After my father’s death, our family branch became the only branch without a male heir, but we continued to have the same shareholding. Little did we know that the archaic principles practiced by the family over the last 100 years would haunt us so badly.

What is clear to us after three years is that the family’s tactics are nothing more than a robe to conceal their socially regressive gender bias: Valli Arunachalam.

Valli Arunachalam’s struggle to break the glass ceiling in a patriarchal family run business tells us how difficult it is for women, even today, to find a seat on a table full of men, let alone run a company.

Credentials and capability should be centre stage in the workplace, not gender, says Valli Arunachalam.

Valli Arunachalam has set off on a lonely battle to seek the property rights of female heir which should be as much as that of the male heir.