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Droupadi Murmu, Madhabi Puri Buch, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and more: Five women newsmakers of 2022https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/five-women-newsmakers-in-2022-in-india-droupadi-murmu-madhabi-puri-buch-samantha-ruth-prabhu-in-the-list/slidelist/96191677.cms2022-12-13T12:24:39+05:30

Droupadi Murmu, Madhabi Puri Buch, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and more: Five women newsmakers of 2022

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Katya NaiduDec 13, 2022, 12:24 IST

Droupadi Murmu, Madhabi Puri Buch, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and more: Five women newsmakers of 2022 — BCCL
As Indian cricket achieved gender parity this year, Jhulan Goswami has been in the news for both the right and the wrong reasons.
Falguni Nayar’s meteoric rise and quick fall took a dramatic turn this year.
Madhabi Puri Buch – the IIM-A graduate and former banker – took over as SEBI chief when retail participation touched unprecedented levels.
The year of 2022 had many female newsmakers – starting from India’s President to path-breaking entrepreneurs. Many women shattered glass ceilings and broke into territories that were hitherto dominated by men.

This was a fairly good year for female inclusion – the number of women CEOs saw a meteoric rise. Women on company Boards, however, continue to remain few and far between – even when large Navratna companies like SAIL and ONGC appointed women chairpersons, albeit on an interim basis for the latter. In a major landmark, women’s cricket achieved pay parity.

It was a year when women created a lot of wealth and gained more power – the tribe of female billionaires rose. India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman improved her ranking on the Forbes list of most powerful women. Business Insider India profiles five of these powerful women across different fields who ruled the news cycle in 2022.

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Droupadi Murmu: Broadening horizons

Droupadi Murmu: Broadening horizons — BCCL
Droupadi Murmu is someone who has broken glass ceilings all her life. She was born into poverty in a Santhali tribal home, located in Uparbeda panchayat in Odisha’s underdeveloped districts of Mayurbhanj. In spite of the odds, she became the first girl in her village to attend college, to complete BA from Rama Devi Women's College in Bhubaneshwar.
After holding a clerical post in the government, she became a teacher, and started her political career in the late 90s. She went on to become Jharkhand’s first female governor.
The year 2022 can easily be called her best year as she made it as the youngest President of India. She is also the first President who was born in independent India. “My election is proof that the poor in India can fulfill dreams,” she said in her first speech after taking charge as the President of India.

Madhabi Puri Buch: First among equals

Madhabi Puri Buch: First among equals — BCCL
This graduate from IIM-A went on to become India’s first woman to head India’s market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). However, this is not the only first to her credit – she is also the first from the private sector and also the first non-IAS to hold that position.
Mandated to regulate the world’s fifth largest stock market, she now faces many challenges, including the post-Covid and post-war volatility in the markets, unprecedented numbers of retail investors in equity markets and the entry of new-age internet companies into the exchanges.
“Without industry support it is difficult for SEBI to get rid of all evils that we know of -- front running, insider trading, information asymmetry, fraudulent transactions, manipulations of stock prices. I don’t think that we can claim that we have rid the market of its own peculiar versions of smallpox and polio,” she said in one of her first addresses as SEBI chair, also adding the need for better disclosures by IPO-bound companies.
Promising that she will help aid capital formation in equity and debt, Buch is also tightening the rules around alternate investment funds (AIFs).

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Samantha Ruth Prabhu: Nautch girl, terrorist, policewoman

Samantha Ruth Prabhu: Nautch girl, terrorist, policewoman — BCCL
Fresh off her de-glam role as a terrorist in the web series Family Man, Samantha Ruth Prabhu created waves with her item song Oo Antava in Pushpa late last year. The song became one of the most streamed songs of 2022 and made her popularity soar. So much so, she became the most popular female star in 2022 as per Ormax, beating Alia Bhatt and South superstar Nayantara.
She won the hearts of many with her unaffected comments on the talk show Koffee with Karan - be it her candid responses on the status of her recent divorce or calling her Pushpa song a critique on the male gaze. She also spoke about her battle with an auto-immune disease myositis and received rave reviews for her latest thriller movie, Yashoda, where she plays a an undercover police trainee.

Falguni Nayar: The rise and the fall

Falguni Nayar: The rise and the fall — BCCL
The investment banker turned entrepreneur became the latest woman to enter the list of billionaires, after she listed her company FSN E-Commerce Ventures that runs Nykaa – online retailer of beauty and fashion products. Unlike most ‘fresh entrants’ she went on to top the Hurun list of female Indian self-made billionaires, displacing Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, who had held on to that position for many years.
This, however, is only one side of the story. Since listing last year the Nykaa stock, like most new-age companies, lost its sheen with the investors. As the stock declined by 56% since the start of this year, so did Nayar’s wealth – from $6.5 billion in late 2021 to around $2.4 billion currently. Even though she retained her billionaire status, she also came under the scanner for trying to prop up her stock price by issuing bonus shares – a practice that touches the grey area in terms of corporate governance slip ups.

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Jhulan Goswami: From records to retirement

Jhulan Goswami: From records to retirement — BCCL
The 39-year-old cricketer retired from international cricket this year. But not before creating history by breaking a 34-year-old record to become the highest wicket-taker in ICC Women’s World Cup – with 43 wickets in total.
Even more impressive is the fact that Goswami, who started off in 2002, had a glorious 20 year career – a rare feat for a female cricketer. She played in 12 tests, 204 one-day internationals and 68 T20Is. The right-arm medium fast bowler and right-hand batter has picked up 355 wickets across all formats in her international career.
Along with Mithali Raj, she has played a key role in the growth of female cricket in India, which reached a state of maturity in 2022 with gender pay parity. Goswami’s exit is being considered the end of an era by many experts and players, though she will continue to remain the mentor- cum-player for Bengal’s cricket team – a role she took up four months before retirement.
Though Goswami herself was never a part of controversies, a lot of social media outrage took place around her name – including actor Ahana Kumra’s ‘make-up’ to look like Goswami; and the casting of Anushka Sharma to play the cricketer in her biopic in the making, called Chakda Xpress.

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