I don’t think a day will do anymore...it’s not enough to recognise, celebrate or shows thanks to every woman that inhabits the world and whose presence makes a perceptible difference to everyone’s life.I am honoured to have been asked to be the Guest Editor of the After Hrs Women’s Day Special edition. As I assimilated my thoughts, it was fairly evident that this topic is very vast and it would be quite difficult to narrow my thoughts to a few hundred words...but I’ll try!President Barack Obama once said: “The best judge of whether or not a country is going to develop is how it treats its women. If it’s educating its girls, if women have equal rights, that country is going to move forward. But if women are oppressed and abused, then they’re going to fall behind.” Given where India stands today and the giant strides it has been taking, this is a very key point. The empowerment of women in our country is quite complex because you are tackling issues in different contexts and levels.

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From a professional perspective, we have made some definite strides. If I take a small example of my industry, over the past few years, the role of a woman in Indian cinema has changed dramatically and evolved to a space where women-oriented films are accepted and successful. There are so many success stories of women from across industries that support this fact. We have come a long way but we still have a long way to go.However, from a social perspective, we have barely scratched the surface...the emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl’.From infant foeticide, lack of education to child marriage, the Indian girl child and woman still continues to deal with the lack of basic human rights and much more. The positive aspect is that there is a growing recognition of the areas of concern and there are big steps being taken to work towards a change. I am certain the momentum will continue.There is so much more I would like to add but for now I’ll leave you with a thought — “I am a woman in process. I’m just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull.”