23, 24, 25 MARCH 2022
The Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneurs (FIWE) in association with MSME, Government of India organized “The 6th International Conference for Women Entrepreneur ‘Mission Possible,’ 2022” in New Delhi, featuring participation from women entrepreneurs representing 21 countries. The conference’s highlights included engaging B2B meetings, insightful factory visits, and valuable business collaborations. The central focus of the conference was to empower startups, enhance the growth of existing businesses, and provide support for emerging businesses led by women entrepreneurs. Additionally, following a very regressive procedure of selection, exceptional women entrepreneurs from SAARC countries and India were felicitated with the prestigious “Priyadarshini Awards”. These awards, known as our signature accolades, have been presented to outstanding achievers for the past 25 years.
In her welcome address, Dr. Rajni Aggarwal facilitated all the guests, eminent speakers, delegates from India, Maldives, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Singapore and Nigeria at “Mission Possible” launched by FIWE to celebrate Amrit Mahotsav and the 75th year of India’s freedom.
The theme of the conference is the result of intense deliberations of the FIWE team and the Board of Advisors as the most appropriate topic befitting MISSION POSSIBLE after the pandemic. “My Give- My Take” from match making, to fill and assist setting up of your business meetings, is the biggest opportunity this forum is going to create.
As the representative of FIWE, we are fully prepared to assist with the government in achieving the 5 trillion dollar economy. However we request, that each Ministry related to industry, rural development, banking deploys a Joint Secretary level official to be assigned for enabling us to do so. We are ready to work and provide a platform for studying the problems of these sectors. In UP and Orissa we have already been working for initiation of the program for bringing paradigm changes in our economy.
Women are born entrepreneurs, whether in their home front; in the corporate world or running a business. Women have always handled everything in the most organized manner. We as women must rise and control and command the market place; as we have the potential. Further, in India we have sizable presence of women in various institutions also; we therefore request the Government to recognize FIWE as the nodal agency for harnessing this untapped talent and potential.
Dr. Nagesh Kumar gave an overview of ISID. He said that ISID pays much attention to MSMEs, as MSMEs form the backbone of the Indian Economy .They are contributing nearly 45 % of India’s exports. Govt. of India in its policy making pays a lot of attention for sustaining and fostering MSMEs. When these MSMEs are run by women that makes a huge difference. Women are nearly 50% of our population but their participation in work force is far less. In India, it is nearly 26% and declining and there is a need of harnessing the full potential of 50% of our population. He stated “I am very happy that we are working together with FIWE and Govt. of India, on this very important theme on promoting MSMEs led by women and it will produce very powerful benefits for the society at large”.
Shri Amit Mittal stated that women entrepreneurs form a very important segment of society. He expressed his keenness to support the activities of women entrepreneurs. He also narrated about a company that was started by his wife and said that she identified the opportunities and started off with the Facility Management Services in 2002. She integrated IT across every diverse business so that the Indian Facility Management market is now of US 150 billion dollar value in 2020. The industry is expected to grow in the forecast period of 2022-27.
The Chief Guest Shri Ateesh Kumar Singh in his inaugural address expressed his pleasure at being associated with the Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneur’s and to be the chief guest for this 6th International Conference. His views were as follows:
The pandemic has hit the MSME sector hard. We have seen business closures, job losses, migrating labor crisis, supply chain breakdown, increased cost of production, reduced revenues, defaults in payments and loans, component shortages and many more. The MSME sector already has its conventional challenges, like access to finance, forward and backward linkages, access to technology, formalization and infrastructure bottle necks and biggest and largely underestimated capacity building. How we are going to deal with all these problems is what we need to think. Strategies need to be developed, systems need to be developed. However, digitization and digitalization need not to be rushed. We have to tread very carefully. Risk assessment using unstructured, unexplored data for digital credit is the area we again need to do lot of research.
We have different methods and systems for inclusion of MSMEs into the formal space but due to many fears a lot of MSMEs are still reluctant to join the formal space. That is something he would request FIWE to work in this direction.
