Women yet to break glass ceiling in nuclear sector

Chennai: Nuclear is one of the few sectors in India where the glass ceiling for women is yet to be broken.

Till now no woman has headed a power station owned and operated by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) not to mention prestigious institutions like Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) or other such organisations.

Should women have to nuke their way up?

No, says two women who are into this sector -- one in the nuclear reactor field and the other working in a think tank -- and now set to popularise the nuclear field amongst women under the Women in Nuclear - India banner.

"Things are changing for the better. The mindset is changing now. When the sector expands, women will start occupying the top positions," Dr. Umasankari Kannan, Chairperson, Standing Committee of Reactor Physics, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) told.

She recently retired as the Head, Reactor Physics Design Division, BARC and was an Outstanding Scientist.

Now, there are several women in senior positions in the Indian nuclear field but as this is teamwork, no individual face comes to the fore unlike the spacecraft or the mission in charge in the case of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

"Up to a certain position women are considered at par with men. Perhaps when it came to top positions, there seems to have been a mental block that those positions need tough decision makers and men are more suited, which is not the case," Kannan said.

She added that women's careers are not nuked by men just because they belong to the opposite sex.

Be that as it may, during her 37-year stint at BARC, Kannan was involved in leading the core design of advanced thermal reactors which will come into being in the future. Special areas of expertise are in the fuel cycle, thorium utilisation, nuclear reaction measurements, experimentation for new fuel, and synergistic studies for enhanced fuel utilization.

As a Senior Professor at Homi Bhabha National Institute, she not only teaches nuclear reactor physics but has successfully guided 12 students to get their doctorate.

"It was a fulfilling career at BARC. I was involved in designing a lot of new reactors like the advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR)," she said.