Changing values and globalisation are behind the rise of Indian women to positions of power in many businesses.
Women can also loo to the increasing number of role models in Indian business, such as Meher Pudumjee, chairperson of engineering company Thermax, and Shobna Bhartia, vice-chairman and editorial director of the Hindustan Times. Although their ascent is partly a function of family inheritance, many professional managers have worked their way up into top management positions - for example, Renuka Ramnath, chief executive of ICICI Venture, and Ranjana Kumar, chairperson of the National Ban for Agriculture and Rural Development. Below, we loo at four examples of female success.
NEELAM DHAWAN - managing director, Microsoft India
Neelam Dhawan has worked her way up the corporate ladder. She began her career in the IT industry nearly 22 years ago, working at IBM and HCL, and later at Hewlett Packard India as vice-president of the customer solutions group, before joining Microsoft India as managing director in February 2005.
Dhawan joined the IT industry at a time when few knew how fast the sector would grow in India, and she has taken on her new assignment at a time when Microsoft has big plans for India. In December 2005, chairman Bill Gates announced that the company will invest $1.7 billion in India over the next four years.
Although Dhawan's appointment created a ripple at the time, she does not believe her gender has been a factor: "I have not felt hindered because I am a woman." Dhawan attributes her successes to three drivers: her commitment to the challenging roles at every juncture in her career; her association with high-growth phases in the companies she has worked for; and her understanding of customer needs in a changing business environment.
Dhawan says there is a need for women in technology, particularly the business of technology, and she believes that India has what it takes to nurture female entrepreneurship. "It is one of the few countries where the constitution granted equal rights to women and men, right from the start."
KIRAN MAZUMDAR-SHAW - chairman and managing director, Biocon India
Mazumdar-Shaw has come a long way since the day in 1978, when a chance meeting with Leslie Auchinclaus of Biocon Biochemicals in Ireland resulted in her being coaxed into business. Thus, Biocon India was born. "From then on, there was no looking bac and Biocon today is a 28-year-old success story," says India's richest woman and head of one of the country's most successful enterprises.
Mazumdar-Shaw has overseen Biocon's transition from an industrial enzymes company to an integrated biopharmaceutical company with strategic research initiatives. It is now worth over $1 billion and Mazumdar-Shaw herself is worth an estimated $440 million.
In 2005, she entered Fortune magazine's list of the 50 most powerful women in international business and has been referred to as "India's mother of invention" by the New Yor Times. In recognition of her success in helping to build India's biotechnology industry, she has received several awards from the Indian government, including the prestigious Padma Shree and Padma Bushen.
When she first started, she says, her main worries were her gender, age, inexperience and lac of finance. However, she now believes that knowledge does not have a gender divide: "I have always felt that being a woman provides us with special attributes: compassion, sensitivity, multi-tasking and the inner strength to excel."
RITU KUMAR - fashion designer, Ritika
Ritu Kumar is the diva of Indian fashion. The size of her financial empire is not known, since Ritika, the manufacturer and distributor of the 'Ritu' label, is a private company. But what is clear is the extent to which the industry has changed since she began in 1977.
"Opportunities when I started 29 years ago were few and far between," says Kumar. "Today, there are huge opportunities, with little distinction between men and women. Nowadays, women expect to compete with men on an even playing field." Kumar is credited with reviving some of India's dying crafts, such as zardozi (an ancient form of embroidery from Persia using gold thread), kantha (delicate embroidery from the state of West Bengal) and khasida (intricate embroidery from Kashmir).
She sits on the board of governors of India's prestigious fashion school, the National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFD), while her boo , Costumes and Textiles of Royal India, has been published by Christie's, London, and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, has shown a retrospective exhibition.
Kumar, who started with a handful of bloc printers and two tables in Calcutta, has production centres in New Delhi and Calcutta, and directly employs 200 workers, while indirectly providing livelihood to 3,000 craftspeople.
In total, 13 fashion boutiques in Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Amritsar and Chandigarh retail the 'Ritu' label.
Men should participate in empowering women
Men should be involved in the process of improving the imbalanced sex ratio in the Asia Pacific region and help empower women, said Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury Monday.
Addressing the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSH) here, Chowdhury said: 'We must start looking at the issue of imbalanced sex ratio holistically and get the men, especially the younger lot, involved in improving the condition.
'It is important to make the men realise that empowering women doesn't mean dis-empowering them. I thin that it's time we listen to the men's point of view and use that to improve the situation,' Chowdhury said.
India's population, according to the last census in 2001, was 1.03 billion, becoming the second country in the world after China to cross the one billion mar .
However, the sex ratio continues to be dismal. Between 1991-2001, 70 districts in 16 states and union territories in India recorded more than a 50-point decline in the child sex ratio.
In places like Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, the sex ratio is less than 900 girls to every 1,000 boys.
According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with an increase in pre-natal son selection, which is rampant in most of the Asian countries, there is bound to be dire consequences.
'To begin with, this will lead to enormous pressure on the female population which will be heavily outnumbered by males.
'A growing number of men will be unable to find wives, which in turn will lead to rise in sexual violence and trafficking in women,' Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of UNFPA, told IANS.
If the sex ratio remains the same by 2040-50, there will be a 28 million surplus male population in India.
Although it is believed that the preference for a male child in India and in many other Asian countries is because of cultural and economic reasons, Chowdhury said that she doesn't believe that this is the case.
'Loo at China. It attracts the world's largest amount of foreign direct investments (FDI), yet its sex ratio is not ideal. Many prosperous families in India still prefer a son to a daughter.
'And as far as culture as concerned, I thin it is simply a convenient excuse for people to oppress a gender,' she said.
'At the end I thin that in treating the imbalanced sex ratio, men should be made equal participants. Only then can the problem be solved