He also suggested that for strategizing the way forward there is a need to also look into market meeting the “plug and play” mechanism and also the availability of Indian and foreign private capital for MSMEs- their valuations, equity, investment, debt.
Further, the strategy for bringing the unorganized sector into a formal fold of MSME, needs to be worked out in great detail; the supply chain has created new opportunities along with changes in trade patterns. A multilevel seller’s network is preferred now, over a single level supplier network.
(L to R: Prof. Nagesh Kumar (Director, ISID), Mr. Ashok Mittal (MD, A to Z Group of Companies), Mr. Ateesh Kumar Singh ( Jt. Secy. MSME), Dr. Rajni Aggarwal (President, FIWE), Ms. Poonam Malhotra, V.P, FIWE)
In conclusion, he stated that he would be extremely grateful if the outcomes, reactions, suggestions, conclusions and criticism were shared with the Ministry of MSME. These would certainly help Government into learning for making policy formulations and their implementations and future planning for the sector. Vote of Thanks given by Vice President of FIWE, Ms. Poonam Malhotra.
Plenary Session I: Women-Led MSMEs: Agents of Empowerment and Inclusive Development
(L to R: Ms. Rashmi Singh-Director WCD Govt. Delhi, Mr. Parul Soni -SG, ABWCI, Mrs. K Ratnaprabha- President Ubuntu, Mrs. Pramila Acharya Rizal – President, SAWDF, Nepal, Ms. Shakeela Mariyam – President WCC Maldives, Ms. Lilian Ong – ABWCI Singapore, Poonam Malhotra, VP, FIWE)
Ms Lilian Ong gave her perspective of South East Asia as how they look at women entrepreneurship. According to her from being a mother to moving into entrepreneurship, she faced a lot of challenges. She faced fears of failure, lack of support apart from other challenges. Individual women must belief in themselves, because resources are out there and there is a lot of support from the Government, but women must first believe in themselves. As the Mahatma Gandhi said “You must be the change, you want to see the change in the world”.
Talking about Maldives, Dr Shakeela Mariyam stated that the most important issue that needs to be addressed is to give the women the psycho- social support required by them to come out of their shells and work together. Further, when she was in the Ministry, although there was a Gender Equality Law in place, she found that everything which was contained in that policy was not being implemented, therefore implementation is important. There is a need to work together, because working individually makes it difficult to achieve targets. This is the biggest challenge faced by women entrepreneurs globally. For eg. There are very few women entrepreneurs in the tourism business in Maldives, even though tourism is one of the mainstream businesses. Although countries are different, yet have the same challenges that need to be addressed separately. There is a void when it comes to trade and investment coordination and facilitation platforms dedicated to women entrepreneurs.
Ms Rizalemphasized on strong collaborations amongst women entrepreneurs globally. In Nepal women are developing Agri-Tourism businesses, under public private partnership which has never happened before, that is what is bringing about “changes”. Nepal is now the 2nd country in South Asia to come up with such unique concepts through collaboration and that is how women need to change the landscape of women in business.
Vision for Women Entrepreneurs Lilian’s vision is to see Asian women rising up to live their dreams and to see women of courage of Asia coming together, contributing and adding value to our different paths. Mariyam wishes to see women as women, perform as women and not being belittled by social pressures or cultural implications. Pramila aspires that in South Asia where women led initiatives is seen very strongly, there is a need to create a business support service system for women entrepreneurs and this should be the focus in the future development strategy for these countries.
Plenary Session II : Expanding access to Finance through Fintech and Innovations
(L to R: Dr. Rajni Aggarwal, Ms. Amisha Singh (SHE CAPITAL), Ms. Anubha Prasad (GM & Regional Head, SIDBI), Ms. Rezani Aziz (Dir. Adfactors, Srilanka), Mr. Akhilesh Sharma, Asst. Prof . ISID)
According to Ms.Prasad about 15% MSMEs lack proper access to finance. There are challenges and opportunities on which the Indian financial sector has to work and also there are barriers which we have to bring down.
