Innholdsfortegnelse for January 1, 2024 i India Today

Indian women have been on the rise for the past few decades. It has now become very evident. India’s leading astrophysicist. Space entrepreneurs. A scientist at the helm of our mission to the Sun. A bureaucrat who runs the Indian railways down here on terra firma. Supreme Court justices. CEOs of major multinational corporations. Owners of businesses that span the gamut from healthcare, technology, software, pharma and banks to conglomerates in the buzzing world of social media and entertainment. Chairperson of SEBI. A vice-chancellor. A vice admiral. A champion boxer. A crack commando trainer. They are all women. And these are but a few of the leading examples of women who have shattered the glass ceiling in style. There are compelling reasons to honour those who “hold up half the…

Q. How crucial are the victories in the three states in the Hindi heartland for the BJP’s planning for the 2024 general election? J.P. Nadda: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been recognised as a credible leader throughout India. He has taken care of every section of society—the common man, women, farmers and the marginalised—through ‘Modi’s guarantees’. Across the country, the common man feels that the country is secure in his able hands. In Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the governments were facing anti-incumbency due to corruption, nepotism, deteriorating law and order and false promises to the youth. If the former had the red diary scandal, the latter was beset by the Mahadev App controversy. Paper leaks happened in both states. The youth were disgruntled, farmers felt cheated. But in Madhya Pradesh, there…

ACHILD SAVED FROM A NEARLETHAL bout of diphtheria in a railway hospital verandah in Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram in the 1960s, a rebellious JNU student who joined a gherao of the vice-chancellor in the 1980s, a scholar who doubled up as a sales girl with the best Christmas numbers at a home décor store on London’s Regent Street, a fixture in the Forbes 50 Most Powerful Women list…. If you draw a graph for the life of Nirmala Sitharaman, she’d gladly see it replicated on India’s economic charts. It’s not a country ever easy on its finance ministers. If being its first full-time woman FM promised to be doubly onerous, the strain rarely showed—despite the malefic hand of a pandemic that set the clock back for the whole world. Sitharaman set…

A WOMAN GODHEAD AS AN ELEMENTAL FORCE—like a storm or the earth itself. In terms of psychological geography, Bengal is still fertile soil for this ancient archetype. And you can well imagine her as a piece of Kalighat patua art painted on a sari: an incarnation of totemic feminine power stomping on male divinities, as a series of larger-than-life rivals, beginning from Jyoti Basu, have found. So when even the BJP ruefully likened Mamata Banerjee to “Goddess Durga”, it went beyond a casual association. It spoke to some quintessence of Didi’s persona: earthy, truculent, always coming at you with such gale-force as to seem supernal. Of course, like the earth, Mamata has her seasons. Throughout her 40 years in politics, she has changed her deportment at will. From being Rajiv…

■ As the Chairman of NMDC, how do you define effective leadership, and what principles guide your leadership style? Effective leadership is rooted in building a balance between the short-term and longterm goals of the organization, to drive the company's growth. Our approach is based on a strategie plan that harmoniously integrates both immediate and future targets. This plan serves as a roadmap for the company, clearly defining the steps we need to take to achieve our goals and performance metrics that are used to track progress. We ensure that the set goals are SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. This approach is delivering commendable outcomes for NMDC. The implementation of an all-inclusive Pricing Mechanism for iron ore, operationalization of the Kumar Marenga intermediary stockyard, and the…

FOR VARTIKA SHUKLA, EXCELLENCE is not an exception but a rule—which she has been following for the past 35 years. It’s evident in her career trajectory. The chairperson and managing director (CMD) of Engineers India Ltd (EIL), who commenced her professional journey with the state-run engineering consultancy firm as a management trainee way back in 1988, eventually rose to the helm of leadership in 2021. A Chemical Engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur, Vartika hails from a family of engineers, educationists and lawyers in Lucknow. She says she has stayed the course till today at the company due to the exposure, the wide variety of professional challenges and the immense learning opportunities. “The company enabled me to grow along with the growth in the sector,” she says. She notes that the…

RAVNEET KAUR HAD NO TIME TO SOAK IN the sense of personal accomplishment when she took charge of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in May 2023 as its first woman head. The organisation’s work was poised at a rather critical juncture. Investigating transnational technology giants like Google, Apple and Meta for allegedly engaging in anti-competitive conduct was no small matter. Nor was safeguarding small businesses against predatory pricing from ecommerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. There was a massive backlog of cases too—in fact, the CCI had been functioning without a head and with just two members for several months before Ravneet joined it. The first priority was to clear pending cases. “Before my appointment, a significant backlog had accumulated, primarily due to a lack of quorum. By streamlining…

Q1. An initiative to inform students about the various growth options available to them, has now grown into an enabler that reaches out to them and hand holds them in their efforts to join the mainstream. When and why did you first realize the need for widening your scope of involvement? Ans: After facing confusion in career choices post my 12th Standard, I missed crucial exams due to lack of guidance. This led to the inception of FUEL, an institution focused on reducing unemployment and guiding youth. Our Edu Connect program provides skill training aligned with industry needs. I wrote a book on empowering youth, sent it to Dr. Kalam, and he tasked me with training 10 million youth. My burning desire to fulfill this target is aimed at serving…

FOR VRINDA GROVER, human rights are universal. Defending the four accused in the Nirbhaya rape case against a death sentence, was, thus, more than just a job for her. “I had no difficulty in representing the convicts because I believe no matter how heinous the offence, the death penalty is neither a deterrent nor does it change the lives and circumstances of the victims of the offence. It simply gives greater arbitrary power to the state,” she says. Yet, on the other hand, Grover has consistently stood alongside rape and assault victims. In the Bilkis Bano case, when the accused were given remission, she intervened against the decision. In her 30 years of practising human rights law in India, she says the strength to continue to fight for justice comes…

