International Day of Rural Women: Their role from farm to home, and events of October 15 in history

October 15 is observed every year as International Day of Rural Women. The aim of the day is to recognise the important contribution of women in villages and to raise awareness for their empowerment.

Rural women play a key role in farming, food production, raising families and protecting the environment. The day makes them aware of their rights and encourages them to seek equal opportunities, resources and a share in decision-making.

Empowering rural women is considered necessary not only for improving their own lives but also for the progress of society as a whole. Programmes and discussions focused on them are held on the occasion, where their contribution is recognised and ways to resolve their problems are suggested.

Now to history. In 1846, American doctor Dr John Warren used ether for the first time to render a patient unconscious during surgery. In 1878, the Edison Electric Light Company began work. In 1888, Gopal Ganesh Agarkar started the newspaper Sudharak. In 1917, during the First World War, Dutch dancer Mata Hari was shot near Paris on charges of spying for Germany.

In 1932, Tata Airlines made its first flight. J.R.D. Tata flew the aircraft from Karachi to Mumbai, and civil aviation services began with it. After the company was nationalised, Air India came into being. In 1956, FORTRAN, the first modern computer language, was shared with the coding community for the first time.

Several Nobel-related dates also fall on this day. In 1968, Har Gobind Khorana received the Nobel Prize. In 1973, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1984, Archbishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1993, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and South African President F.W. de Klerk were announced as winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1975, two-year-old Rahima Banu of Bangladesh turned out to be the last patient of smallpox. In 1997, Indian writer Arundhati Roy's novel The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize. In 1999, India's Geet Sethi was given the Global Fred Davis Award. In 2001, NASA's Galileo spacecraft came within 180 km of Jupiter's moon Io. In 2003, China launched Shenzhou 5, its first crewed space mission.

Those born on this date include Emperor Akbar (1542), Italian mathematician and inventor of the barometer Evangelista Torricelli (1608), Japan's first Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi (1841), English writer P.G. Wodehouse (1881), freedom fighter and pro tem Speaker of the Lok Sabha Seth Govind Das (1896) and economist J.K. Galbraith (1908). Writer Mario Puzo (1920), poet Narayan Gangaram Surve (1926) and India's 11th President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (1931) were also born on this day.

Flautist N. Ramani (1934), actor and director Victor Banerjee (1946), politician Chhagan Bhujbal (1947), journalist and NDTV founder Prannoy Roy (1949), hockey player Kulbir Bhaura (1955), film director Mira Nair (1957) and Mewati gharana classical singer Pt Sanjeev Abhyankar (1969) were also born on this date.

Among deaths recorded on this date are Ramchandra Vishwanath Prabhune, a noted judge of the later Peshwa period, in 1789; Marie Antoinette, widow of France's King Louis XVI, in 1793; Mata Hari in 1917; and Herbert Dow, founder of the Dow Chemical Company, in 1930. In 1944, Gurunath Prabhakar Ogale, one of the founders of the Ogale Glass Works, died; in 1946 German Nazi Hermann Goering; and in 1961 Hindi writer Suryakant Tripathi Nirala. Moshe Dayan, former Israeli army chief and foreign and defence minister, died in 1981; Marathi film cameraman Datta Gorle in 1997; and historical novelist N.S. Inamdar and writer and screenwriter Vasant Sabnis in 2002. In 2012, Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia's first Prime Minister, also passed away on this day.