Ms Singh, who runs an early stage venture fund which only invests in women led or women focused startups called She Capital, stated that It has been proven globally that women return higher ROI on a dollar. This year we had globally highest number of Unicorns that are led by women. This is the thesis we are trying to prove. We are only at the beginning of proving that amazing businesses built by women and proving that they are profitable scaled businesses. Ms.Aziz expressed that she has been a member of women chamber of commerce in Sri Lanka for more than 30 years, and startups are at a very nascent stage in Sri Lanka. There are many angel networks supporting women led businesses but they do not have even one Unicorn, and thus have yet to rise to that level. Sri Lanka is inspired from business startups of the like going on in India.Dr Sharma spoke that for the last 10 years ISID he has been working on issues related to MSMEs. During the survey conducted, it was found that even though there are so many Federations for MSMEs but on the ground level MSME owners are not aware about the government schemes. So Federations and Associations can play an important role in terms of increasing awareness. Also there is a need for more and proper interaction between policy makers and entrepreneurs.
Talking about involvement of women in decision making, Akhilesh Sharma stated that at the ground level, decision making of women is less therefore their role is subordinate in corporate affairs. The reason is the society’s mindset which hinders women participation and societal attitude needs change.
Regarding the startup and innovation scenario in Sri Lanka, Rezani stated there are budding startups and some amount of innovation in Sri Lanka. One of the startup, called ODOC is led by women, where she had got a team of doctors to do consultations only. So there is some kind of innovation but at a nascent stage. She stated that sharing of knowledge, creating role models for young startups would be the way to go.
Plenary Session III: Motivational Session: Spirituality and Entrepreneurship
(L to R: Ms. Stuti Kacker (Fmr. Secy. Gen. GOI), Mr. BK Pradeep Malhotra (Advisor, FIWE), Mrs. K Ratnaprabha (Fmr. CS, Govt. Of Karnataka), Dr. Rajni Aggarwal, President FIWE)
Taking about the connection between the spirituality and entrepreneurship, Stuti ji expressed stated that being spiritually inclined makes a person more strong and positive. Many entrepreneurs have succeeded because of a deep belief in Almighty and themselves which is their source of strength.
In the changing technology, the women entrepreneurs today need to gain strength to upscale their skills constantly and become independent. She advised women entrepreneurs to keep up with the changing technology, and to believe in themselves.
Ratnaprabha ji added that women should come forward to help other women and collectively they should move forward toward success in a male dominated society.
Dr. Rajni expressed that women can do multitasking and much more. The qualities that women have; a man does not possess. Men can be doing much better in their given field of duty, but if a women is given same amount of time and limited responsibilities, then a women can do much better than an man. Also women have to maintain their work -life balance, fixing priorities and needs, mindful of thought process. Once we become mindful, then we will able to control our mind and then work life balance can be achieved.
Shri Pradeep shared that Einstein once said” change your vibrations, change your mind and change your life.” Everything which happens in our life is controlled by mind. Thoughts convert into words, words into action, action brings results, repeated actions become habit, habit converts into character and your character is your destiny.
Further, we should have purity of thoughts and when we have it, we will not have judgmental values in our head. In that way you can avoid various conflicts and through that we will achieve peace and via peace one can climb the ladders of success.
Thursday 24th March, 2022: Plenary Session IV: ISID-UNESCAP
Session- Leveraging e-Commerce and Digital Marketing for Women-led MSMEs
(L to R: Rajan Sudesh Ratna (Dy. Head, UNESCAP-SSWA Office), K Ratnaprabha (President UBUNTU), Prof Nagesh Kumar (Director, ISID), Anurag Awasthi (COE Manager, GeM), Shirley Jayawardena (President, FCCISL, Sri Lanka), Arundhati Mukherjee (Marketing Consultant)
Prof Nagesh moderated the session which focused on the challenges that women entrepreneurs face in leveraging their potential, including accessing technology apart from the need for capacity building.