AS A CHILD, ANNAPURNI SUBRAMANIAM would settle down to study for a couple of hours before dawn—the coolest time during the Palakkad summer. That was when she first got curious about the night sky. “I used to see the Milky Way every morning. I didn’t know what it was…it was a cloud patch in the same part of the sky every morning. That’s not possible, right? So, I knew it was not atmospheric. But there was nobody you could discuss this with,” she says. Looking for a career in research after her master’s degree in Physics, Annapurni was always clear that she wanted to take up ‘anything to do with the sky’. That led her to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), where she opted for an astronomy programme conducted…

INDIA, WHICH HAS LONG HAD the reputation of being the world’s tuberculosis (TB) capital, had in 2017 set the target of eliminating the disease from the country by 2025. The 67-year-old National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai, led by Dr Padma Priya, plays a vital role in striving to meet that goal. The institute, renowned for its clinical trials expertise, has not only been studying possibilities for a TB vaccine but also a stool-based diagnostics method for one of the biggest killer infections in India. In the last year, the institute put out around 35 research publications. But TB is not the only fight NIRT is fighting. “Our work was astounding during the lockdown too. We were working in rotation and also played a key role in…

AS THE HEAD AND COFOUNDER of Spaceport SARABHAI, or S2, India’s first and only ‘space’ think tank, Susmita Mohanty’s sole mission since she first became an entrepreneur 22 years back has been to position her country as a global space power. Born in Cuttack and raised in Ahmedabad, Susmita, whose father Nilamani Mohanty was an ISRO scientist, is perhaps the only space entrepreneur today to have co-founded companies on three continents: EARTH2ORBIT in Bengaluru (2009-2021), LIQUIFER Systems Group in Vienna (2004—), and MOONFRONT in San Francisco (2001-2007). Through EARTH-2ORBIT, Susmita played a pivotal role in enabling the first-ever launch agreement between the American Skybox and India’s Antrix. That half-a-decade-long ‘technology diplomacy’ paved the way for many more American satellites to be launched on the Indian PSLV rocket. “With technology diplomacy,…

COMMISSIONED INTO THE ARMED FORCES MEDICAL SERVICES, Vice-admiral Arti Sarin also has the rare distinction of serving in all three services in an illustrious career of close to four decades. The surgeon vice-admiral’s room in Sena Bhawan has a painting of Maharishi Sushrut performing surgery, perhaps a nod to her yeoman service as a doctor in the service. Sarin completed her MBBS from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, and has specialised in radiation oncology. In addition, she has trained in Gamma Knife Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, US. She is now in charge of close to 7,000 medical naval personnel. The vice-admiral, the only three-star rank woman officer in the sea-faring force, was born in a naval family. Her father was a career naval officer as was her…

THERE ARE SOME ACHIEVERS WHO DEFY description, so extraordinary are the different strands that make them. India’s only woman commando trainer, Seema Rao, is one of them. A lethal force, she has over the years trained 20,000 commandos (two entire divisions, if you will)—without any compensation. Seema has also studied Immunology at Harvard Medical School and has an MBA from Westminster Business School. As if all this is not enough, she is a Mrs India World beauty pageant runner-up. Her life’s work, however, is in the alpha male dominion of special forces combat. The Nari Shakti Puraskar awardee has also been training police anti-terror squads since 2009. Seema spent her youth in freezing high altitudes, dense jungles and the hostile Line of Control (LoC)—places where she fractured every bone in…

IT WAS IN 2014 THAT ISHA AMBANI took on a management role in group businesses at Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India’s largest private sector company. Both Isha and her twin brother Akash then joined the relatively new-age businesses of the group, Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Retail Ventures, as directors at the age of 24, the same age their father Mukesh Ambani was when he joined his father Dhirubhai Ambani’s business in 1981. Isha, who graduated from Yale University with majors in psychology and South Asian studies in 2013, had a brief stint with McKinsey in the US before joining the family business. She later completed her MBA from Stanford University in 2018. Isha is married to childhood friend and now businessman Anand Piramal, son of industrialist Ajay Piramal and Dr…

FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW, Kaku Nakhate has made Bank of America (BoA) the ultimate destination for foreign investors interested in the Indian market—shepherding, for ex-ample, Facebook’s $5.7-billion investment in Reliance Jio in 2020. Similarly, it has provided a guiding hand to Indian start-ups. But the president and India country head of Bank of America is the proudest when securing deals that could significantly contribute to India’s net zero targets. BofA Securities, Bank of America’s investment banking division, recently advised Gentari, the renewable energy arm of Malaysian energy giant PETRONAS, on their $1.5 billion investment in AM Green, the Indian green hydrogen/ammonia platform that aims to produce 5 million tonnes of green ammonia annually by 2030. “It is a source of pride for us and our country. In the renewable sector,…

FROM BEING THE 28TH employee at Kotak Mahindra Bank when it was an NBFC (non-banking financial company) to witnessing its steady rise as a firm with an over-100,000-strong team and which bestrides the world of personal finance, investment banking, life insurance and wealth management like a colossus, Shanti Ekambaram has played a pivotal role in this transformation. Currently serving as a whole-time director (from November 2022) responsible for treasury, digital and other functions, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental social governance (ESG), Shanti is now focused on building the brand Kotak. No wonder, she is the person behind Kotak’s branding in Kaun Banega Crorepati. However, the achievement she treasures the most dates back to 1999, when she introduced to India the global practice of book building—where an underwriter determines…

