Quota for women directors: A step towards gender diversity on board

Equal rights and opportunities for every citizen are enshrined in the Constitution of India, when the constitution talks about equality and prohibition of discrimination on basis of sex, it implies that equal rights and opportunities are available to all the citizens, without any discrimination. For long it has been of misfortune of women in India, that they were not entitled to equal opportunity of education, employment or even equal remuneration for same work. We have come a long way from evils like sati , parda-pratha and still we have a long way to go before a sense of true equality can be established. The lack of equal opportunities is clearly visible as women are underrepresented in corporate field , as well as on the board of directors in corporate boards, the resulting lack of gender diversity is however now on its way to be fixed as the legislature have now made it mandatory upon all listed companies to appoint at least one women director on their board by Companies Act 2013, this provision was however not well appreciated by all because it was believed that this will lead to phenomenon of appointment of trophy directors in which women directors will be appointed just for the purpose of complying with the obligation set by legislature. Due to the fact that women are since long assigned with traditional role in society it is necessary to now provide a extra push and effort to make them capable of acquiring power positions and to improve gender diversity not only on the Board of Director but in other fields as well. A well and proper application of the mandate will result in positive gender diversity, appreciation and acceptance of different point of views which will result in better functioning of corporate boards.