Miles to go before I sleep: Kiran Mazumdar Shaw says women entrepreneurs in India still have a long way to go

By Shannon Tellis

If sheer presence is the benchmark, women entrepreneurs seem to have come a long way in India since the 1980s, but according to Biocon MD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, they haven’t come far enough. The chief recently tweeted a link to a 1989 documentary on women entrepreneurs that could have been shot today.

Shaw feels a lot of the “concerns and challenges” presented in the film from three decades ago are still prevalent for women.




Produced by a national broadcaster, the documentary focuses on the Entrepreneurship Development Program and its efforts to support potential women entrepreneurs in India.

At the start of the film, a younger, hopeful Shaw says, “I think women are beginning to impose themselves as threats or as competitors to men in this country. We’ve had it easy for so long.” Prophetic words?.