ZARIN DARUWALA KNOWS HOW TO TURN THE TABLES on advertising Maybe because her go-to motto comes from double amputee mountaineer Mark Inglis whose message was “your attitude determines your altitude”. Since she took over as the Cluster CEO of Standard Chartered Bank for India and South Asia Markets in April 2016, it has been a roller-coaster ride for Zarin. One of India’s oldest foreign banks (at 165 years), StanChart was going through a challenging phase, marked by mounting bad debts and increasing losses. However, the bank’s journey over the last few years has been nothing short of extraordinary. Its profit before tax increased six-fold from Rs 1,122 crore in FY16 to Rs 6,368 crore in FY23. Gross NPAs to advances also dipped dramatically from a high of 14.1 per cent…

IN 2021, WHEN HINA NAGARA JAN TOOK OVER AS CEO OF DIAGEO INDIA, her appointment caused more than a stir, both in the alcobev industry as well as in the country. “It piqued interest, with a lot of media reports complimenting me as a woman CEO in the alcobev industry and my phone and Linked In were abuzz with congratulatory messages. Although over the years, there has been a shift in the narrative from being a ‘woman leader’ to a ‘business leader’,” she says. A strong advocate of creating opportunities for women, Hina contributes to Inclusion & Diversity Programmes at work. It is this inclusiveness that is as much a personal goal as now a quasi-official workplace ethic at the company. “As a woman leading the largest alcobev company in…

Managing Director, JIS Group Mr. Taranjit Singh, the Managing Director of JIS Group Educational Initiatives, shares his late father’s Vision, Sardar Jodh Singh, of igniting minds and empowering lives through the light of education. Bom into very humble beginnings, today he leads the largest premier education service provider in Eastern India, comprising over 39 Educational Institutes offering more than 185 course programs, with over 45,000 students currently enrolled in these diverse academie programs. Mr. Singh is widely recognised across Eastern India for his path-breaking and visionary contributions in molding the future generations of modem India through his pioneering role as an education evangelist and corporate leader. Over the years, he has transformed the educational landscape of the country, setting new standards In self-financed quality and practical education. He also played…

WHEN IT CAME TO LIFE AND CAREER decisions, Vibha Padalkar preferred to tread off the beaten path. She could have emulated her mother, a civil servant, or chosen a career in engineering as her father. What excited her more was the jet-setting corporate life of an uncle. Born and schooled in Chennai, she did her CA course in London as her father was posted there in the Indian High Commission. She landed a job in London when she was just 19. It was here that she formed what she calls a “world vision”. Back in India, she worked first with Colgate Palmolive, before moving on to WNS Global Services, a business process management firm. It was around the time when its ownership changed from British Airways to private equity firm Warburg…

HERE’S MUSIC TO MANY EARS! India’s oldest music newlease of life under Avarna Jain’s stewardship. “Saregama was the market leader in the ’80s but slowly lost its position. This was worri-some. We were sitting on this repository of Indian music that was gold, and weren’t doing anything about it,” says with a Avarna, vice-chairperson of Saregama India. Formerly known as The Gramophone Company of India Ltd, and Master’s Voice), Saregama the first overseas Indian was established in 1901 as branch of Electric & Musical Industries Ltd, London. Today, the company—owned by Kolkata-headquartered RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group revenue of $4.3 billion (Rs 36,000 crore)—has the largest repertoire of music under its label in India, has entered into the OTT film, live concerts, and movie production segments as well. How did Avarna steer the…

One such outcome is the Lokmanya Multipurpose Co-operative Society. Popularly known as the Lokmanya Society, It was started by the common people, for the common people, out of sheer social commitment. In a brief period of 28 years, the organization has won the trust of the masses with its reliable and transparent services. Lokmanya Multi-purpose Co-operative Society was incepted on 31st August 1995, by Founder Chairman Shri Kiran Thakur to support the youth to get employment and to further create employment for others by becoming entrepreneurs themselves. His intent has manifested into a powerful initiative today. Lokmanya Society has expanded its presence across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi and Goa. With a network of 213 branches, it has docked a whopping Rs. 7700 crores in deposits and serves more than 1 million…

FOR A VERY LONG TIME, Neerja Birla toyed with the that would cater exclusively to issues related to mental health. However, family matters took precedence over everything else, especially raising her three children—Ananya, Aryaman and Advaitesha to industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla when she was just 18 (her husband was 22 then), Neerja comes from the prominent Kasliwal business family behind the S. Kumars Group. But in 2016, a late-night conversation with her elder daughter Ananya sealed her determination. said, ‘Just do it’ and I said ‘OK’.” The next morning, Neerja consulted a couple of people and jotted down what she wanted to achieve in the space of mental health. “I had a wish list ready, but there was no roadmap,” she says. Perhaps that helped, since she could draw her own…

RAMAYANA CIRCUIT: Under this scheme, the places associated with Lord Ram are being identified and developed from a tourism point of view. This also includes the Ram Vanagaman Path. BUDDHIST CIRCUIT: Tourism facilities are undergoing development in locations associated with the life of Gautam Buddha, including Kapilvastu, Kaushambi, Sarnath, Sankisa, Shravasti, and Kushinagar. BUNDELKHAND CIRCUIT: To make Bundelkhand a tourism hub, 31 ancient forts in this region are being developed as new tourist centres. BRAJ CIRCUIT: The spiritual center of Mathura-Vrindavan, coupled with the development of Agra’s renowned sites, is being extensively enhanced to create an appealing atmosphere. AWADH CIRCUIT: Monuments and spiritual sites In the Avadh region, renowned for their rich culture, cuisine, literature, and spirituality, are undergoing development. VIHDHYA VARANASI CIRCUIT: In addition to Varanasi, one of the…

