Arbitration has tremendous opportunities in Chennai, says Nirmala Sitharaman

Speaking at a Ficci-FLO forum post women’s day celebration, she said arbitration is an area where women possessed a natural flair. “Women are good negotiators.” Sitharaman lamented that a large number of arbitrations for Indian corporations/companies are outsourced to Singapore, Germany and London. “Don’t we have enough people to handle it? Don’t we have enough issues to understand, take up and resolve,” she asked.

The Minister felt women were better equipped in this area. Unlike working in an office, arbitration required preparing briefs and provided opportunities to work from home, coupled with flexibility of working hours. She also invited more women to aspire and enter the field of arbitration. “Chennai is also becoming a big centre for arbitration,” Sitharaman said.

She also talked about the legal mandate of having women on corporate Boards as independent directors. “By law, it is compulsory for large MNCs or within India, for corporations to have women on their Boards. Big penalty is imposed on public sector undertakings that don’t have independent directors as women,” she said.

Despite having a shortage, women were not keen on donning the role of independent directors. Recalling her stint as a Commerce and Industry minister, she said she faced this dilemma: “We pay fines every year but women are not available to take up the position even though they are there. I didn’t know how to get out of this conundrum,” she said, urging the Ficci-FLO forum to keep writing to the Centre, requesting it to consider some of the women it identifies for this role.

On Pulwama, Sitharaman’s said that the Indian government gave Pakistan a lot of evidence and requested for action. This is not just this government but earlier government also. The Prime Minister, since 2014, is meeting with the world leaders and talking about Pakistan needs to be isolated because it doesn’t really take any action against terror.

Sitharaman said, “One thing is very clear; Pakistan wasn’t acting on terrorists. It continues to be the country, where terrorists are trained, funded, supported by military establishment and sent across. We took decision to hit that nerve centre which was training, funding and giving capacity to what they call Fidayeen. It was not a military action, it was a targeted attack on terrorists, which actually Pakistan should have done, they didn’t.”