The Union Budget for 2020-21 will be announced on February 1 and PM Modi conducted a meeting with the country’s top industrialists to discuss the same. 

However, only male industrialists of the country made it to the panel. 

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The latest meeting included industry leaders Ratan Tata (Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons), Sajjan Jindal (JSW Group chairman), Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries Ltd. chairman), among others.

Reportedly, PM Modi has conducted meetings with industry leaders from various sectors, in order to seek suggestions on about boosting economic growth. These apparently included businessmen and entrepreneurs from FMCG, start-ups, renewable energy, diamond, retail, textiles and other sectors. And yet, no businesswoman or female entrepreneur seems to have made it to the list. 

Clearly India still does not have women leading multinational organizations or being a part of an MNC’s board of directors? 

Vinita Bali, MD of Britannia Industries Limited

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Indra Nooyi, Board Member-Amazon (Former PepsiCo CEO)

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Mallika Srinivasan, Chairperson and CEO, Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited

Manisha Girotra, Country Head, Moelis & Company

Of course, when it comes to female entrepreneurs, they are few and far in between. And not like they’ve led some of the most successful organizations in recent times. 

Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Founder & CEO of Kinetic Green Energy

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Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Founder, Biocon

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A photo from the meeting was released and served as a striking reminder of the time when PM Modi met 7 men and 0 women from the Hindi film industry to discuss problems within the industry. 

People also took to Twitter to call out the lack of female representation. 

Time after time, women have proved to be successful leaders in male-dominated fields. The least they deserve is for the government to acknowledge the same.