Ever heard the sound of the glass ceiling breaking? Perhaps not. Because women accomplish that feat like they do everything else—with a quiet fortitude. Patience is a virtue they come naturally endowed with, so that when the time comes, they can wear any mantle with ease. That time has come. Women in India are becoming a rising force. Politically, their franchise is beginning to matter. Female voting percentages have been going up steadily in the country’s elections, be it to the Lok Sabha or to the lower houses of the state. Their turnout in the 2019 general election was 67.2 per cent, for the first time a few percentage points higher than for men. Political parties have, in fact, been quick to recognise the power of the woman voter and…

“SMRITI, WHO…?” IT WAS WITH a disarming smile at the waiting cameras that Priyanka Gandhi administered that put-down back in 2014, when asked about Smriti Irani going up against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. Her second stab at a Lok Sabha entry, it was only the sheer daring that saw Smriti come up short again—her debut attempt at giant-killing was against Kapil Sibal in 2004 (she had been drafted into the Rajya Sabha meanwhile, in 2011). She got her own back in 2019: this time, she defeated the Congress’s biggest star in his longtime family pocket borough. And this July, she recalled Priyanka’s brush-off in a sardonic tweet directed at the Grand Old Party. Usually, she doesn’t take that long with her repartee. Quick, keen-edged and flashing through the air like…

VERY EARLY IN LIFE, Madhabi Puri Buch got clarity about what mattered to her the most—creating an impact in whichever field of work she chose. Soon after completing her MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, she worked for a year with an NGO to see if her management skills would make a difference there. But NGOs weren’t as organised then. So, in 1989, she took up an offer from ICICI, then a development institution supporting manufacturing in a big way. There, she was mentored by top banker K.V. Kamath, for whom, Madhabi recalls, the gender or age of a person did not matter, as long as they delivered the goods. As ICICI evolved into a bank, Madhabi had new responsibilities coming her way. And her immediate boss handed down a lesson she…

BEING THE FIRST-EVER HEAD of India’s Railway Board—that monolithic, more than a century-old power centre once described by its own minister as “unwieldy” on the floor of Parliament—is but one of the many “firsts” in Jaya Varma Sinha’s 35 years of service. For instance, when she was appointed Railway Board Member (Operations & Business Development) in January 2023, she became the first-ever woman to head her cadre, the Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS). And a few years ago, when Jaya was directly in charge of India’s freight transportation in the Railway Board, Indian Railways saw the highest-ever growth of 20-plus per cent, crossing the 1.5 billion tonne-mark of goods carried annually. She was also instrumental in creating the Freight Operations Information System in the ’90s, the digital backbone for freight…

JUSTICE BANGALORE VENKATARAMIAH NAGARATHNA HAS often chosen the path untrodden. On January 2, the Supreme Court judge, who is known to be firm yet calm in the courtroom, declared that the 2016 demonetisation exercise was “unlawful” as the proposal was initiated by the Union government and not the central board of the Reserve Bank of India. The youngest and the only woman in the five-judge bench, she was the sole dissenting voice. The next day, she again differed on several points with the four other judges in a constitution bench that was examining whether guidelines should be framed to prevent ministers and other political leaders from making derogatory and hurtful public statements. Her judgment reaffirmed how the contours of permissible speech would be governed by the imperative of nurturing a…

IN 2018, DURING THE KARIM MORANI rape case trial, Karuna Nundy recalls walking into a courtroom and facing dozens of lawyers the accused had hired, including a former attorney-general and one of India’s top criminal lawyers. “As Dr. Seuss said, ‘there is no one alive who is Youer than you’. In difficult situations, one must play to one’s own strengths. That way you can make space for your case, your team and yourself even when the odds are against you,” she says. Eventually, the victim, who had six lawyers—one of them Nundy—won that case and Morani’s petition for anticipatory bail was dismissed. Says Nundy, “It was vital that my profession be a vocation. My parents had strong vocations, and these gave their lives purpose. Fighting for constitutional and human rights—and…

THE YOUNGEST OF THREE siblings and the only daughter of a schoolteacher, Nallathamby Kalaiselvi remembers having a brush with gender discrimination umpteen times while growing up in rural Ambasamudram in southern Tamil Nadu. But having supportive parents helped. After she completed her M.Sc. in chemistry from a government college in Coimbatore, her parents encouraged her to pursue a Ph.D.—not a common thing in those days. But that was not her calling. Kalaiselvi instead opted to pursue her passion in electrochemistry to develop lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries—the ones that power our mobile phones and electric cars today—when the technology was still at a nascent stage. It was a study tour to the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)’s Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) in Karaikudi in 1989 that had motivated her…

PROVIDENCE HAS PLAYED a big role in Dhriti Banerjee’s life and work. She was naturally inclined towards Zoology but hadn’t actively thought about pursuing the male-dominated science. Till they opened up a quota for women in the year that she was to graduate. Then, when she completed her graduation, she got a letter of employment from the Zoological Survey of India ahead of a confirmation for the post of lecturer in the subject. Having joined ZSI in 1998, she rose to become its head in 2021, a first for an institution that started hiring women only in 1949. And the accolades haven’t stopped coming, whether it was the Nari Shakti Samman or the H.R. Mehra and the T.N. Ananthakrishnan awards in 2022 or the felicitation by the Bharat Chamber of…

