On Ganesh Chaturthi, actress and human rights ambassador Sheena Chohan, gifted CM Eknath Shinde a human rights presentation from humanrights.com, the world’s largest non-governmental human rights awareness campaign, and accepted his invitation to join his women’s rights campaign.

Sheena Chohan, at the CM’s house for the Ganpati celebrations, said: ”The Honorable Mr. Shinde’s activities to help women in Maharashtra is making great progress for women’s rights and I’m delighted to be invited to speak to his audience of 1 lakh women, on the subject of women’s rights on 19th September.

At this time the most important issue for women is safety – women need to be given respect and the way to achieve that is through education of both males and females in basic rights and equality. Human rights are how to create a decent society, so we must ensure all people know their basic rights and responsibilities. The Honorable Minister Ekanth Shinde’s activities towards women’s rights are being done at the right scale and I can’t wait to lend my efforts towards helping him achieve equality and non-discrimination in the state of Maharashtra.”

Hon. Eknath Shinde has taken strides to ensure equality through the inclusion of mother’s names in government documents, free professional education to women below the poverty line, financial aid for the purchase of pink autorickshaws and a public programme of the women empowerment mission in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.

Sheena Chohan was given the Hero Award at the United Nations for her work spreading awareness of basic rights and equality to 172 million people. She was given the Lifetime Achievement Award, signed by US President Biden for her human rights work. Sheena was the first Indian that the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk’s office asked to help promote the UN’s 75th anniversary of human rights. Sheena is the only Indian celebrity followed by the UN’s human rights’ office (@unitednationshumanrights) on Instagram.

Sheena said: ”The Indian Constitution is one of the most admired human rights documents in the world and, along with the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, contains the basic rights that guarantee women, and all Indians, peace, unity and equality.

Discrimination, the right to education, social security, domestic violence and child labour are the major human rights concerns in India and the way to address these issues is human rights awareness and education campaigns. I’m delighted to join the Honorable Chief Minister in his excellent activities to bring women their rights, and hope that he will agree with my call for mandatory human rights education in all schools in Maharashtra.”

Sheena Chohan is preparing for the release of Sant Tukaram, a feature film where she plays the female lead – Avali – opposite Subodh Bhave. Sant Tukaram is directed by Aditya Om and produced by Purushottam Studios.

Sheena won eight Best Actress Awards for her film Amar Prem, produced by Manoj Pandya of Great Indian and Television, which was launched by the Joint Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Honorable Sanjiv Shankar, in the Bharat Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival.

After five years of theatre in Delhi, Sheena Chohan was launched alongside Malayalam megastar Mammootty in a film by seven time National Award Winner Jayaraj. She played the lead in two films by National Award Winner Buddhadeb Dasgupta and was nominated as Best Actress at the Dubai Film Festival where Shekhar Kapur was jury head, for her film Ant Story, which was bought by Netflix. Sheena plays a lead alongside JD Chakravathy in an upcoming Telagu thriller.

Sheena played alongside Madhuri Dixit in the Fame Game and Kajol in The Trial and won the Best Actress in a Comedy Role Award for her lead role in the comedy drama Ex Mates, at the ILLA Awards.

Sheena is the South Asia Ambassador for humanrights.com, for which she was awarded the Human Rights Hero Award at the United Nations. Sheena’s human rights podcast Born Free & Equal worked with stars like Sonakshi Sinha, Preety Zinta, Raveena Tandon, Sonu Sood, and many more. In June 2024, she was awarded the Presidents’ award in the US, signed by President Biden for her human rights work.