Our institutional framework needs to be bolstered further. We have to implement laws like the proposed Bankruptcy Code and GST (Goods and Services Tax), which will create efficiencies and strongly support the business environment.

A demography that is digitising rapidly, and the potential to invest in infrastructure, are the key strengths of India.

All three of us - two sisters and a brother - were brought up with an emphasis on academics.

The real underlying value comes if you can put a company back into a running state and it becomes a successful viable entity if it continues to repay loans.

I have always been saying that while - the legislative reforms are good, but there are so many low-hanging fruits that we have look for by taking executive decisions. I think the government is actually moving in the right direction.

My priorities are going to be to play a very balanced role in the sense that I have to keep an eye on the challenges in the environment. At the same time, I have to keep an eye on the optimism that is there for India.

Clearly, for an organization to move on, it is the job of the leader to be that sponge that takes the stress from inside and the outside.

What my parents believed was that, you know, the best wealth they could give to us children was to educate us and, you know - give us that foundation.

There were so many occasions when I wasn't around for my kids or my husband. But we learnt to work around it.

I chose to be a working wife and mother. Why should I compromise on either?

Normally, we define banks as being either retail or corporate, but ICICI transformed itself from a corporate bank into a retail bank and, now, a universal bank.

When commercial banking opened up for the private sector, I set up the retail-banking division for ICICI and grew it substantially. I then ran the international side of the ICICI Bank for a few years.

The biggest challenge for me, for all of us, was that the consumer-credit market was very, very new for India and for ICICI. I was trying to create something that was not just new for me but absolutely unknown to the organization and the country as a whole.

I had to create a team of people who had worked in this industry for other banks. What I brought to that team was ICICI's strategic thinking, but when it came to domain knowledge or product nuances, I had to learn from the team.

I have it all because my children did not whine and cry when I was not there.

It's not easy to have it all. Frankly, you know, you have to give as much to the career that the career requires and, at the same time, you have to give as much to the family as the attention that's required. But it can be done, yes.

We actually probably do nothing very special for women. But what we do in a very special manner is to remain an absolute gender-neutral, merit-based organization.

Over the years, we have gone beyond our businesses to take up philanthropic projects in diverse areas - from education to health care to skilling.

Our large size, capital base, robust funding profile, extensive distribution network, diversified portfolio, presence across the financial services sector, and leadership in technology position us very well to leverage the growth opportunities across the economy.

Life comprises of both: opportunities as well as challenges.

It is important always to make full use of opportunities that come your way, and at the same time, it is important to not just cope with the challenges but try and convert each challenge into an opportunity.

When we look at the credit growth, we should look at it in its totality. Let us not only look at the non-food bank credit growth but also look at the growth across all the instruments of financing.

The important source of finance is now commercial papers, bonds, and so on.

No one thing can change the face of any sector.

Let me talk about what the banks are doing, and I think the banks have been working to make sure that, as much as possible, we move the currency to the smaller areas and to as many set of customers as possible.

If we look at India and the Indian demographics and the Indian consumer, I think the Indian consumer is going digital, social, and mobile. They want everything in a digital format, everything available on the go, and we socially connected.

Every business has to re-think their own business model and say does it meet this DSM test and do their products and services meet the test of being digital, social, and mobile? I think the banks are doing the same.

What we see is that we actually have digital channels through which the customers interact, but we also take the absolute brick channels, which is the branch, and convert that experience into a more digitised experience.

One thing I would say about the Indian consumer is that as much change and as much technology, innovation that you offer to the Indian consumer, the Indian consumer is very receptive and actually keep expecting more, and we have had that great experience.

It is crucial to bridge the critical gap between manpower availability and employability by providing sustainable livelihood opportunities for all to grow and prosper.

ICICI Bank was the first bank to recalibrate its ATMs for 2000 and then also for 500 rupee notes, and now we have some ATMs which give out 2000, 500, 100 - all of them.

The whole thing of moving the currency through currency sorting and detection machines and so on that was the whole process actually encouraging electronic transactions.

I think we have to pick up some sectors where we can make India the global hub in the entire value chain, and the most important sector to pick up should be electronics.

Punjab is central to our business strategy, and we are an active partner in the state's growth.

We will leverage technology to collaborate with the government in its e-governance initiatives.

I think it's important to celebrate your successes. It's important to feel happy about them, but it's equally important to look forward to the next big move.

What I was told by my parents was that, you know, take this inhibition out whether you're a girl or a boy. Basically, pursue your dream, and as long as you're a capable and hardworking human being, you will be able to follow and fulfill your dream.

Two eyes are given for a reason. One eye to always look at the opportunity. The second eye to always keep looking at the challenges. Because if you don't balance both, it's very easy to get carried away one way or the other. And it's when you balance the two that you find the most sustainable model.

Our parents treated all three of us - two sisters and a brother - equally. When it came to education, or our future plans, there was no discrimination between us based on our gender.

I was only a young girl of 13 when my father passed away from a sudden heart attack, leaving us unprepared to take on life without him. We had been protected from life's challenges so far. But without warning, all that changed overnight.

She worked hard till she saw all of us through college and we became independent. I never knew that my mother had such a wealth of self-assurance and belief within her.

The restructuring theme can be of various kinds. Some amount of debt gets serviced out of cash flows, some gets back-ended and resolved with sale of non-core assets of the company, and some debt gets converted into equity which might today look like a haircut.

Lending has come back in retail; it has come back in working capital. It has also come back in other forms, like government contract being given out to companies.

What's important is that we see each year what the opportunities are, and make use of the opportunity.

Successful strategic vision lay in the fact that we visualized the retail business to be much bigger, ahead of what others thought it to be.

Our focus is more on secured retail business like housing and car loans. While we will do some unsecured loans - credit cards and personal loans - we will do it primarily with existing customers.

We believe that rural India is going to be the next driver of growth. You cannot make money overnight there, as you have to set up infrastructure there; the value of transactions is lower - you need a few years before you can really make all those businesses profitable.

Every quarter, we need to see the portfolio and follow the accounting practice of mark-to-market that values investments according to the prevailing market prices and at the price at which they are made.

We don't understand the equity market well, and so we deploy funds in fixed-income securities, and like any other securities, investment in those securities also need to follow the mark-to-market accounting principle.

Mark-to-market losses are not real loss. It's a notional loss. What we can monitor is the credit quality of the underlying papers. Are the companies paying interest on time? Is there any deterioration in the credit quality of these companies?