Cindy Slaven Chief Business Development, Marketing and Communications Officer for Navantia Australia They say "You can’t be what you don’t see”. In defence industry, it can be difficult to see women, particularly in positions of leadership as it’s a male dominated environment. My name is Cindy Slaven and I am the Chief Business Development, Marketing and Communications Officer for Navantia Australia. I am proud of what I have achieved in my career with Navantia Australia and grateful for the opportunities that have been made available to me by the company. At Navantia Australia, I feel equal despite being part of a minority group. As the only female member of the Australian senior leadership team at this point in time, I feel my seat at the table is recognition of the…

AS A MEDICAL STUDENT at the KEM Hospital, Mumbai, Swati Piramal was moved by the sight of a polio-struck girl, paralysed from the neck down. The resolve to ensure that polio vaccines reached the needy led to her first tryst with public health. She and her friends worked among the textile mill workers in the city’s Lower Parel area, vaccinating the children and spreading awareness about polio. Initially, they met with resistance from the workers, but husband Ajay Piramal’s father, Gopikisan Piramal, who owned Morarjee Textiles, promised an incentive in the form of dress material for all those who took all three doses of the vaccine. The incentive worked, and very soon, the area became a no-polio zone. A stint at the Harvard School of Public Health, at the age…

ROSHNI NADAR MALHOTRA IS ELATED. Her father had always advised the HCL Technologies chairperson to “stay the course”. That seems to be paying off: HCLTech has achieved a significant milestone with total revenues hitting Rs 1.01 lakh crore for FY23, a year-on-year growth of 18.5 per cent. The company also recently closed a mega deal worth $2.1 billion (Rs 17,508 crore) with US-based Verizon Business for managed network services (MNS). Additionally, in Europe, the company won a contract from German technology giant Siemens AG to modernise its cloudled digital transformation. “When discretionary spending slows down, mega deals like these present themselves. This growth is driven by our strategy of leading through differentiated products and services,” says Roshni. A key initiative that has worked for them was the acquisition of IBM Software…

SCHAUNA CHAUHAN, THE ELDEST DAUGHTER of Parle Agro founder Prakash Chauhan, took over as CEO in 2006, and she has transformed the home-grown food processing company into a Rs 8,000 crore giant with food brands such as Frooti, Appy and Bailey competing with those from the likes of PepsiCo. The company now sources 96 per cent of materials domestically, a fact that Schauna describes as Parle Agro’s most significant achievement to date. “It shows our commitment to supporting local businesses and the national economy through a focused effort.” Currently, what keeps her busy is balancing growth with sustainability, which she calls “one of the toughest challenges”. It started when the plastic straw ban came into effect and has since evolved into a mission to integrate green initiatives into every growth…

Mindful Drinking Globally the non-alcoholic beverages market has soared multifold. Wine has been around for hundreds and thousands of years. With consumers’ drinking habits evolving vintners too are exceeding tasters' expectations with new options stripped of their alcohol. Whether one has been advised to abstain from alcohol by the doctor or religious celebrations require one to remain sober, there are many reasons to avoid alcohol consumption. With Jacob’s Creek introducing Unvined, a glass of non-alcoholic wine is a great alternative for those who want to partake in a toast without consuming alcohol. Decoding Unvined Originating from the renowned house of Jacob’s Creek from Barossa Valley, Unvined is a modern expression of winemaking. Mediterranean climate with warm-climate vineyards on the valley floor and cooler vineyards up in the surrounding hills allows…

RENUKA RAMNATH THRIVES on challenges. In 1979, she decided to pursue textile engineering in Mumbai, but once out of college, couldn’t find any job in textile mills. Her desire to do research was discouraged by her parents who would rather see her married than be alone abroad. She settled for an MBA in Finance in Mumbai, where she found her calling—project finance, cash flows and the works. After a brief stint at Crompton, Renuka joined ICICI (then not yet a bank) in 1986, where under the mentorship of the banking stalwart KV. Kamath, she spent 23 eventful years. “Looking some 40 years back, I can say that my destiny has been one of evangelising and pioneering,” says Renuka, widely acknowledged for her contribution to expanding India’s private equity space. She was…

ABOUT 10 DAYS BEFORE INDIA WENT into Covid lockdown in March 2020, Ameera Shah had her first child. Yet, she was back at work the day after she was released from hospital. As the pandemic progressed, she found herself working 8-10 hours a day. “It was difficult as my own sleep was heavily compromised,” she says. What she did absolutely was to make time to breast-feed her baby. As Covid progressed, so did the pace of their work. Ameera had to ensure each of her labs followed every government rule. “Health is not a national subject, so every municipality has its own rules. I’d wake up and find some rule changed somewhere and implemented in the next few hours,” she says. However, even though Covid meant chaos and loss of their…

ON HER FIRST DAY IN A NEW school in Thiruvananthapuram, Daisy Chitillapilly recalls how her father put her—all of six years—on a school-bus. When they reached the school, the conductor left her with a single piece of instruction. “Just follow these three girls.” She did. To her utter surprise, they walked out of the school, across a wide, busy road. She could barely keep them in sight and was nearly in tears. Soon, they reached another gate, and, Daisy recalls, “I see my father, all 6 feet 1 inch of him, standing there. He had put me on the bus but also ensured I followed the trail.” This kind of up bringing is what Daisy, who now heads Cisco’s operations in India & Saarc, believes built an independent streak in her.…

COMING FROM ONE OF THE MOST PROMINENT business families in the country that is also politically amongst the most powerful, Kaviya Maran has had a headstart in life. That did not stop the daughter of billionaire media magnate and Sun TV owner Kalanithi Maran and CEO of Solar TV Community Restricted Kaveri Maran from striking a path of her own. As CEO and owner of Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kaviya is often seen rooting from the stands for her team, thereby also emerging as a social media hot topic. The most satisfying job as SRH chief, says Kaviya, is the identifying and nurturing of young, talented cricketers. IPL is one the most competitive sports leagues in the world, with 10 teams continually bettering their game. “With only four teams qualifying for playoffs, it…

