Empowerment of Indian women is still a debatable issue in the country. At a time when only 26.6% of all Indian women above 25 are able to get secondary education and when Parliament has only 10% women representatives, it is hard to think about their role in the Indian business structure.

Since historical times, businesses in India have been a male dominated activity, with little or no role for women. But times are surely changing, and more and more women are actively joining business and entrepreneurial role.

Some of the major success stories scripted entirely by women in the last few decades include that of Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad, a co-operative style business unit which did business worth Rs 600 crore in 2010, and employs over 42,000 women all over India. Then there is the story of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw who founded India's first biotech company: Biocon.

Fortune Magazine recently came up with a list of the most powerful Indian businesswomen, who have made a mark on the corporate scene, and leading their companies to incredible growth and development.

#1 Chanda Kochhar : ICICI Bank MD and CEO

Chanda Kochhar has been hailed as the most powerful Indian businesswomen by Fortune magazine, annual ranking. She joined ICICI bank as a management trainee in the year 1984, and with her hard work and persistence, she has reached the top of the organization. In 2009, she replaced KV Kamath to become Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank. Globally, she is ranked 4^th in terms of most powerful business women.

#2 Shikha Sharma: MD & CEO of Axis Bank

Shikha Sharma is the second most powerful Indian business women in India. A graduate of IIM Ahmedabad, Shikha spent 29 years in ICICI Bank, before joining Axis Bank as their CEO. Under her tenure, Axis Bank has grown tremendously, as the bank's assets swelled to $55 billion showing an increase of 30% between 2012-2013. She has doubled the number of branches and ATMs across the country, and has helped Axis Bank become India's 4^th largest private sector bank. She has famously said that she wants to make Axis Bank India's JP Morgan.

#3 Aruna Jayanthi: CEO of Capgemini India

Aruna Jayanthi, CEO of Capgemini India is the third most powerful Indian businesswomen. She is overseeing 40,000 employees spread across 9 Indian cities, and helped Capgemini to make a solid base in Indian subcontinent. She has ensured that the company follows a rigorous growth curve, and has some ambitious plans for the future. By 2015, she aims to increase the total headcount to 70,000.

#4 Preetha Reddy: MD of Apollo Hospital Enterprises

4^th most powerful Indian business women, Preetha Reddy is the managing director of Asia's largest healthcare provider. A dream which started with 150 bed hospital in Chennai, Apollo Hospital now offers more than 8000 beds spread across 46 hospitals with an annual revenues of Rs 3000 crore. Under the able leadership of Preetha, Apollo is on a tremendous expansion mode.

#5 Mallika Srinivasan: CEO of Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited (TAFE)

World's third largest and India's second largest tracker manufacturing company Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited (TAFE) with annual revenues of $1.3 billion is being led by Mallika Srinivasan, who is India's 5^th most powerful businesswomen. During her leadership spanning over 30 years, TAFE has grown more than 30 times and expanded to over 86 countries all over the globe.

Other women who were part of this power-list are:

• Yasmine Hilton, Chairperson Shell India
• Vanitha Naraynan, MD, IBM India
• Anita Dongre, Founder, Anita Dongre
• N Bhuvaneswari, Vice Chairman and MD, Heritage Foods;
• Ashu Suyash, CEO, L&T Investment Management
• Awani Saglani Davda, CEO, Tata Starbucks India.
• Shobhana Bhartia, Chairperson, HT Media
• Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson and MD, Biocon
• Zia Mody, Co-founder, AZB Partners
• Vinita Bali, MD, Britannia Industries
• Naina Lal Kidwai, Country Head, HSBC India.
• Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms
• Chitra Ramkrishna of National Stock Exchange
• Renu Sood Karnad of HDFC

Women entrepreneurship in India is picking up, and there is tremendous momentum building up as more and more women are getting educated and awareness is increasing. But there are lots of challenges which still negatively affect this development. For a sustained and dependable development of the country, more Indian women should jump the band wagon, and start making a difference to the world.

The ubiquitous 'What's Up', meaning what is going on/how are you was exploited beautifully by the King of Beers Budweiser in their WASSUP campaign. Then, in 2009, two former employees of Yahoo! created something on the same name which revolutionized the mobile communications industry – cross-platform instant messaging subscription service for smartphones, which we today know as WhatsApp.

Consider these stats: Message volume at 14 billion a day, across 100 countries, on 750 mobile networks. Globally 300 million monthly active users. 25 million active users just in a country like India. The traditional SMS volume comparatively is estimated to have a volume of about 20 Billion a day. To put it perspective, SMS came into existence over 20 years back and currently has 3.5 billion active users. SMS is dying, there is no doubt about that and Whatsapp seems to be the biggest culprit behind that!

Mind boggling numbers? Read on…

The telecommunications industry is growing by leaps and bounds. Technologically and exponentially. Meaning new technology (read: smartphones are selling millions weekly) is fast gaining ground and what had happened in the last couple of decades is now happening in these couple of years! And every Tom, Dick and Harry worth his salt is trying to ride this wave. And WhatsApp seems to be the  torchbearer.