Ratnaprabha ji shared that the digital platform is a wonderful boon for women, especially for women who are at home and want to begin again.
Dr. Ranjan talked about ESCAP project on E-Commerce Capacity Building for Women -Led MSMEs as Catalysts of Transformation. They have developed an E commerce platform in which they train women entrepreneurs on how they can register themselves with ease, on as many platforms as they want. They have digital E learning course for this end and are also teaching woman entrepreneurs on starting a business on E commerce platform.
Anurag ji shared their details about their e-market place called Government E market place. The difference between them and other private e-commerce platforms is that all the buyers on this platform are government buyers starting from Hon’ble Prime Minister’s Office down to the local urban body in the country. More than 1.3 lakh women entrepreneurs are registered on this platform and they have done close to 1 billion dollar business in the last 5 years. In 2018 they realized that very few women participate in public procurement. So, they reached out to women who are actually making products and services and brought them into public procurement. The organization created categories and market filters, to identify women entrepreneurs so that government buyers can place orders on women entrepreneurs. The online marketing portals allows women to reach buyers without stepping out of home or office. Now financing has shifted from collateral to invoice-based financing which is a great step.
Ms. Shirlay pointed out that the number of women in MSMEs is lagging behind due to various reasons. Only 34% of all the business in the world is owned by women. According to a study nearly 3500 women entrepreneurs have started their businesses during COVID era, which is relatively a very good progress in Sri Lankan. During the COVID era women entrepreneurs have significantly increased the use of digital technologies and adopted digital methods for increasing their businesses. There has been a sharp increase in the use of social media platforms to promote and sell products. Digitization of business activities is of utmost importance. Online shopping sites, mobile apps, live chat platforms, online market places that promote business to consumer, consumer to consumer, business to business, buying and selling are rapidly emerging in the new normal situation, hence, digital transformation of women entrepreneur is a must in the post pandemic situation. Women entrepreneurs should be equipped with digital knowledge know how, e commerce etc as through e commerce women entrepreneurs can enter high value sectors like electronics, engineering etc.
Arundhuti shared that she runs a firm which focuses on MSME digitization, which is slightly beyond marketing going into operations and finance. Digitization is a rapidly moving subject, things change in a span of months. Digitization can help you market, deliver at scale. For women entrepreneurs what has been seen is lack of ambition. Challenge in digitization is learning, every 3 months digital opportunities are increasing. There is a need to look at the new tools or ways of digitization for expansion of the market. Getting customers through digital modes but are operating manually, then to scale up delivery is difficult.
Plenary Session V: Session-Leveraging Technology and Startups
L to R: Shruti Das (Marketing Head & Communications, NASSCOM), Mukesh Gulati (Executive Director, Foundation of MSME Clusters), Rezani Aziz (Chief Executive /Director – Adfactors Public Relation, Sri Lanka), Sachin Joshi (Representative, UNIDO Regional Office)
Moderator, Mukesh Gulati shared that a lot of women entrepreneurs work with in rural areas and sell their products in local Haat Bazars and when they have to move from there to urban areas it becomes a challenge. This is where technology helps.
According to Shruti Das, technology is a great equalizer. It creates opportunities, engenders inclusion and social impact. In India the number of technology startups is quite low as compared to the students who study engineering as their main subject. It indicates that some initiative is required to encourage, incubateand build them. It is done though the incubation programs at NASSCOM Foundation called Tech for Good program. NASSCOM also used to do a program called National Digital Literacy Mission ( NDLM). Before COVID, participants were nearly 75% men but post COVID women participation has increased to 65%, which is a huge jump. Sometimes the most basic barrier faced by a women entrepreneur is that they don’t know how to make payment online or /and accessing a government scheme or creating market linkages. For example, how to connect with online market platforms like Amazon etc., hence, women entrepreneurs are not able to scale up their business. NASSCOM is trying to help them do so, to enable them to use technology to scale or promote their business.