“From historie trade hubs like Lothal to the modern-day maritime landscape, our ports have played a pivotal role in economic development. Under the visionary leadership of Hon'ble PM Modi, India’s maritime sector has witnessed a renaissance, with our ports now leading in global competitiveness. Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, has tirelessly worked on transforming the maritime sector since 2014, with significant progress achieved through programs like the Sagarmala inifiative. To realise the goal of 'Vikasit Bharat,' we are working on a mission mode under Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 to develop world class deep draft Mega Ports with cutting-edge smart technology and Green Hydrogen Hubs.”Sh. Sarbananda Sonowal Hon’ble Union Minister Ports, Shipping and Waterways and AYUSH For centuries, India’s ports have been vital hubs of global trade and diplomacy,…

SUNITA NARAIN WAS AMONG the 31 experts appointed by the UAE government to the advisory board for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, that culminated on December 12. As usual, she was not there just to peddle empty do-goodism. A month before the climate summit, she and her colleagues at the fort-nightly magazine Down Earth and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) had published investigative report on how private sector finance in the voluntary carbon market is benefiting neither the planet the people. The report found that the current carbon markets could end up increasing global our report a key role in bringing out the importance of integrity, transparency and benefit-sharing of private market,” says Sunita. Equitability and cornerstones of Sunita’s environmental activism, which is opposed to elite…

GROWING UP ACROSS FIVE countries can and engage with the world. For Shaheen Mistri, then 18-year-old college student from the US who was visiting India in 1989 her summer break and volunteering across slums in Mumbai, that experience came with a rather unsettling revelation—that the difference between herself and millions of other children who didn’t have the same resources as her was more than just an accident of birth. It was systemic inequality entrenched so deep that change could only begin ground-up. And so, that’s what Shaheen and a rented premises, centre’ in Mumbai’s Colaba for kids from low-income families. That was 34 years her Akanksha Foundation runs 26 schools across Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, and has impacted over 14,000 students. Two decades after setting up Akanksha, in the summer of…

➘ In the winter session (Dec. 4-22), 143 Opposition MPs from both houses together were suspended, the highest number ever ➘ Under Rule 374 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business, the LS speaker can name a member who ‘disregards the authority of the Chair or abuses the rules…’ The House moves a mot ion and, if passed by a majority, the MP is suspended for a period not exceeding the remainder of the session. Rule 374A is invoked if a grave disorder happens and invites automatic suspension. In the RS, Rule 256 is used for the same Sept. 3, 1962: Godey Murahari, an independent RS member from Uttar Pradesh, became the first parliamentarian to be suspended…

SUPRIYA SULE CARRIES HERSELF WITH A poise adorned with humility—endowed as she is with a calm, non-threatening demeanour. But no one would have thought it odd had it not been so. As the daughter of Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar, she could have just as easily accessorised the sense of entitled arrogance political legatees often exude. Ironically, her cousin Ajit Pawar, original heir apparent to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) estate, is often charged with being cast in that brattish mould. The negotiation between that duality—politically fraught but never shorn of filial warmth—plays out as a fascinating drama in the heart of Maharashtra’s ever-evolving political landscape. It’s a riddle vital to 2024. Ajit, having splintered off a goodish part of the NCP, is now deputy CM in a BJP-ordained regime. The…

HER LARGEST CHALLENGES, SAYS RUCHIRA KAMBOJ, the first woman to become India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, come from the high standards that she has set for herself since childhood. An all-India topper in the 1987 Civil Services batch, Ruchira says that she has consistently striven to meet and surpass her own expectations. “From my early days as a young officer to my role as an ambassador, my journey has been driven by a commitment to excel,” she says. Ruchira’s diplomatic odyssey commenced in Paris in 1989, where she served as the third secretary at the Indian Embassy in France until 1991. From 1996 to 1999, she was first secretary (economic and commercial) at the Indian High Commission in Mauritius. In 2002, she joined India’s Permanent Mission to the…

OVER THREE DECADES AGO, when A. Manimekhalai entered the banking sector as a probationary officer with the erstwhile Vijaya Bank in Chennai, there was no soft preferential treatment awaiting her. She recalls how she was once posted at a rural branch, which demanded that she ride her scooter 120 km daily to work. She was the only woman in that branch, which was far from the city. But the quest to excel in whatever she did made her forget any inconvenience. “In any role that came to me, I wanted to be the best. I wanted to do things right. I wanted to learn,” she says. This was her guiding principle throughout her career as she handled multiple functions that included strategic planning, setting organisational goals, compliance and internal control,…

JUSTICE HIMA KOHLI’S MOTHER, who passed away last month, loved novels by American lawyer and author Erle Stanley Gardner, which were largely based on criminal cases and court dramas. It was those books that first kindled the young Hima’s interest in courtroom life. In a judicial system that has long faced criticism for promoting nepotism and being a male-dominated space, Justice Kohli has broken multiple stereotypes. On January 7, 2021, she became the first woman chief justice of the Telangana High Court after it was split from the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana HC in 2019. Seven months later, she was elevated to the Supreme Court, the only one of 11 women judges who made it to the top court. A strong advocate of women’s empowerment, Justice Kohli has always emphasised…

In a world where education often straddles the fine line between tradition and innovation, India’s New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 emerges as a beacon of integrative thought, seamlessly weaving the rich tapestry of Indian ethos with the dynamic needs of the 21st-century global landscape. The unveiling of the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 marked a seminal moment in the history of Indian education, promising a transformative journey from the grassroots to the higher echelons of learning. This ambitious policy is not merely a blueprint for change; it is a bold statement of intent, reflecting India's commitment to revitalize its educational framework while staying true to its cultural mots. At the heart of the NEP lies a deep respect for the Indian ethos, a blend of ancient wisdom and values that…

