Breaking the glass ceiling?

The rule to have at least one female Board member has indeed thrown up some weird set of results. Just as politicians use their wife and daughter, daughter-in-law to “fill” the seat, the very same industrialists who would have frowned upon the politicians are doing the very same thing. They are now rushing up to fulfill the need of one female Board member by appointing their mother or sister or daughter or wife or even stepmother in one case. This is like a proxy – just do it! How does this solve the problem of corporate governance at all?

Take the case of the biggest company of India itself – Reliance Industries. Mukesh Ambani has installed his wife, Nita Ambani and Vijay Mallya’s stepmom sits on his Boards. If this is how it is amongst the top companies, can you imagine how it would be as we come down to smaller companies? This is like Lalu Prasad putting his wife in place as CM or Mulayam Singh fielding his daughter-in-law.  

As per Prime database, more than 30%  of the 1479 companies listed on the NSE were yet to appoint a woman to their board as of March 15. And another damning report from Credit Suisse - women held just 7.1% of senior management positions in India in 2013, which is less than one third of the level in Malaysia – it has a 30% quota for female representative on the Board by 2016. This rule by SEBI should not end up being a move in mere tokenism.