nation’s rising power. Indian President Pratibha Patil, another woman in a prominent position, commented after the launch that "the work of Thomas in the Agni programme would hopefully inspire more women in choosing careers in science". In January, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Ms Thomas was an example of a "woman making her mark in a traditionally male bastion and decisively breaking the glass ceiling". Ms Thomas joined the Defence Research and Development Organisation in 1988 and went on to work for APJ Abdul Kalam, the architect of the national missile programme who later became India’s president. Her initial focus was on guidance systems, and the first Agni variant was flight-tested in 1989. Her stewardship of the Agni V came after the first launch of the 3500km -range Agni III in 2006. Ms Thomas insists there is no gender discrimination in the predominantly male organisation, where about 200 female colleagues work in its dozens of ordnance factories and research facilities: "I always felt like a scientist and (the organisation) never made me feel otherwise. Besides, science does not recognise who is making the inputs." Ms Thomas says she decided to go into missiles — for her they are instruments of peace due to their deterrence value — after watching rocket tests from a launch centre near her home. "As school children we used to go on picnics to watch the rocket tests and I would be fascinated. Besides, I was always interested in science and mathematics." Such is her passion that she named her college-age son Tejas — after India’s indigenously built light combat aircraft. Between her kitchen at home in the southern city of Hyderabad and poring over complex telemetry data at work, Ms Thomas, who holds an engineering doctorate, has now set herself another challenge. "I am currently working on mission and guidance (systems) of the multiple independent re-entry vehicle," referring to proposed new technology to deliver multiple warheads. Source: BusinessDay