IT WAS HER SECOND WEEK OF legal practice and she was arguing in the court of Justice Leila Seth, when her husband Shardul Shroff, scion of the legendary Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co, sought to help her with her arguments. Justice Seth stopped him, saying Pallavi was perfectly capable of arguing on her own. When you are the daughter of P.N. Bhagwati, the former Chief Justice of India, and married into an equally illustrious family, stepping out of giant shadows may seem daunting. Perhaps why Pallavi started out “selling detergent in the market”, after an MBA from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute. She took up law in 1980 only to be in the same profession as her husband so that she could spend more time with him.…

BY EARLY JANUARY, ISRO’S Aditya L1 mission to study the Sun will reach Lagrange point 1 (L1), around which the spacecraft, carrying seven scientific instruments, will circle in what is called the Halo Orbit. This is where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth nullify each other, allowing for a constant, uninterrupted view of the Sun. Solar radiation and magnetic storms can be observed before being influenced by Earth’s magnetic field. Since its launch on September 2, it has travelled nearly 2.3 million km. It has been an equally long journey for Project Director Nigar Shaji who has overseen the Aditya mission for the past eight years since its conception. “It’s technologically challenging,” she says. The solar mission payloads involved coordination between several scientific institutes. The halo orbit is…

IF THERE’S ONE THING Suneeta Reddy sees as her goal in her job as managing director of Apollo Hospitals, it’s keeping the chain at the forefront of healthcare services and expanding its footprint in and outside India. As a daughter of Apollo Hospitals founder Dr Prathap C. Reddy, it remains a personal quest. “Perhaps the most compelling moment was when my father entrusted me with the finances of a young, yet ambitious enterprise. That act of faith gave me the confidence that I could do more,” she says. Suneeta redeemed that trust by pioneering the inflow of FDI into Indian healthcare in 1995. She followed it up with another industry first—taking Apollo to the international equity markets in 2005. Over the years, many novelties in Indian healthcare carried an Apollo…

NISABA GODREJ IS SET TO MAKE BOLD MOVES to drive the Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL), valued at $12 billion (Rs 99,818 crore), forward. In May, the 125-year-old Godrej Group’s consumer goods flagship announced the acquisition of the FMCG business of Raymond Consumer Care, a leading player in deodorants and sexual wellness categories in India with brands such as Park Avenue and KamaSutra, for Rs 2,825 crore. The rationale behind this strategic move was to venture into newer categories with the potential for “double-digit multi-decade growth,” Nisaba said in the company’s annual report. This inorganic growth strategy is built on the company’s earlier success with the acquisition of the Goodknight and HIT brands in 1994 from Transelektra. Today, GCPL’s household insecticides business is valued at Rs 30,000 crore. “I hope we can…

WHEN ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA GRADUATED from Kolkata’s Lady Brabourne College, she was still undecided on what career she should pursue. Biochemistry was one option, but she loathed chemistry. Medicine was another, and she cleared the joint entrance exam and got a seat at the Calcutta National Medical College. However, the college did not have a hostel and the course would take eight years. With her father set to retire in four-five years, Arundhati decided to do an MA in English Literature and become a journalist. That is what she was doing at Jadavpur University, when she took a bank probationary the start of her 40-year career with the State Bank of India (SBI), where she October 2017. The early years were tough, with long hours at work and regular transfers. She’d…

IT WAS A POEM—GREEK POET C.P. CAFAVY’S ‘ITHAKA’—that her daughter Adwaita introduced her to that opened a window for Falguni somewhere. The lines—Keep I thaka always in your mind/Arriving there is what you’re destined for//But dont hurry the journey at all//— made her realise that the journey is more important than the destination. And so began her journey with Nykaa, an omni channel beauty retail company she founded in 2012, shortly before completing a half century in life. When she decided to launch an IPO (initial public offering) in 2021, it was over-subscribed 82 times and raised Rs 53.5 billion. “It was a landmark moment for a women-founded, new-age, digitally native company to go public,” says Falguni. “I was overwhelmed.” Today, Nykaa features among Time’s 100 Most Influential Companies, Falguni…

VINITA GUPTA JOINED LUPIN IN 1997 and has by brother Nilesh been instrumental in shaping and executing the company’s growth strategy that resulted in Lupin becoming a global pharmaceutical powerhouse. She became CEO of the firm in 2013. Toeing the line of her illustrious father in business (the late Desh Bandhu Gupta, a former professor at BITS Pilani, is credited with making Lupin the largest maker of anti-TB medicines in India), and ably assisted Gupta, managing director of Lupin, company’s a combination of organic global expansion through growth and strategie acquisitions. Vinita is married to US-based entrepreneur Brij Sharma, has a son and is based in Florida. A pharmacy graduate from the University of Mumbai and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois, Vinitais credited with…

MoES activities are carried out under six umbrella schemes: Atmosphere and Climate Research-Modelling, Observing (0-SMART); Polar and Cryosphere Research (RACER); Seismology and Geosciences (SAGE); Research, Education, Outreach and Training (REACHOUT); and Deep Ocean Mission (DOM). MoES is headquartered in New Delhi and its activities and mandate is pursued through eleven institutes: Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE); National Centre of Coastal Research (NCCR); National Centre for Seismology (NCS); National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF); India Meteorological Department (IMD); National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT); Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS); National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR); Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM); National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS); and Borehole Geophysics Research Laboratory (BGRL). The website of MoES is www.moes.gov.in. In 2021,…

