Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 8: On the occasion of International Women’s Day today, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh felicitated Beno Zefine, India’s first totally visually impaired officer to have joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).
At a function held at Indian Civil Service Officers’ Institute (ICSOI) and attended by a large number of women officers, Dr Jitendra Singh described it as a personal vindication for himself because he recalled that soon after his taking over the charge of Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) in 2014, he was approached by this Chennai girl, Beno Zefine, who was 100% visually impaired but had qualified the Civil Services examination and was keen to join Indian Foreign Service . Impressed by her determination, aptitude and clarity of purpose, he said, he took it upon himself as a challenge to find a possible way out to get Beno accommodated in IFS even though there were constraints due to the existing government rules. After several months of exercise, continuous correspondence with the Ministry of External Affairs and appropriate interpretation of rules, he said, it was finally possible to allocate Indian Foreign Service cadre to Beno for which he was profusely grateful to the sympathetic response and cooperation from the Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, it would be an under-estimation of Beno’s talent and diligence if she was hailed only as a woman, because her achievement is indeed an example to be followed by all the potential achievers regardless of their gender or social background. He said, Beno could achieve what she did because her parents allowed her absolute freedom to realize her potential which many a parent fail to allow to their children who,though, are not physically disabled, but get disabled by the misplaced priorities and beliefs imposed on them.
Exhorting that the formula of success is the same for every achiever, Dr Jitendra Singh said, each one of us possesses his or her share of attributes which need to be realized and cultivated. The day the society is able to rise to that level of evolution, there will no longer be any need to observe International Women’s Day, because a woman is capable of doing it on her own without requiring any special patronage, he added.
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