Residence India Nationality Indian | Name Asha Pande Institution Jaipur | |
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Institutions Indo-French Cultural Society, Jaipur Known for 1st Indian woman to receive Legion d'honneur Fields French literature, Civilization | ||
Narayani - India News Rajasthan - 2010 - Dr Asha Pande Interview - Full Video
Dr. Asha Pande (born 1954) is a professor and the first Indian woman to receive the Légion d'honneur She is founder-director of Rajasthan University's Master in European Studies programme and heads the Department of Dramatics at Rajasthan University, and Center for French and Francophone Studies. Dr. She has been honored for promoting French language in India.
Contents
- Narayani India News Rajasthan 2010 Dr Asha Pande Interview Full Video
- Early life and education
- Marriage
- Work
- Honors
- References
Early life and education
She passed higher secondary in 1971 from Pune and moved to Delhi with her eldest brother, the late Dr. M.P. Pande, who had a doctorate degree in Russian and was an assistant professor of the language at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). On her brother, Murli Pande's (also a student of Russian at JNU) suggestion she decided to join five-year integrated post-graduate course in French language, literature and civilization. She completed her post graduation from JNU (1976) after completing her fellowship from Sorbonne University, Paris (1974).
Marriage
She has been married to Ashok Pande (Rajasthan's election commissioner, 1973-batch, IAS officer) and was blessed with two sons, Siddhartha and Gautam during the period 1978-81.
Work
After working at Banaras Hindu University for a few months in 1977 prior to her marriage, she served as a teacher in Jaipur's Maheshwari Public School before founding the Indo-French Cultural Society for promoting academic and cultural relations between France, the Francophone countries and India in 1982. In 1987, she got an offer from Rajasthan University as 'Assistant Professor'. Seventeen years later, despite being the only permanent faculty in French, in 2004, she started the Masters and PhD courses in French. Her tireless efforts resulted in mentoring and training teachers for more than 50 institutions teaching French at school level and 10 at the college level in the state of Rajasthan. Her recent efforts are for university level cooperation which can benefit universities student and faculty exchange programmes. She was the founder Director of International Cooperation Cell, University of RAJASTHAN. She was Professor and was Head twice of the Department of ELLCS, earlier known as Department of Modern European Languages. She served University from 1987 to 2014. She was also founder co-ordinator of Centre for European Studies, a Centre created under UGC Area Studies programme from September 2012 till June 2014. She superannuated from University of Rajasthan in 2014. She continues to be Adjunct faculty teaching French Literature to Master Level students. Total five Doctorate degrees have already been awarded in French Literature and two in Dramatics under her guidance by University of Rajasthan. She continues to give her voluntary services to Indo French Cultural Society (IFCS) as Hon Director of Centre for English and Foreign Languages (CEFL) since its inception.