Global or just India?

Take India's example. A developing country with low internet penetration but growing at an exponential rate. From 20 million monthly active users in August 2013, it has crossed 25 million today, the kind of growth a bull run sensex also can't give. This IM has become so popular that Idea Cellular had also mentioned during its earnings call that more than 4.3 million Idea connections had accessed WhatsApp in the last quarter (Q2-FY14), although strangely it had also mentioned that free messaging apps like WhatsApp were a threat to its non-data VAS revenues, whereas it is these same free applications which are driving the data usage on these networks, thereby growing Idea Cellular's data VAS revenues.

No competitors?

Japanese mobile messaging application LINE had claimed to have hit 10 million registered users mark in India last month. Bharti-Softbank (BSB) backed Hike had also claimed to have 5 million registered users in April 2013. Tencent's WeChat doesn't provide any country-wide breakup but it had claimed to have crossed 100 million overseas users in August 2013.

Threat to SMS?

SMS is passe. Other than basic phone users, no one actually uses it. Irrespective of the fact that it is now available for as low as 1ps/sms. Did you ask why? Just because it is what Black and White movies are to today's generations' IMAX shot videos. The generation of SMS is at a sunset. Telcos who had made a killing by charging hefty charges for sms are now at a loss as SMS usage is dipping day by day.

Revenues hurt?

Not yet, but soon it will hit.

About 96% of India's 900 million mobile connections are on pre-paid. To use either the free calling platforms that use IP platforms to route their calls, or to avail free instant messaging apps, customers must first buy a data plan. Be it a daily, weekly or monthly data plan, this is close to what mobile phone companies were making by selling SMS packs.

Unlike most global markets, SMS accounts for less than 5% of the total revenues of all major operators in the country, while for some telcos, this figure is as low as 2-3%. In comparison, SMS contributes 43% of the telcos' sales in the Philippines, 23% in Indonesia, 18% in Singapore and 14.3% in Malaysia.

Therefore, the prospects of free instant messaging apps cannibalizing SMS revenues is yet to become a major threat in India. Put simply, OTT (over-the-top apps) is only additional new messaging and not cannibalized SMS.

Research on the money involved?

Credit Suisse analysts Sunil Tirumalai and Chunky Shah wrote in a 16 September research note: IP calls we tried on a 3G network in Mumbai used up 450 KB of data per minute, for each user. Using the average revenue per MB reported by Bharti/Idea (at 32p/MB—which incidentally is close to the rate implied in the popular Rs.103/300MB 3G plans), we calculate that a one minute VoIP call on Line works out to 30p/min—split evenly between the two parties. This comes at a 52% discount to the outgoing call rate of 62p/min implied in Bharti's voice RPM.

Any disappointments?

WhatsApp is tightly integrated with phone number for identification and can’t function if the device isn’t able to receive the verification SMS — ironically. This is where SMS scores one point over the hundred which WhatsApp has scored.

Falling smartphone prices make India the fastest growing market for these apps. May be soon, just like the last telegram we sent couple of months ago, the time has come to send the last SMS too.

With the call rates lowest in the world and people shifting to apps like Whatsapp from messaging, the telecom sector needs to come up with innovative Value added services (VAS) for people to use and generate revenues for the company. Videocon has come up with a new mobile VAS in the health department.

Videocon Telecom has launched a new and specialized service for its Subscribers. An Ayurvedic Mobile service, M-health has been developed by Videocon Telecom in collaboration with JIVA Ayurvedic Group.

The idea is to offer specialized Ayurvedic treatment to users. With this service the subscriber will have round the clock access to Ayurvedic doctors on call at 535133. The call rates are hefty though at Rs. 6/min. I do not think that many people will be heavily inclined to use this service at such call rates.

Along with this, Videocon has also partnered with Think Health Services. This means that the subscribers can speak with a certified Ayurveda Expert for their health issues and would get appropriate treatment advice. The users then can order the prescribed medication as well directly and these medicines will be delivered to their homes.

This service is managed through Ayurvedic Telemedicine Center (Asia's largest) with a panel of over 150 doctors and the access will be to about 1300 cities. Also, the sale is our favorite, Cash-On-Delivery basis.

In the words of Arvind Bali, Director and CEO, Videocon Telecom- "We are pleased to roll out the M Health service for our subscribers. Ayurveda is not just a treatment but a way of life which helps maintain one's health from the outset. With the launch of this service, we seek to bring convenience and affordable healthcare services to our consumers..

We are committed in improving the lifestyle of our customers, and aim to raise awareness on healthcare through this one of its kind health service. Our latest venture into the M-VAS sector is sure to herald more innovations in coming times which will bring greater ease into the consumers' lives."

In my opinion, this is a little high end service. The call rates are pretty high and Ayurvedic Medicines are not as cheap as usual medicines. Videocon here is not trying to create new Ayurvedic users but only trying to capitalize on the one who already exist.

What is your take on this service? Will it fly?