Seema Rao – A Real Indian Hero

Seema Rao is the daughter of freedom fighter Prof. Ramakant Sinari, who helped in the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese. The deeply patriotic Seema grew up listening to stories of India’s struggle for independence and always wanted to serve her country. She finally had the opportunity to convert this desire into reality when she met her future husband, Major Deepak Rao, at the age of 16. Major Rao had been practising martial arts since the age of 12 and it was he who introduced Seema to this empowering field.

Major Deepak Rao is Seema’s co-pioneer in the field of close quarter battle training. In 2011, he received the President of India’s rank award for his 20 years of contribution to the Indian Army. Others who have been honoured with the same award are Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Abhinav Bindra.

After marriage, the couple continued to learn and excel in martial arts, shooting, and weapon defence while they simultaneously pursued an education in medicine. After becoming certified doctors, Deepak equipped himself with the prestigious CLET Law Enforcement certification, while Seema did her MBA in crisis management. The formidable couple then started thinking about how they could channelise their desire to do something constructive for the country. After much thought, they decided to train the soldiers of the Indian armed forces without accepting any compensation in return.

There were two factors that inspired them to take up this Herculean challenge. One was the desire to serve the personnel who guard India and the other was their instinctive need to remain engaged in combat and martial arts. So, in 1996, they approached the Service Chiefs of Army, Navy, BSF NSG. The chiefs were impressed with the couple’s dedication and decided to try out their training programme. There was no looking back after that.
Seema has since spent 20 years as a full-time guest trainer of the Indian armed forces.