National Conference · Women's Empowerment
From AI-powered fraud protection to grassroots tribal enterprise, the Chintan Research Foundation's landmark conference mapped a new blueprint for women-led development — with Shirley Daniel of Atna AI making a compelling case that financial safety is the true foundation of women's empowerment
In a wide-ranging day-long conference that brought together Supreme Court judges, diplomats, athletes, filmmakers, and grassroots entrepreneurs under one roof, the Chintan Research Foundation convened its 'Sashakt Naari, Viksit Bharat: Women-Led Development @2047' national conference in New Delhi on the occasion of International Women's Day — anchored in the year's theme of "Give to Gain."
The event drew a powerful through-line from India's founding constitutional promise of equality to the present reality where women remain constrained by unpaid care work, limited access to capital, and deep-rooted social conditioning. Opening the inaugural session, CRF President Shishir Priyadarshi challenged the audience to see women-led development not as a social cause but as an economic growth strategy — one that demands institutional reforms and shared care responsibilities.
Dr Priti Adani, Chairperson of the Adani Foundation, delivered the keynote address, asking the fundamental question: "Viksit Bharat for whom, and by whom?" She underlined that the India of tomorrow would be shaped not by celebrated names but by millions of women in villages, small towns and emerging urban centres whose economic participation will determine the nation's strength. Union Minister for Women and Child Development Annapurna Devi attended as Chief Guest, reiterating that empowerment must begin at the grassroots and extend across the full life cycle.
One of the most distinctive contributions to the day's discourse came from Shirley Daniel, CEO and Founder of Atna AI, who spoke on the Enterprise, Equity and Empowerment panel. Daniel opened with a line that drew immediate recognition from the audience — a sentence many women in the room had heard at some point in their lives: "Don't make that financial decision. You don't know enough. You'll get cheated."
"It was not said with malice," Daniel told the gathering. "It was said with concern. And that, in many ways, is the more complicated problem — because the outcome is the same. A woman steps back from a decision that was hers to make." She argued that the mainstream conversation around women's financial exclusion has long been misframed as a knowledge problem, when the real barrier is the environment itself: investment schemes that prey on trust, insurance products with hidden clauses, and digital loan platforms with predatory terms buried in fine print that disproportionately target women as first-time participants in formal finance.
Daniel's central thesis — that financial confidence is not a personality trait but a product of environment — landed with particular force in a room debating structural barriers to women's economic participation. She drew a direct line between the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) that has brought millions of women into formal finance for the first time, and the urgent need to protect them once they arrive. "Access without safety is a hollow promise," she said. "Bringing women into formal finance without protecting them from the predators who wait at the edges of that system is not inclusion — it is exposure."
She closed with a vision of compounding trust — a woman in a Tier 3 city making her first mutual fund investment on her phone, having it go well not because she was lucky but because the platform was safe, then investing again and telling her sister and her neighbour. "That is how financial participation compounds," Daniel said. "That is how trust becomes transformation. Not through campaigns. Through confidence." Her closing line, delivered to a hushed room, set the tone for the sessions that followed: "Sashakt Nari does not need to be shielded from financial markets. She needs financial markets that are worthy of her."
A striking fireside chat on India's 'purple economy' — unpaid care work — anchored the conference's data in sharp relief. Dr Cchavi Vasisht of CRF cited India's Time Use Survey: women spend 305 minutes daily on unpaid care activities, compared to men's 88 minutes, shouldering nearly 84 per cent of the total burden. This labour generates value equivalent to 15–17 per cent of GDP, yet remains invisible in economic calculations and policy planning.
Ambassador Veena Sikri noted that South Asia exhibits some of the highest levels of gender imbalance in unpaid work globally. Dr Shamika Ravi of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council stressed that raising India's female labour force participation — currently around 55–56 per cent, compared to China and Vietnam's 70–75 per cent — requires treating care work as a macroeconomic challenge, not a private household matter.
Perhaps the most moving segment of the day was a panel featuring grassroots entrepreneurs from tribal and marginalised communities. Sonalben Naran Goyal began with a single cow at her marriage and today leads a team of ten women producing value-added dairy products. Dakshaben Keshavbhai Chaudhary now heads a network employing more than 500 tribal women earning up to ₹30,000 a month. Dr Abhishek Lakhtakia of the Adani Foundation described women-led ventures — cloud kitchens, catering, and Swateja Mart — now achieving a combined ₹86 crore in annual turnover.
Sita Pallacholla, CEO of WE Hub — India's first state government-backed organisation supporting women entrepreneurs — underscored that institutional frameworks must guide women from idea validation to sustainable income. Her widely noted observation framed the challenge in plain terms: "Women are often over-mentored and underfunded."
A panel on gender and institutions featured Justice Hima Kohli alongside Deepti Mohal Chawla, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, and lawyer Gathi Prakash of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Justice Kohli reframed the phrase "lines of control" — arguing that women face invisible lines enforced not by soldiers but by inherited customs and social expectation. Chawla made the case that physical security and equitable working environments are a national imperative tied directly to governance and development. A separate fireside chat on diplomacy brought together ambassadors from Estonia, Lithuania, Sri Lanka, and Kenya to examine how gender continues to shape careers in foreign service.