Kumudini Devi

Kumudini Devi was born on 23 January 1911 at Wadepally in Warangal district. Her father, Pingle Venkataramana Reddy, later served as deputy prime minister of Hyderabad State and ensured that she was well educated at a time when this was uncommon for girls; she took part in cycling, riding, hockey, football and tennis. In 1928 she married Raja Ramdevrao of the Wanaparthy Samsthan.

She was a councillor of the Hyderabad municipal corporation from 1955 to 1964 and became the first woman elected mayor of Hyderabad in 1962. She subsequently served as a member of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly. From the early 1960s she gave herself over to social service rather than politics.

While chairing the municipal health committee in 1957 she came upon a leprosy facility at Zaheerabad, and in 1958 founded the Sivananda Rehabilitation Home, named after her spiritual preceptor Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh. It began with capacity for about fifty residents and in 1976 merged with the municipal home for leprosy patients. The institution, on a site of more than fifty acres at Kukatpally on the outskirts of Hyderabad, grew to include a referral hospital with surgery, physiotherapy and orthotics, occupational and vocational training, and free education for residents' children, drawing patients from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. She died on 6 August 2009 at the age of 98.

Kumudini Devi received the Zonta International Meritorious Award in 1975, recognition from Lions Clubs International in 1992, the third Yudhvir Memorial Award in 1994 for outstanding service for the relief of leprosy patients, an award from Giants International in 1994, recognition from the Swaraj Jagran Manch in 1996, and the Mehdi Nawaz Jung Centenary Human Rights Award in 1997.[2][3][4]