Suniti Devi

Sunity Devi CIE was the Maharani of the princely state of Cooch Behar, British India. In 1887, her husband, Nipendra Narayan was awarded GCIE and she was awarded CIE. Suniti Devi became the first Indian women to be awarded CIE. She attended the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria in 1898 and Delhi Durbar of 1911 with her husband, the Maharaja of Cooch Behar. She along with her sister, the Sucharu Devi, were noted for their elegant style dressing. Her husband had set up in her name a girls school named Suniti Academy in 1881 which was later named Suniti Academy. Suniti Devi was the brain behind the establishment of the school. She was an educationalist and a women's rights activist at heart, gave annual grants for the institution, exempted the girl students from paying tuition fees and also rewarded the successful students. She had arranged for palace cars to ferry the girl students from home to school and back. In a further effort to avoid any controversy she ordered that the windows of the cars carrying the girls to school to be covered by curtains.