India's Women Power (Part 2)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

- CHIT U. JUAN

She sashays into the hall and people take a second look because she comes in with flair and style. That's my counterpart at the INDIA-ASEAN Women Business Forum (IAWBF), Vinita Bimbhet. We put up the forum back in 2017 to keep relations between India and the ASEAN member-states alive over entrepreneurship, fashion, food and even spiritual activities. To this day, Vinita and I continue to think of how our two countries (plus whoever in ASEAN would like to join) can keep the friendship going.

Under the current leadership of Ficci-FLO (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce) Ladies Organization or simply FLO, Joyshree Das Verma, we organized two trips to India over the last six months. In September we were received in Hyderabad and Delhi and in February we had just come from Mumbai and Bangalore. What do we do on these trips? We network, we find business connections and we make friends that will last a lifetime.

The ASEAN Committee of FLO and IAWBF is the core group that has also visited the Philippines back in 2017 for an ASEAN Business and Investment Summit and joined us in a meeting in Bangkok the following year. So it has been a back and forth of cultural and business visits that our groups have been doing, much to the delight of our members who experience VIP treatment, whether in India or in Manila.

Spiritual India