Rezani Aziz expressed that she thinks technology and startups goes hand in hand. In today’s context, people will read more about what Elon Musk says on twitter rather than what is published in Wall Street journal. As far as the Women Chamber in Sri Lanka is concerned, COVID 19 impacted them terribly but women entrepreneurs are trying to cope up with it and technology is playing a significant role doing so. As far as South Asia is concerned it has great mobile penetration and reach but internet adoption is only 45% as compared to 97% in North America. To go digital, we need to have the proper infrastructure and policy support for it but through it only we would be able to reach our fullest potential.
Shri Sachin Joshi stated that UNIDO has an inclusive project on sustainable and industrial development with Ministry of Commerce. Technology is a great equalizer but what it also does is; it opens many paths for women to participate in society and economy. It also helps to bring in diversity . Women are working more and more in technology sector, say IT firms and their growth rate is increasing to 100%, at some places up to 250% which is very good. So, all the activities which we are trying to implement for women are actually working otherwise this high growth rate wouldn’t have happened.
Within women groups there are certain inequalities on the basis of wealth, progeny, caste, color etc. So, if you are a woman in the main stream, then you are at a huge privilege compared to the other women, this is something which we need to look at. Mr. Joshi’s suggestions for women groups, keeping his work with G20s in view from the last couple of years are as follows:
- Evaluate and amend the policies on equality; to ensure they protect rights and provide equal opportunities of women.
- Prepare and implement a comprehensive women related road map with an objective of increasing women in pipeline of high skilled jobs.
- Implement inclusive policies for employers with goals for employing women in the organization at different levels.
- Eliminate barriers, for to access expertise and finance for women for Women led MSMEs as well as women founded startups, through affordable legal support and increased financial literacy / financial instruments.
- Include a diverse cross section of women at all stages of policy making and implementation.
- Mitigate the impact of COVID pandemic on women economic opportunities.
- Increase gender equality research and development in key areas such as health and advanced technologies.
Plenary Session VI: Fireside Chat/Success Stories
L to R: Shaili Chopra (Founder She The People – The Women Channel), Ms. Sukirti Gupta ( Founder, Sipping Thoughts), Chan Preet Arora (SVP & Business Head – Voot)
Moderator Sukriti Gupta stated that when we look at India, 20% of MSMEs are Women -led, which is great. But considering our total population, this number is tiny but the good news is that this number is increasing day by day.
According to Ms. Chopra, out of the 1.4 billion population in the Country, women are about 50% of population, which is nearly 10% population of the entire world. She does not see women as a drop in the Ocean, but see them as a force waiting to create an impact. This is the power of women in India which can come together, create and impact.
While Chan Preet does not see failure, she only sees learning. One only fails when one has learnt nothing. It is this kind of learning that really defines her journey. She has spent 20 years in Media and has taught at Oxford, Stockholm School of Economics.
Talking about what makes women entrepreneurs successful, Shaili stated that she does not think that there is a set definition to this effect. When it comes to making choices, we all make different choices, the kind of business we want to run, why we want to run it etc. We created initiatives to empower women, particularly to become financial independent through entrepreneurship back in 2015, through our program called Digital Women summit and gave awards in partnership with Google. The reason we started was because we constantly met women who were thinking about starting a business but was not sure whether it is be successful. There is a big gap between what we want to do and what we can do.”
Speaking about her journey and struggles she faced as an entrepreneur, Chan Preet said, “you have to lose your fear for unknown for one thing”. She had 3 entrepreneurial ventures. The 1st failed because though we got funding, we did not get clients. The 2nd failed because we partnered with world renowned BlueChip company but they gave us faulty chips, though nothing happened to their brand but our brand collapsed. In her 3rd venture she realized that there is only one formula of success: Knowledge, Passion and People. Access to capital can come only when you have knowledge; you have the passion to know exactly what you are serving and the people who can do it. People will follow, money will follow. Within the first 3 months they became cash flow positive.
