Irom Chanu Sharmila (born 14 March 1972),[1] also known as the "Iron Lady[2]" or "Mengoubi" ("the fair one")[3] is a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur. On 2 November 2000,[4] she began a hunger strike which she ended on 9 August 2016, after 16 years of fasting. Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she has been called "the world's longest hunger striker".[5] On International Women’s Day, 2014 she was voted the top woman icon of India by MSN Poll.[6][7]