DHAKA: Giant tech company Google featured Begum Rokeya in its Doodle for Bangladesh homepage, marking Rokeya Day, the 137th birth and 85th death anniversary of the pioneer of women rights.

Rokeya was a Bengali writer, educationist, social activist, and advocate of women's rights.

Born in Rangpur in 1880, she worked for women’s emancipation in this subcontinent which was aloud in her writings. 

Rokeya was the steady vocal for female education which was restricted in her country to the women folks of her generation and of the preceding eras.

However, she wrote novels, poems, short stories, science fiction, satires, treatises, and essays. ‘Sultana's Dream’, a science fiction novella is one of her best piece.

Rokeya emphasized in her writing that both men and women should be treated equally as rational beings, and the lack of education is the main reason of women's lagging behind.

She passed away on December 9 in 1932.

BDST: 1516 HRS, DEC 9, 2017
SI/SMS