President condoles Gyan Patnaik's death

President Pratibha Patil mourned the death of Gyan Patnaik, one of India's earliest women pilots and the widow of former Orissa chief minister Biju Patnaik.

President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday mourned the death of Gyan Patnaik, one of India's earliest women pilots and the widow of former Orissa chief minister Biju Patnaik.

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Gyan, 89, died in New Delhi on Tuesday after suffering from a bout of pneumonia.

"She was a woman of substance who had a will of steel," Patil said in her condolence message to Gyan Patnaik's son and Orissa's Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

"In a time when women were still struggling to gain widespread acceptance in the society to take up careers, she ventured into a career full of adventure, by training to become a pilot.

"She was also aware of the need to popularise science and using it for the upliftment of society, which she did through the Kalinga foundation," Patil said.

Gyan Patnaik is survived by her two sons, Prem and Naveen and writer-daughter Geeta Mehta. Naveen, who stayed with his mother until he entered politics in 1997, was by her bedside when she died at their family house in Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi.

Gyan was one of the first women in the country to get a commercial pilot's licence in the 1930s. She flew with her legendary husband during World War II to rescue Indonesian leader Suharto from Dutch-besieged Java.

Biju, who was a pilot with the Royal Indian Air Force during World War II, married Gyan, a Punjabi from Lahore in 1938. The flamboyant Biju flew the groom's party to Lahore for the wedding.