-- After a career break of nearly ten years, my friend Radha decided to return to work. I was genuinely happy for her. She had given up her career soon after her marriage and had long resented that decision. Once her son moved to higher classes, she felt it was time to reclaim her professional life and rejoin her former employer. A couple of weeks later, I checked in on her. She mentioned there was just one problem. Her husband, Muthukumar, returned home by 6 p.m., while she

-- Leadership is often inferred from roles, résumés, and results. Yet its true quality becomes visible only when circumstances remove predictability. This reflection explores why mentoring matters before that moment arrives. Leadership is often described in terms of competence, capability, or experience. Yet many of us intuitively recognise that leadership is something more elusive—embedded, situational, and often invisible until it is tested. It is like culture, any number o

Are Longer Working-Hours Reforms Sliding into Worker Fatigue? - - Several states are advancing labour-law reforms to relax daily working-hour caps and raise overtime limits for certain sectors. Governments and employers promote these changes as steps toward greater flexibility, competitiveness (China+1), and ease of doing business. However, this push has ignited sharp criticism over the overshadowed consequences-escalating fatigue, health hazards, safety risks, and the erosio

Clarity Amid Chaos --   “Artificial intelligence is the most consequential technological development in human history. The world has so far seen only the tip of the iceberg of its possibilities”- Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd. Retail leaders today are not short on ambition when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). They are short on clarity. Across boardrooms and executive committees, AI dominates agendas with a sense of inevitability and unease. Budget