Kiran Bedi

Kiran Bedi was born on 9 June 1949 in Amritsar, Punjab, India. She completed her BA degree from the Government College for Women, Amritsar in 1968 and after that a Master’s degree in Political Science from Punjab University, Chandigarh. She qualified her Bachelor of Laws in 1988 from Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. In 1993, she obtained a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Department of Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, where the topic of her thesis was 'Drug Abuse and Domestic Violence. In July 1972, she joined the Indian Police Service. She is India’s first and highest woman ranking officer who joined the Indian Police Service. Her expertise includes more than 35 years of creative and reformative policing and prison management.She worked with the United Nations in New York as the Police Advisor to the Secretary General, in the Department of peace keeping operations. She represented India in International forums on crime prevention, drug abuse, police and prison reforms and women’s issues. She is a recipient of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award (also called the Asian Nobel Prize). She is the founder of two NGOs, Navjyoti and India Vision Foundation, which reach out to thousands of under -served children, women  and men in the areas of  education, vocational skills, environment, counseling, and health care  to the urban and rural poor. Currently her NGOs are running four Community Colleges, registered with Indira Gandhi National Open University, to provide vocational and soft skills to Indian youth. Currently, she has been in the vanguard of a nationwide, India Against Corruption, a movement led by Shri Anna Hazare which compelled the Indian Parliament to pass a unanimous resolution accepting three key demands of Janlokpal Bill, drafted by Team Anna .