24-years-old Shivangi from Bihar has become the first female pilot for the Indian Navy. Born to Hari Bhushan Singh, school teacher, and housewife Priyanka Kumari in Fatehabad under Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, she was always a very dedicated student. Shivangi completed her NOC course from Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala in Kerala and has recently been inducted into the Indian Navy as SSC (Pilot). Sub-Lieutenant Shivangi is now the first naval women pilot who recently joined operational duties in Kochi naval base. She will be flying the Dornier maritime reconnaissance aircraft of the Indian Navy, which is a surveillance aircraft. After taking over operational duties at Kochi naval base, she said, "It's a proud feeling for me, my parents and it's a different feeling. I have been craving for this since a very long time and finally, it is here, I cannot express it...it's a great feeling. I am looking forward to complete my third stage of training. Women were always there in the Navy. They were not in the cockpit. Observers were there. This is something different...woman in the cockpit for the first time. It will create more opportunity for other women who want to join Defence...maybe they will start going for choppers and fighters". Shivangi is a mechanical engineering who graduated from Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology. Her father Hari Bhushan Singh explained how his daughter accomplished this achievement and said, "I had never dreamt of this moment in my life. My daughter has made us extremely proud. I am very happy to be here. She cleared the Service Selection Board (SSB) exam conducted by the ministry of defence in 2017, but failed to get a call due to fewer vacancies. Her luck favoured when she appeared in another SSB exam at Bengaluru in March 2018 hardly after five to six months of joining the Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, to pursue her MTech. After a six-month Naval orientation course at Ezhimala, she spent another six months in flying a Pilatus basic trainer at the Air Force Academy (AFA)".
