Friends, at the time of independence, most of the Indian women were happy being a homemaker, but when they started getting properly educated, the difference started appearing slowly and steadily. I still remember when I started my engineering education in 1967 at the College of Engineering, Aurangabad (Now Sambhaji Nagar), there were no girl students in our college. During the four years of my engineering studies, only one or two female students were admitted. But today the scenario is different, you will find female students in all the professional colleges be it engineering, medicine, law, computer science, information technology, space technology and many more. Now, the presence of Indian women is being noticed in every field of work, and they are excelling in all fields.
In today’s blog, I am writing about the most POWERFUL INDIAN WOMEN
10 Arundhati Bhattacharya
She is a retired Indian Banker and former Chairperson of the State Bank of India (SBI). She is the first woman to be the chairperson of SBI. In the year 2016, she was listed as the 25th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She is the only Indian corporate leader listed on Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders list ranked at 26. She was named the 4th most powerful woman in Asia Pacific by Fortune. In 2017, India Today magazine ranked her at 19th in India’s 50 most powerful people. In 2020, she was hired as the chairperson and CEO for the Indian division of Salesforce. Currently she is working as Non-Executive Director with Reliance Industry Ltd.
9 Suchitra Ella
She is the Co-founder and joint managing director of Bharat Biotech Limited, with her husband. The company is engaged in drug development, drug discovery, manufacturing of vaccines, bio-therapeutics, pharmaceuticals and healthcare products. It made waves in the world of vaccines for a long time, with remarkable vaccines against Hepatitis B, Swine flu, and Zika Virus. Covaxin was developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology. She was awarded with Genome Valley Excellence Award in Feb 2021, for pioneering research, development, and commercialization of vaccines including Covaxin. She has received many other awards in her field of work. During the Covid period PM Modi visited the premises of Bharat Biotech and congratulated her and the firm for their achievement for Covaxin.
8 Soumya Swaminath
She is an Indian paediatrician and clinical scientist known for research on tuberculosis (TB) and HIV..She is the daughter of scientist MS Swaminathan, who was recently awarded with country’s top honour Bharat Ratna.. In her long career, she has worked in vast fields, and some of her assignments were From 2009 to 2011 she was coordinator of the UNICEF/UDP/World Bank/WHO special programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases in Geneva; then until 2013, she was director, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) in Chennai; from August 2015 to November 2017 she was director general of Indian Council Of Medical Research )ICMR) and secretary of the Department of Health Research for Government of India; from October 2017to March 2019 she was Deputy Director- general of WHO; in March 2019 she became chief scientist of WHO where she coordinated the work on Covid. What an illustrious career, she is presently 58 years old and still going strong
7 Geeta Gopinath
She is an Indian-American economist, of 52 years of age. In 2001, she joined the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business as an assistant professor, In 2015 she moved to Harvard University’s economics department. In October 2018, she was appointed Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She co-authored the “Pandemic Paper” on how to end the COVID-19 pandemic that set globally endorsed targets for vaccinating the world. She also worked with other IMF departments to connect policymakers, academics, and other stakeholders on a new analytical approach to help countries respond to international capital flows via the integrated Police Framework. In December 2021, she was elevated as the IMF’s new first deputy managing director, the number two position at the IMF. As the deputy director, she represented the IMF at multilateral forums and maintained high-level contacts with member governments and the board members, the media, and other institutions.
6 Nita Ambani
She is an Indian philanthropist, of 60 years of age. She is the chairperson and the founder of the Reliance Foundation, Dhirubhai Ambani International School, and a director of Reliance Industries. She is married to Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. She is also the owner of the Indian Cricket League (IPL) franchise cricket team Mumbai Indians. In 2016, she was listed as one of the ‘fifty high and mighty Indians’ by India Today, and in ‘the most influential women business leaders in Asia’ list by Forbes. She became the first Indian woman to become a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2016. She was also involved in the project of building a company township for the employees of Reliance’s Refinery at Jamnagar, an environmentally friendly colony to houses more than 17,000 residents. She is also in- charge of the Jio World Centre, established by Reliance Industry on 4th March 2022, at Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex. She also launched the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre with Jio World Centre on 31st March 2023. She has received ‘The Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Award 2017’ from the President of India, she is also the recipient of the award for Best Corporate Supporter of India Sports, given by the Times of India.
The top five powerful Indian women, in my next blog.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
12th February 2024