India’s First women Air Marshal- Padma Bandopadhyay

Padmavathy Subramaniam Iyer, popularly known as Padma Bandopadhyay, was born in November 1944 (77 years old as of 2021) in Tripathi, Andhra Pradesh, to a Tamil-speaking family.

She was at the age of three when her mother got Tuberculosis. Her father worked to support his family. At an early age she started doing household work. She learned to cook rice, fetch water and clean. After some years, her mother got fully recovered from severe Tuberculosis. From that, Padma got inspiration to become a medical doctor.

She studied at Delhi Tamil Education Association Senior Secondary Schools in the humanities stream. After graduating from school, she made the difficult and uncommon transition from humanities to the science stream in Delhi University. She studied pre-medical at Kirori Mal College and then joined the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, in 1963.

She joined Indian Air Force in 1968. Bandopadhyay was promoted to Wing Commander, and was posted to DIPAS (Defence Institute of Physiology & Allied Sciences ), where she did outstanding research work in high altitude. She helped produce the new acclimatisation program for Indian Soldiers at high altitudes. And developed precautionary steps to High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema (HAPO) and High Altitude Cerebral Oedema (HACO).

She is the first Indian female to have administered scientific study at the North Pole.
On her arrival in India, she received the Indira Priyadarshini Award for being an outstanding lady with so many accomplishments to her name. This was a first for any lady in uniform. She was bestowed the Air Force Wives Welfare Association Trophy by AFWWA. Promoted to become the First Lady Air Vice Marshal of the Indian Air Force, she was the first of all the Air Forces of the world. Padma also took over as the Additional Director General Armed Forces Medical Services. Padmavathy also became the first Lady Director General Medical Services of the forces.