{"id":318272,"date":"2026-08-11T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T01:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318272\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T01:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T01:00:10","slug":"rising-queens-rising-above-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318272\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising Queens, Rising Above Barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That one text became the foundation of what was then India\u2019s first and largest community of hearing impaired digital entrepreneurs \u2014 Rising Queens, a movement that had grown from one woman to over 4,000, and showed absolutely no signs of slowing down. Rising Queens recently brought its much-anticipated Hyderabad Queen Contest to the city \u2014 a vibrant, celebratory event, packed with a ramp walk, live music and dance, product showcases and recognitions. \u201cIt\u2019s a stage for queens. A spotlight for you,\u201d as their own words put it. And for Deepika, that spotlight had always been about more than just an event. Talking of this community, she had built her life\u2019s work around a community whose world she had to consciously, deliberately choose to enter. \u201cAt first, I relied a lot on text, writing, and team members who knew Indian Sign Language (ISL) to communicate,\u201d she recalled. Over time, she began learning ISL herself \u2014 not because it was required, but because she felt it was right. She added, \u201cFor me, learning sign language wasn\u2019t just about communication. It was about respect \u2014 showing the community that I\u2019m willing to meet them halfway. I\u2019m still learning, and I make mistakes, but the women in Rising Queens are patient and teach me along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That one text became the foundation of what was then India\u2019s first and largest community of hearing impaired&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[120055,120057,9,24,63,122,124,123,120056],"class_list":["post-318272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-deepika-bhatia","tag-hyderabad-rising-queens-contest","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-rising-queens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}