The She List 2026 | Women, warriors, winners

A worthy ensemble of 50 young, self-made female icons whose achievements can serve as a template for women across India and a beacon of hope for the nation

ISSUE DATE: Aug 24, 2026

In a country where women form nearly half the population, they may soon get a third of political representation in Parliament, the nation’s highest legislative body. The implementation of the 2023 Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam could do more than bolster women’s faith in Indian democracy. As more young women assume positions of power, they will not only shape the politics of today, but also the India of tomorrow.

Just look at grassroots institutions across the country to see the transformation women’s empowerment can bring. Currently, India has some 1.45 million elected women representatives in its Panchayati Raj Institutions. That is 46 per cent of the total, the highest for women in local governance in the world. Dolly, the 36-year-old sarpanch of Sadipur village in Bihar, remembers only too well when she took over the gram kachahari (village court) to resolve local disputes. People would initially walk past her and toward her husband, assuming he was in charge, given how common proxy representation is a reality across India’s rural swathes. But Dolly let her work speak for itself and soon left no one in doubt who was calling the shots.

In another Bihar village—Tilkari in Munger district—Bina Devi first discovered the value of financial independence herself and then proceeded to share it with women in a hundred other villages. When scientists from a neighbouring agricultural university came to train women in mushroom farming, the then Tilkari sarpanch turned the skill into an engine of enterprise not just for her own family but for women across the region.

Sometimes, a seemingly small intervention by a woman in power can go a long way in improving the everyday existence of women around her. IAS officer Hari Chandana Dasari played that role in Telangana. As district collector of Narayanpet, she observed how the local women had stopped going to the weekly market because there was nowhere for them to relieve themselves during the day. Hari Chandana had a ‘She-toilet’ installed at the market, and the locals can’t thank her enough for it.

Dolly, Bina and Hari Chandana are among the 50 women under 50 we are featuring in our Independence Day special issue this year. As india today magazine completes 50 years of publication, we decided to celebrate a different kind of national achievement this time: the rise of self-made women who are shaping and redefining India’s future. These are women who have created their own success stories, with a novel idea, an innovation, a new approach, or the courage to challenge convention—all before hitting the half century mark of their lives. To get here, they have risen above their circumstance, whether of income, education, gender bias, family responsibility and, at times, self-doubt. Across domains as varied as business, science, sport, governance and cinema—they have not only broken barriers but also shown what is possible when women have the freedom to shape their own destinies. For these 50 women under 50, freedom means more than political or constitutional rights—it means economic independence, professional opportunity, creative expression and the freedom to lead. All of which makes them the ideal role models for the nearly 560 million women under 50 in India, 78 per cent of the 715 million women in India, according to UN projections.

HER TIME HAS COME

The writing is on the wall. Women in India have been ready for a while now to occupy their place in the sun—and mere tokenism will no longer suffice. Their struggle has always been harder, starting from birth (India has historically had an adverse sex ratio for girls) to the right to a school or college education (their literacy rate of 74.9 per cent remains lower than the 87.5 per cent for males). Campaigns such as Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao have gone some way in dispelling darkness, but against the entrenched patriarchy of millennia, they are destined to come up short. Life gets no better in adulthood. The old curse of child marriage persists in the country’s rural hinterlands, varying from 20 per cent to 23 per cent, compared to 50 per cent a few decades ago. Crime against women remains a blot on the nation, with 1,210-1,220 such complaints being filed every day, or roughly 51 every hour.

Yet resilience is an attribute hardwired into the Indian woman, and it helps her survive the most overwhelming odds. Nowhere is it more apparent than in sports. The grind begins early, as it did for 21-year-old wrestling champ Antim Panghal, who as a 10-year-old child would wake up every day at six in the morning, travel 20 km from Bhagana in Haryana to train for 3-4 hours and then make the same journey back home. Today, she is world no. 1 in the women’s 53 kg category. And who would have known that a girl from the rustic Barki Chhapar in Jharkhand, who’d win goats and chickens for her exploits with the hockey stick at the local games, would one day captain the Indian hockey team. Salima Tete did exactly that.

Success, though, is the visible part of the story. Failure is a lonelier place, and the more familiar one. But women know how to negotiate it too. They perhaps tell themselves what Indian women’s cricket star all-rounder Shafali Verma tells others: “Always believe in yourself. There will be difficult times, not everything will go your way, but don’t let one setback decide your future.” She has been there. Excluded from the team for the 2025 ODI women’s World Cup, returning as an injury replacement, and helping India win through fantastic displays with bat and ball.

