Shobhana Ranade
Indian social worker and gandhian
Shobhana Ranade (26 October 1924 – 4 August 2024) was an Indian social worker and Gandhian, known for her services towards her cause of destitute women and children. The Government of India honoured her in 2011, with the Padma Bhushan—the third highest civilian award—for her services to the society.
Biography
Ranade was born on 26 October 1924, Poona, in the Bombay Presidency. The turning point in her life came in 1942, when she was 18, when she met Mahatma Gandhi at the Aga Khan Palace, in Poona, which resulted in the young Shobhana taking up Gandhian ideals for the rest of her life.
Ranade's life was devoted to the cause of destitute women and children. Her social career took a turn, in 1955, when she went to North Lakhimpur, Assam, joining a padyatra (walkathon) with Vinobha Bhave and helped setting up the Maitreyee Ashram and a Shishu Niketan, the first child welfare centre in the region. She also started the campaign, Adim Jaati Seva Sangh, a program for imparting training to Naga women on charkha weaving.
In 1979, she returned to Pune and helped founding the Gandhi National Memorial Society and an institute for women for training, based at Aga Khan Palace.
In 1998, Ranade, under the aegis of the Gandhi National Memorial Society, established the Kasturba Mahila Khadi Gramodyog Vidyalaya, an institute for destitute women, for training them in 20 village trades and skills.
She started an SOS children's village in Maharashtra, under the name, Balgram Maharashtra which has now grown to provide a home to 1600 orphans.
The public source identifies “Shobhana Ranade” as indian social worker and gandhian. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Shobhana, Ranade and Indian.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Shobhana Ranade”, the useful work is to connect “indian social worker and gandhian” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17517343. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1924, 2024, 2011 and 1942.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Shobhana Ranade”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Shobhana Ranade primary sources, Shobhana Ranade archive and Shobhana research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Shobhana Ranade”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Shobhana Ranade” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.