Women Vande Bharat loco pilots at PM Modi's oath taking: Who are Aiswarya S Menon and Surekha Yadav?

As the new government gets ready to take office on June 9, labourers who worked on the Central Vista Project, transgender people, and sanitation workers will be among the special guests. Railway workers on Metro and Vande Bharat trains have also been invited to attend PM Narendra Modi's third oath taking ceremony. The Rashtrapati Bhavan will host the oath-taking ceremony on Sunday night. Aishwarya S.Menon and Surekha Yadav, loco pilots of the Vande Bharat Express are among the invitees.

Aishwarya S Menon is a senior assistant loco pilot with the Southern Railway's Chennai Division. Since their launch, she has also worked on the Vande Bharat Express services between Chennai and Vijayawada and Chennai and Coimbatore.

Senior officials have praised Aiswarya Menon for her alertness, agility, and thorough understanding of railway signalling. Menon has more than 2 lakh footplate hours of experience operating a variety of trains, including the Jan Shatabdi and Vande Bharat Express.

Surekha Yadav, who is piloting the Vande Bharat train from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus-Solapur, is among the 10 loco pilots invited for the ceremony slated to be held on June 9 in New Delhi, officials have said.

Hailing from Satara in the western Maharashtra region, Yadav became India's first female train driver in 1988. She has won many awards at the state and national levels so far for her achievements. She is the first woman loco pilot of the semi-high speed Vande Bharat Express plying between Solapur and CSMT in Mumbai.