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

Success is not the first thing a woman entrepreneur chases. All she starts with is an idea, born perhaps out of an unmet need, and the conviction to pursue it. For Vineeta Singh, it was the lack of beauty products made for Indian skin tones and capable of withstanding Indian heat and humidity that became the motivation for starting a cosmetics firm, SUGAR. It wasn’t easy—Vineeta had to go through rejection by a hundred investors before global private equity firm L Catterton and actor Ranveer Singh put their faith and their money in her brand. Today, she has more than 2,000 self-made women working for her and her company sells 550 products across lips, eye and skin care across 45,000 retail outlets in the country as well as online. Her lesson? “There will be enough people underestimating you. Make sure you’re never one of them.” In Gurugram, engineering graduate Upasana Taku’s quest for a quick and easy online payments system culminated in the hugely successful MobiKwik wallet firm that she and her husband set up together.

The victory of women like Vineeta Singh and Upasana Taku is a victory for all women, as India becomes the second country in the world where women-led start-ups attract the highest funding—$26 billion, to be precise. This, when, according to NASSCOM numbers, women-led startups comprise just 18 per cent of the entire ecosystem. This, despite gender-based discrimination, limited access to capital, underrepresentation in high-growth sectors and societal scepticism. Female labour force participation in India is still 40 per cent, well below the 79.1 per cent for men. Women aged 15-59 spent about 305 minutes per day on unpaid domestic services in 2024; 41 per cent of women aged 15-59 participated in caregiving for household members. What gender parity can achieve bears repetition—it can boost India’s GDP by 27 per cent, says the IMF; bringing 50 per cent of women into the active workforce can spike annual GDP growth by 1 to 1.5 percentage points, rules the World Bank.

BREAKING THE MOULD

There are other areas where women are still ploughing a lonely furrow. Like in science and technology. Female presence in the country’s research workforce remains woefully inadequate at a mere 18.6 per cent of the total—in China, it is 45.8 per cent; in the US, 27-35 per cent. But then some women prefer the quiet. Like in the wilderness. Barkha Subba found her calling there, taking up the cause of saving the Himalayan Salamander, the small, brightly-coloured lizard-like semi-aquatic amphibian. Ornithologist Parveen Shaikh did the same for the endangered Indian Skimmer, a riverine bird with its bright-orange scissors-bill, and both won the prestigious Whitley Awards this year. “Science and conservation need more women, not only as participants, but as researchers, leaders and decision-makers,” says Dr Subba.

Women are indeed breaking barriers everywhere, even in our male-dominated defence forces. Theirs may currently be just a foot in the door: 3.8 per cent officers in the Indian army, 6 per cent in the Indian Navy and 13 per cent officers in the Indian Air Force. For context, the US has 19 per cent, or 400,000 women, serving in active duty and reserve roles. But Indian women are now getting out there on the scene of battle, whether as fighter pilots or as soldiers. Squadron Leader Bhawana Kanth recently became a one-woman elite club of ‘Top Gun’ fighter pilots eligible to lead combat missions. Her compatriots in the navy—Lieutenant Commanders Dilna K. and Roopa A.—conquered a frontier on the high seas, becoming the first women to circumnavigate the world on a double-handed voyage.

THE CREATIVE COHORT

When it comes to the arts, women play an outsized role in keeping alive a nation’s cultural heritage, whether it is popular entertainment or the classical arts. Kapila Venu is doing exactly that with Koodiyattam, a 2,000-year-old Kerala theatre tradition that is not just physically demanding but also a test of endurance, with a single performance sometimes going up to a month. In cinema, voices from the margins are increasingly making themselves heard, like the award-winning northeastern filmmakers Tribeny Rai and Rima Das. Also breaking Bollywood’s stranglehold are heroines of south Indian cinema—Rashmika Mandanna and Kalyani Priyadarshan—who are seamlessly wooing audiences across linguistic barriers.

But while much has changed, much has also remained the same. An outsider in Bollywood still has to work doubly harder than a child born in the industry. #MeToo is a reality that has not gone anywhere. Pay parity with male counterparts remains a distant dream, especially for the countless artistes who work behind the scenes. The situation is no better at the leadership level; women hold only about 12-15 per cent of key creative and leadership positions—such as heads of department, directors, writers, and senior executive roles—in the Indian media and entertainment industry. It’s a situation that women have long accepted. Many have chosen the indie route, others are going OTT, and a select few are fighting it out. Like Sanya Malhotra. She has built enough equity through grit and gumption to be her own woman in the big bad world of Bollywood. “Most women often suffer from the imposter syndrome,” she says. “Kick it away. Trust yourself and your gut feeling.” It’s a worthy thought for women across the country this Independence Day, and in the years to come.

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