MUMBAI: Historically, finance and investment banking have been seen as male bastions. However, a decade into the 21st century, their corporate power and influence is low although women represent half or more of the workforce in many countries. In a country where boys are prized over girls and where many women quit work after marriage and child birth, there has been a surprising rise of women leaders across financial institutions.

According to a study about women on corporate boards in India, the financial sector performs best in terms of gender diversity, nine of the eleven banks listed on BSE-100 have a woman on their board and two of these banks have a female CEO.

On the occasion of the this international women’s day Doordarshan recorded a special program “Saluting Womanhood - Inspiring Change" with six women icons from the Indian financial sector who contributed to the progress of the country in their own way, they are multi-taskers, team players and able to handle all kinds of situations with equanimity.

Smt. Vijayalakshmi R. Iyer (CMD – Bank of India), Smt. Usha Sangwan (MD – LIC of India), Smt. Bala Deshpande (Senior MD – National Enterprise Associates), Smt. Kalpana Morparia (CEO – JP Morgan), Smt. Chitra Ramkrishna (MD & CEO – National Stock Exchange of India) & Smt. Sunita Sharma (MD & CEO of LIC – HFL) were felicitated by Shri. Mukesh Sharma, Additional Director General of Doordarshan and all the women icons were interviewed by Shri Anil Dharkar who played the host for this show.

This program “Saluting Womanhood - Inspiring Change" will telecast on 8th March 2014 on Doordarshan National Network at 9:30 a.m. and on DD Sahyadri Channel “Kartutvaan Shalininna Salaam” at 10:30 p.m on the same day.