All About Women | Women

The biggest work ever published about the lives of famous Irish men and women has been launched in Belfast by poet Seamus Heaney. The nine-volume Dictionary of Irish Biography features more than 9,700 entries and spans 2,000 years of the island's history.

Described by Mr Heaney as "an epoch-making event in the history of Irish scholarship", it is a joint project between the Royal Irish Academy and Cambridge University Press. Alongside Northern Ireland luminaries from Joey Dunlop to CS Lewis, the historians and writers have profiled some of the more unusual figures from the past. Here are some abridged versions of just few of them.

How many of us know that many Indian women had wonderful scientific achievements during the time of Marie Curie? Noted scientists Rohini Godbole and Ramakrishna Ramaswamy from IISc and JNU have put together a book on the work of many women scientists who were brilliant thinkers in their own right, but went unrecognized.

Speaking at the National Institute of Advanced Studies on Wednesday, Ramaswamy, who spoke on the book `Lilavati's Daughters: The Women Scientists of India,' published recently, said they had worked towards retrieving Indian women's contributions to science in the book. The book is a unique collection of biographical and autobiographical sketches and is part of an initiative of the Women in Science panel of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

"Covering a range of disciplines, almost 100 women scientists talk of what brought them to science, what kept their interest alive and what has helped them achieve some measure of distinction in their careers," Ramaswamy observed.

Lilavati is actually a 12th-century treatise in which the mathematician Bhaskaracharya addresses a number of math problems to his daughter, Lilavati. Although legend has it that Lilavati never got married, her intellectual legacy lives on in the form of her daughters -- the women scientists of India, the writers point out in the book.

The under-representation of women in science is seen with great concern the world over. Several programmes and initiatives are being undertaken to tackle this, and, in 2005, the Indian Academy of Sciences set up the Women in Science panel to address women's concerns in science. It is this panel that has published a one-of-its kind biographical and autobiographical account of women scientists from India.

No longer are our veterans just the men who went to war but among them are the women who have heard shots fired in anger, and have fired back. Reportedly, nearly a quarter-million American women are recent war veterans.

Women have served in all branches of the service for generations and through America's wars. But today's military no longer is strictly all-male on the front line with woman serving in support roles in the safety of the rear echelon. That's because in today's war fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no "front line" and "safe" area behind the lines.

According to the AP series, many women veterans are returning with the same experiences, and the same problems, as their male counterparts, yet contend they haven't been treated the same. In a flashback to the Vietnam era, these women veterans say they're ignored and overlooked on their return home, even by their comrades in arms.