On being asked, whether as women we doubt ourselves, Chan Preet said, 100% we doubt ourselves. We are never even taught to be independent while we are growing up. And others also don’t take women seriously. “A lot of opportunities did not come her way because people used to think that she was a travelling parent. People including my previous bosses used to ignore her for being a woman.”
Advising Women entrepreneurs on finance, Shaili stated that financial front is a genuine issue. It’s difficult to build businesses without money. Whatever your Idea, I think the first step is to turn that Idea to something which is more viable and move to find ways to approach other people and their networks to help you grow. Also, you need to look out for people who can go out there and pitch your business in order to raise money for your business. Today raising money is far more possible than it was around 40 years ago. Further, she had to make up her mind to switch from journalism to entrepreneurship. She started building this platform essentially from the core of storytelling. For her content was very important right through her entire journey. Personally, to sum up her journey, it took a while to take her own decision and back it up myself because people take time to trust you. It’s been a hard journey and she thanked her team for all their support.
Plenary Session VII: Generating Leadership and Skills Development for Entrepreneurship
L to R: Selima Ahmad (President, WCCI), Pramila Acharya Rizal ( President, SAWDF Nepal), Ayodeji Megbope (President, ABWCI Nigeria), Mr Gary Schoeniger – Online (Founder – The Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative )
Ms Ahmad stated that in her journey, she realized that entrepreneurship is one way of women empowerment. She started out with only 500 dollars and now she is one of the highest tax payers in her country. She also added that taking opportunity at right time and at right place is equally important.
Ms Rizal stated that regarding Leadership Skills is something you acquire but you have to have a vision. The experience and exposure has to be there also. Leadership is not limited to organizations, it’s the same whether its business, corporate house or development sector and for that you have to be visionary. As a leader you have to leave a legacy which is something we have to learn. To become a visionary it is important that you have to have shared vision .This is what she learnt that she should be with women groups with the same vision, so that we can together work on it. However, building leadership is important and creating values for building that leadership is equally important.
Ms Ayodeji said that she is glad to be here all the way from Nigeria. 15 Years ago she had not imagined that she would be in a room like this or what she is today. She was then leading a life of regrets but had a feeling that she could do better even though with no way to navigate forward. She started to look around and motivated women around her. She started her business with only 4 dollars. She needed to start believing in herself and practiced self-leadership. Now she is happy that now she is leading women who are believing in themselves. Through a Conference like this, it is possible to inspire women with the enriching experience of women, who have gone through different phases in their lives.
The panel discussion was followed by a video presentation by Gary Schoeniger (Founder – The Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative). In his presentation he talked about how to develop a positive mindset to become a successful entrepreneur.
Open House Session
Question from the audience: How did you handlee yourself as often family members do not generally let women to step out of the boundary of the family circle. How did you overcome these barriers and get into public life.
Ms. Salima replied that in life you get what you believe you deserve. That determination is very important and your family members sees that. Every woman has to face certain pains and obstacles but we need to overcome that.
Ms Pramila stated that her father provided her the best of education but he had a set mind that she do not need to work because he could provide her with everything. So, she invented a career as I could not inherit career .She went into the development sector and then realized that there are so many women who want to change their lives. I used to meet a lot of minded women all over the South Asia. So, it is very important to invent your own career.
Question to the Panelist: How did they get past their pains of regret :
Ms. Ayodeji replied that: Entrepreneurship is Spiritual. In the beginning, she began to make moves to achieve what she deserves. When she told her husband, he supported her and said go on and make it happen. So she stepped out. Women have a deep wisdom, which they want to bring out. That is what she did. Her family supported her all the way.
Ms. Selima stated that in life actually as a human being, we need to dream, keep hoping and strategize. We have to set our goal. Sometimes your goals can be different from your current route and you have to deroute sometimes and strategize to achieve your goals.
