Women's Day 2013 Special – Meet Mumbai's Powerpuff 'girls'

By Author: Mauli Sharma
Total Articles: 68
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Every year on March 8th the world celebrates the International Women’s Day. So, on the occasion of Women’s Day have a look on some of Mumbai’s power-puff women...

Indu Jain, Chairperson of The Times Group

The first name that comes to mind is the household name, Indu Jain. This chairman of The Times Group, India’s media behemoth, can arguably be called the poster girl for a feminist India. As much of a humanist as an entrepreneur, she also heads The Times Foundation, one of the biggest charitable organisations in the country.

By 2006, her net worth was estimated at $4.4 billion and she was named as the 17th richest Indian in the world by Forbes. Now, as Chairperson of Bhartiya Jnanpith Foundation, she awards India’s most coveted literary award, the Jnanpith,

Undoubtedly one of the most respected women in the country she also addressed the UN in 2000 at the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, no mean feat for a woman from a third-world country.

Chanda Kochhar, CEO, ICICI Bank

Chanda Kochhar, now CEO and MD of India’s largest private bank, ICICI, ...
... is another notable name in the book of greats. An unassuming woman always clad in a sari, her soft look is misleading when faced with her iron constitution.

Juggling a domestic life perfectly well with the corporate pressures, one can be forgiven for naming Ms Kochhar as the ideal 21st century Indian woman.

Having joined ICICI in 1984 as just a management trainee, she was solely responsible for setting up and scaling up the bank’s retail business. By the new millennium, ICICI was already the top contender in private retail banking and Ms Kochhar took over as executive director of retail banking.

Things only went uphill from there and soon she was named joint MD and finally CEO of India’s largest private sector bank.

A mother of two, she has also regularly featured in Fortune’s list of ‘Most Powerful Women in Business’ since 2005!

Priya Dutt, Member Of Parliment for Mumbai North Central

But it isn’t just boardrooms where women rule these days. Noteworthy here is the MP from Mumbai’s North West constituency, Priya Dutt.

Daughter of one of the most illustrious parents in Bollywood, Sunil and Nargis Dutt, Priya continued her father’s dream of working for the country through its most premier party, the Congress.

Initially known only as Sunil Dutt’s daughter, things soon changed as fellow MPs started sensing her iron will and attention to detail. Also the secretary of All India Congress Committee, Ms Dutt is one of those few politicians who regularly engages in debate and enjoys enviable support from her constituency. She also runs a charity named after her mother, The Nargis Dutt Memorial Charitable Trust.

After the disastrous flooding of Bihar in 2008, she could be seen with her husband Owen Roncon visiting refugee camps and distributing equipment.

Though naysayers may play them down as products of well-to-do families, fact remains that these women have scaled heights that men only dream of. They are our answer to the western world which constantly criticise gender inequality in India, and rightly so.

For more Women's Day Celebration Ideas or Women's Day Messages , Women Achievers for 2012, post a message for the most important woman of your life and much more visit Buzzintown (dot) com site.

Happy Women's Day