28/07/2026
"Why does ambition have a gender? Why does leadership always have to be masculine?"
Dr Rakhi Anand Aggarwal, Founder, Sakhi Welfare Foundation, brought the room to a standstill at the launch of "Her Story – Her Power."
She spoke of her mother, who left her job at the American Embassy to raise her children — a sacrifice, she said, that was never told, never counted. She spoke of the Supreme Court's recent acknowledgment that a housewife's unpaid labour is worth at least ₹30,000 a month, and asked the question that stayed with everyone: why did it take a court to say what we've seen every day of our lives?
She spoke of visibility — how every woman in that room has faced a moment she wasn't spared, and how every story of achievement is built on guilt, late nights, hard work, and the quiet refusal to be reduced to someone else's dreams.
Her closing words: "When you empower one woman, you're not just empowering an individual. You're empowering a family, a community, a generation — and hence, the nation." Her hope for the next generation: a day when women aren't the supporting actor in someone else's story, but the authors of their own.
Watch her full speech.
