Asha Pande
Dr. Asha Pande was a professor and the first Indian woman to receive the Légion d'honneur She was the founder-director of Rajasthan University's Master in European Studies programme and headed the Department of "Dramatics at Rajasthan University", and "Center for French and Francophone Studies". She has been honored for promoting French language in India. She died on October 4, 2018 due to liver ailment. Work. After working at Banaras Hindu University for a few months in 1977 prior to her marriage, she served as a teacher in Jaipur's Maheshwari Public School before founding the Indo -French Cultural Society for promoting academic and cultural relations between France, the Francophone countries and India in 1982. In 1987, she got an offer from Rajasthan University as 'Assistant Professor'. Seventeen years later, despite being the only permanent faculty in French, in 2004, she started the Masters and PhD courses in French. Her tireless efforts resulted in mentoring and training teachers for more than 50 institutions teaching French at school level and 10 at the college level in the state of Rajasthan. Her recent efforts are for university level cooperation which can benefit universities student and faculty exchange programmes. She  was the founder Director of International Cooperation Cell, University of RAJASTHAN. She was Professor and was Head twice of the Department of ELLCS, earlier known as Department of Modern European Languages. She served University from 1987 to 2014. She was also founder co-ordinator of Centre for European Studies, a Centre created under UGC Area Studies programme from September 2012 till June 2014. She superannuated from University of Rajasthan in 2014. She continues to be Adjunct faculty teaching French Literature to Master Level students. Total five Doctorate degrees have already been awarded in French Literature and two in Dramatics under  her guidance by University of Rajasthan. She continues to give her voluntary services to Indo French Cultural Society (IFCS) as Hon Director of Centre for English and Foreign Languages (CEFL) since its inception. Notes. September 28, 2009, French Ambassador, Jérome Bonnafont, sent a letter mentioning that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had signed the decree nominating her for the honour. She is one of few Indians who have received this honour, other Indians being Satyajit Ray, Ravi Shankar, R.K. Pachauri, Amitabh Bachchan and Amartya Sen. The award was conferred on her by the Ambassador of France on 22 January 2010  at Bonjour India Festival during Jaipur Literary Festival at Jaipur.