PADMAJA CHUNDURU’S CAREER started as a probationary officer in the by the early 2000s she was heading the bank’s operations in the US. Which is why she advises youngsters to “never let go of an opportunity”. “Things do work out. I took a posting in SBI Los Angeles in 2001 and had to manage alone for four years with my two sons but it paid off later,” she says. Padmaja went on to become the deputy MD at the country’s largest lender before leaving to join Indian Bank as MD in 2018. There, she successfully oversaw Allahabad Bank’s merger into her own bank, making the combined entity the seventh largest public sector bank in the country. The career banker also served as a director on the board of the Life Insurance…

NYRIKA HOLKAR IS A FOURTH-GENERATION member of the illustrious Mumbai-based Godrej family. After starting her career at the legal firm AZB & Partners, where she specialised in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and advised foreign companies seeking to invest in India, she joined Godrej & Boyce (G&B), a multi-commercial service provider with a 125-year-long rich legacy. Niece of G&B chairman & managing director Jamshyd Godrej, Nyrika was appointed to the board of directors in 2017. Today, she drives a company wide strategy for building new digital interventions through online platforms and ecosystems to help improve customer experience, foster collaborative innovation, and enhance data-led decision-making in business. A qualified solicitor, Nyrika is responsible for the company’s global legal strategy, including supervising commercial contracts, structuring M&A transactions as well as protecting and enhancing the…

GROWING UP IN HYDERABAD, RITU GANGRADE ARORA was fortunate to have parents who considered education to be the biggest asset one could own. “My mother instilled dreams and ambitions in me, my dad nurtured them and my husband and the entire family helped give wings to them,” she says. After college, she had a desire to enter the art world, and she got through the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. But she ended up doing commerce, which her college principal wasn’t happy about since he felt she would have done better in engineering. “In hindsight, it was good that I could follow my interest, and my parents allowed me to do that,” she says. Ritu has spent over 27 years in several leadership positions with multinationals, including Allianz…

RINIKI BHUYAN SHARMA BELIEVES she was born with an entrepreneurial DNA. Riniki’s father, Jadav Chandra Bhuyan, was a pioneering Assamese industrialist, and her entrepreneurial journey began while in college, learning the nuances of his business ventures. Simultaneously, she earned her master’s in political science and also a law degree. Marriage to Himanta Biswa Sarma in 2001, then an aspiring politician, forced Riniki to take a pause and concentrate on setting up a home and helping her husband build his political career. Parents from both sides were opposed—for different reasons—to this union of the two college lovebirds. Three months into the marriage, Himanta won the assembly election and the very next year became a minister. For Riniki, it was time to take care of their two children—Nandil and Sukanya—till she finally decided…

Modern sedentary lifestyles come with a host of spinal issues. One of the most common is disc prolapse, or slipped disc, which can present it her as back pain or a pain called sciatica. In adverse situations it can cause bowel and bladder disturbance, Cauda Equina Syndrome. Disc-related pain can be treated initially with posture correction, stretches, strengthening exercises, and medication. Very few patients require further intervention and then also, thanks to advances In technology, the treatment can be largely non-invasive at leading facilities like MGM Healthcare’s Department of Spine Surgery. Dr S. Karunakaran is a highly esteemed spine surgeon at the Department with over 25 years of minimally invasive spine surgery, his areas of expertise include Sutureless Percutaneous Endoscopic Day Care Spine Surgery, Evaluation of pain generators with Discography…

RAIL NETWORK: Uttar Pradesh boasts India’s largest rail network, spanning over 16 thousand kilometers. Most of the area of Western Dedicated Freight Corridor and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor is also here. The junction of both freight corridors is in Dadri (Greater Noida). EXPRESSWAY: Uttar Pradesh has solidified its status as an expressway state with a total of six expressways in operation, including the Yamuna Expressway, Agra-Lucknow Expressway, Bundelkhand Expressway, Purvanchal Expressway, Noida-Greater Noida Expressway and Delhi-Meerut Expressway. AIR NETWORK With the expansion of existing international airports in Lucknow, Varanasi, Kushinagar, and the addition of new airports In Jewar and Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh is set to become the only state in the country with five international airports. INLAND WATERWAY: The country’s first inland waterway is being developed to connect eastern export…

GROUNDED, WITH AN EASYGOING PERSONA, it’s tough to imagine that behind the ever-smiling face of Mariazeena Johnson is a woman of steely determination who never shies away from taking challenges head-on. As the chancellor of Sathyabama Institute of Science & Technology, a private deemed-to-be-university in Chennai, Mariazeena has been working tirelessly to make the 36-year-old institute a hub of academic excellence, research and innovation. So no surprises there that the institute—which started off as an engineering college in 1987 and received its university status in 2001—has been ranked 51st among all Indian universities in 2023 by the National Institutional Ranking Framework. Daughter of the late Dr Jeppiaar, a politician and educationist who founded Sathyabama, Mariazeena has a doctorate in management studies from the University of Madras. She first joined Sathyabama as…

“we” in weschool represents the spirit of convergence, one that embraces multiple forces of advancement and human centered approach that power transformation and progress. The 'WeSchool' brand identity of S. P. Mandali’s, Prin. L N Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research represents the school’s commitment to continuously evolve and make meaning to its stakeholders. More than ever, one can see organizations, community and the world at large are breaking down silos and progress is being driven by convergence of human values, collaboration, embracing diverse voices, technology and immersive experiences. WeSchool, building on its legacy of 46 years, is the crucible that creates an ecosystem that converges these elements for its stakeholders so they can thrive in the dynamic landscape of 21st-century business. We Converge - Diverse Voices: With 8…