\"Science is not for girls\". That was the stern admonition many women scientists heard before they charted successful careers in a rapidly changing India, steering the country\'s defence programme, working industriously in laboratories to help achieve breakthroughs or spending years in furthering the cause of academic research.

In the decades past, women fought outright rejection from society and institutions and familial disapproval to pursue careers in pure science, technology and related sectors to become role models for many thousands.

The efforts paid off. And the growing tribe of women scientists and technologists is evidence of that.

There is no paradox, asserts Tessy Thomas, who has been working on the development of strategic weapons and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles for the last two decades.

Thomas, 50, who guided the team behind Agni-V, India\'s indigenously developed, 5,000-km range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, says there is no gender discrimination in science.

\"There is no gender discrimination in science because science does not know who is working for it. When I reach there for work I am no more a woman. I am only the scientist,\" Tessy, who credits her mother for her dizzying climb as a defence scientist, had told IANS in an earlier interview.

A rare woman in a male bastion, the scientist at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) recalled that women were two to three percent of the scientific community at DRDO in the past. \"Now they are 12 to 15 percent.\"

The Indian government has also worked hard, initiating various schemes and scholarships, to encourage young women to take up science as a career.

\"Women constitute 50 percent of our population, but the number is not equally represented in the field of science. However, things are improving and several schemes are being run to encourage women in science,\" said Vinita Sharma, head of the Science for Equity, Empowerment and Development (SEED) division, Department of Science and Technology.

Acknowledging that women often take a career break due to motherhood and family responsibilities and find it difficult to get back, the government has stepped in with the Women Scientists Scheme (WOS). It is aimed at scientists and technologists between the ages of 30-50 years who want to return to mainstream science and work as bench-level scientists.

Through this endeavor, a concerted effort is being made to give women a strong foothold,  help them to not just re-enter the mainstream but also provide a launch pad for further forays.

Under this scheme, women scientists are being encouraged to pursue research in frontier areas of science and engineering on issues of societal relevance and to take up science and technology-based internships followed by self-employment.

Disha (direction in Hindi) is one such scheme. It has got an overwhelming response from women, raring to return to mainstream research. The number of applicants seeking scholarship has more than doubled in last few years.

The government has also been making efforts to attract talent at the school and college levels.

One such initiative \'to catch them young\' is the \"The Balancing Act\", a book that contains the stories of 21 women who pioneered science in the 1960s when the field was male-dominated.

The book tells the myriad stories of difficulties faced by these women - inspirations all - and how they conquered them to pursue their science dream.

Among the pioneers was Rajinder Jeet Hans-Gill, who retired as mathematics professor from Panjab University. She had to dress up as a boy by tying a turban and wearing shorts so she could join school, as there was nothing for girls back in the 1950s in Nawanshahr district in north India\'s Punjab state.

Finally, she graduated in mathematics from a boy\'s college.

Then there was Rama Govindaraj, an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumnus, who was not allowed to enter the premises of a chemical company for a training programme as she was a woman.

\"I was told that a certificate would be given to me and there was no need to attend the training as I was the only woman among so many men and was given an excuse that I don\'t have appropriate clothes. I asserted and told them that I could handle and wear whatever was appropriate and wore the only pair of jeans I have throughout the month-long training,\" Govindaraj has said.

Manju Ray, an enzymologist at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, had to struggle to educate herself while living in a small village in what is now Bangladesh.

During her Class 10 examination, Ray, a Hindu, had to stay with a Muslim family to avoid eight-nine hours of travel to school. She and her family were rejected by the community for this.

The book, a detailed retelling about the struggle, perseverance, courage and success of the 21 women, has been written by SPARROW - a trust set up in 1988 in Mumbai to build national archives for women with print, oral history and pictorial material.

\"The book is for young people eager to know who their foremothers in science are in India. There have been many extraordinary women scientists in India from early 20th century onwards,\" said SPARROW director C.S. Lakshmi.

The book is for those young girls who want to break stereotype images and knock at the doors of science with determination and courage.

\"It is a path less travelled but nevertheless, a path already laid out by several others,\" Lakshmi said.

Hans-Gill, Ray and Govindaraj and the challenges they faced are the building blocks on which have rested the careers of so many women scientists. Their increasing numbers recall the words of India\'s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru: \"The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science\".