B2B meeting- MOU was signed between the participating associations and FIWE. It was decided that that this trade facilitation center will be further continued as mentioned in the MOU.
Priyadarshini Awards-2022
The Priyadarshini Awards were distributed by the Chief Guest Sh. Sandeep Marwah to 35 national and international women entrepreneurs(as per list annexed)
Vote of Thanks: Ms. Rupali Gupta
“Thank you so much Dr. Marwah. On behalf of FIWE I would like to thank the co organizers, Ministry of MSME and ISID, for making the 6th International conference an enriching and knowledge experience, the learning and energies which we have imbibed. Thank you Hon’ble Speakers, distinguished guests for your time and sharing your visions and experiences. Thank you every one for being here and making this event possible.”
Valedictory Session
L to R: Prof. Nagesh Kumar (Director, ISID), Dr. Sandeep Marwah ( National Chairman, Media and Entertainment Committee BIS, Dr. Rajni Aggarwal (President, FIWE), Mrs. Rupali Gupta)
Dr Rajni Aggarwal, President FIWE:
“I welcome the chief guest Dr. Sandeep Marwah, Prof. Nagesh, and all the participants who have been with us for the last 2 days. Women have done exceedingly well in every field. The last 2 days of deliberations have really taught us that many things but we have yet to learn, talk to policy makers and that we have to work hard both as a woman as an entrepreneur and as a human being.
In India in every walk of life women have arrived. Our role is going to be pivotal. With a growing emphasis on technology especially in the field of robotics and high-end software women are ready to pick up assignments.
With best wishes to our prospective entrepreneurs, we hope that my sister friends will be on the fore front of the massive effort of economic empowerment of people. Our organization is keen for re-inventing our role in this massive task”.
Prof. Nagesh Kumar, Director, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, ISID
“It has been a privilege working with FIWE, on this occasion of 6th International Conference. In the past 2 days we have discussed and debated extensively on the potential that all the women entrepreneurs possess and the opportunities that exists which need to be leveraged and harnessed to take your businesses forward. I am thankful to all the success stories that has been told by some of you. They will provide a lesson for other entrepreneurs. Governments need to remove some of the constraints that you face and find solutions to them. ISID is very privileged to have all of you with us. “
Dr. Sandeep Marwah- National Chairman- Media and Entertainment Committee BIS
Dr. Marwah thanked all the dignities present and started with a Sanskrit shloka
“सभीदिशाओसेशुभसुन्दर , भावविचारभरेनितअंतर , पुण्यधराबनजायेस्वर्गये , मेरेयत्नोसेकरुणाकर” meaning; “Whether it is north south east or west, whether you are in India or abroad, whether you are at the top of the hill or standing at the sea shore, whether you are in a lush green garden and looking at the colorful flowers, the fact is there are 2 things which are much more beautiful than what you can see with your naked eyes ,are your thinking and your feelings. The best part is when both the things are right within you and you do not even need eyes for that. On this very auspicious day let us all pray “Hey Lord give me good thinking; give me good feelings so I can do good deeds, so that I can convert this earth into heaven.”
He said that he always believe that women which starts with “W”; is the Wealth of Education; Wealth of Art and Culture; Wealth of Spirituality; Wealth of Love and Affection.
He again concluded with a sanskrit shloka:
“विभाषितकरगगनभूतल, तिमिरकोज्योतिदेताचल, निरशाकेअँधेरेकोमिटादेलेप्रबंजनबल, कहींपूनम, अमावस्या, कहींउलझन, कहींफिसलन, कहींकांटे, कहींपहरा, कहींकटीलबंधन, यहाँप्रतिकूलहैसबकुछ, कहीं, मरुस्थल, कहीबादल, मगरतूमस्कुराताचल, दिशाएहोउठेउज्ज्वल, मगरतूमस्कुराताचल,दिशाएहोउठतेउज्ज्वल”
