Pratibha Patil sworn-in as Indias first woman President

Pratibha Patil was sworn-in as the first woman President of the country at 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday. The swearing-in-ceremony was held in the Central Hall of Parliament. Patil took oath of office administered by the Chief Justice of India, Justice K G Balakrishnan.

New Delhi, July 25 : Pratibha Patil was sworn-in as the first woman President of the country at 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday. The swearing-in-ceremony was held in the Central Hall of Parliament. Patil took oath of office administered by the Chief Justice of India, Justice K G Balakrishnan.

Outgoing President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, members of the Council of Ministers, Speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee, the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Governors, Chief Ministers, Chairperson of the ruling UPA Sonia Gandhi, Heads of Diplomatic Missions, Members of Parliament and principal civil and military officers of the Government of India attended the swearing-in ceremony.

Prior to the ceremony, Both Kalam and Patil were escorted by the President's Bodyguard in a car cavalcade out of Rashtrapati Bhavan down Rajpath towards Parliament House.

A thousand armed forces personnel lined both sides of the designated route and saluted the two as they passed by in a ceremony filled with pageantry and glamour.

At Parliament House, Chief Justice Balakrishnan, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee, the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, M. Rahim Khan and presiding officers of Parliament received Kalam and Patil.

The two were then escorted into Parliament where its Members greeted them.

After the dignitaries took their respective seats, Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta sought President Kalam's permission to read out an Election Commission notification certifying Pratibha Patil's election as the 12th President of India.

Patil, 72, who was Governor of Rajasthan, hails from Jalgaon in Maharashtra.

Born on December 19, 1934, Pratibha married Dr. Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat on July 7, 1965.

A social worker by profession, she also practiced as a lawyer at the Jalgaon court.

Educated at Jalgaon's M.J. College, she completed her studies in law at Mumbai's Government Law College.

She started her political career by becoming a Congress MLA for the first time in Maharashtra in 1962. She remained an MLA till 1985.

Between 1967 to 1972, she was Maharashtra's Deputy Minister for Public Health, Prohibition, Tourism, Housing and Parliamentary Affairs.

She was a Cabinet Minister in the Maharashtra Government from 1972 to 1978 and headed different ministries like Public Health and Social Welfare, Cultural Affairs and Education.

She was the Leader of Opposition in the Maharshtra Assembly from 1979 to 1980.

Between 1985 and 1990, she was a Rajya Sabha member and also served as Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha from 1986 to 1988.

During this period she also header of the Rajya Sabha Committee on Privileges and was a member of the Business Advisory Committee.

She was elected to 10th Lok Sabha in 1991 on a Congress ticket. In 2004, she was made Governor of Rajasthan.

A table tennis player in her youth , she won many Inter-college championships and tournaments.

Among her social achievements, she was instrumental in the setting up of an industrial training school for the blind, a nursery school for children of Backward Castes, and a Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Amaravati to teach new techniques and scientific ways of cultivation to farmers.

ANI