Pradhan was born on 4 October 1962 to a non-wealthy family in a remote village called Ayatapur in Banapur block of Khordha district, Odisha. She was the eldest of two sisters and a brother born to Hemalata Pradhan and Godabarish Pradhan. Her father was a farmer and mother a housewife. Female education was prohibited in most rural areas of Banapur at the time. Girls were rarely allowed to attend high school. After completing her middle school in the village, there was strong pressure to end her studies, not just that, there wasn’t any high school in the nearby areas. She had to walk 15 km daily, amidst hilly terrain and swamp, to the only high school in the entire region (Patitapaban High School in Gambharimunda), amidst that she emerged as the first woman to pass high school examination in her village.
After completing her schooling from Patitapaban High School in Gambharimunda, the family shifted to Puri for her college education. With little financial gain from the village farmland, it became difficult to sustain the rest of the family. Soon after passing the intermediate examination, she had to work to support her family and her studies. She earned a B.A. in Economics from Government Women’s College, Puri, and M.A. in Odia literature from Utkal University. She obtained a Bachelor of Laws from G.M. Law College, Puri.
The life story of Manasi Pradhan has been adopted as documentaries in the United States and Israel. In November 2009, she launched the Honour for Women National Campaign, a nationwide movement to end violence against women in India. The movement has been instrumental in popularizing and bringing awareness to the nation against women atrocities. The movement employs a strategy to fight the menace of violence against women in India. It uses a variety of vehicles i.e. women’s rights stalls, women’s rights festivals, women’s rights meets, women’s rights literature, audio-visual displays, street plays and many more, to raise awareness on legal and institutional provisions to fight atrocities on women.
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