Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan

Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan (born 12 November 1983) is India's first openly transgender civil servant, working in the Odisha Financial Services (OFS) as a commercial tax officer. Pradhan successfully joined the OFS in 2010, and legally changed her gender identity in 2015, after the Indian Supreme Court's 2014 ruling, recognising the transgender community as the third gender. Pradhan has said that she was ridiculed throughout school, sexually abused in college, and her abilities questioned when she joined the civil services. However, since she has proven herself and established her trans identity, she says, "now things have become relatively easier". She also has a post graduate degree in public administration.