CHARCHA 2026
September 16, 2026 | India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
AIF is co-hosting CHARCHA 2026
India’s largest collaborative convening where samaaj, sarkaar, and bazaar align on shared problems, coordinated approaches, and pathways toward inclusive, resilient economic growth. This edition of Charcha brought together more than 200 speakers across government, markets, and civil society, creating a platform for cross-sector conversations on the systems shaping India’s next phase of development.
India’s next development breakthrough will depend on how well the country connects the people, institutions, and systems capable of driving it. As co-host, AIF brought its experience as a systems convenor and ecosystem partner, connecting government, business, finance, and civil society around two dimensions of economic participation central to its work: women’s economic participation and disability inclusion.
Women’s economic participation and disability inclusion sit at the center of AIF’s mission to build inclusive livelihoods. At Charcha, AIF used two sessions to examine the institutional conditions that determine whether inclusion translates into economic participation: how women-led enterprises enter formal procurement and sourcing systems, and how persons with disabilities enter, advance within, and help shape the future of work.
The discussion brought together ecosystem wide voices, including Manmeet Nanda (IAS), Additional Secretary, DEPwD, MoSJE, Government of India; Kanta Singh, Deputy Country Representative, UN Women India; Poonam Mehdiratta, Country Lead – India, WEConnect International; Ruby Pahuja Sharma, Assistant General Manager, SIDBI; Ajaita S., Founder & CEO, Frontier Markets; Nishant Pandey, CEO, American India Foundation; Sushmita Jain, Global Disability Inclusion Lead & Manager, Inclusion & Belonging, Wipro; Kamesh Sanghi, Country Director & Chief Functionary, AIF; Sheetal Bathija, Culture Lead – International Hubs, NatWest Group; Vibha Kothari, Head, DEI, Zomato; and Akshay Tyagi, DGM – Talent Management & DEI, The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group.
Beyond Enterprise: Advancing Women’s Economic Participation through Markets, Procurement and Institutional Partnerships
The first session, “Beyond Enterprise: Advancing Women’s Economic Participation through Markets, Procurement and Institutional Partnerships,” brought leaders from government, finance, and industry together for a cross-sector dialogue. Rather than treating enterprise creation as the finish line, the conversation focused on what comes after: the institutional and commercial conditions that allow women-led businesses to compete in formal markets and grow. The discussion examined how women entrepreneurs gain sustained market access and institutional backing, and how procurement systems, sourcing networks, and supply chains determine which enterprises can enter formal markets, secure contracts, and grow at scale.
Framing the shift needed in how supply chains engage with women-owned businesses, Poonam Mehdiratta, Country Lead – India, WEConnect International, noted: “Visibility, pitching, and compliance are the three crucial pillars for success for a women-owned business. Supply chains have to think of women-owned businesses as a business case, not as philanthropy or a moral imperative.”
Moderating the session, Nishant Pandey, CEO of AIF, built on this point by describing how AIF’s own approach has evolved: “At AIF, we are increasingly asking a different set of questions: What is the market buying? Who is the buyer? What quality, pricing, and volume are customers willing to pay for? These questions are progressively shaping our approach to women’s economic participation. Instead of asking, ‘What can women produce?’ we are asking, ‘What does the market demand, and how do we help women compete in it?’
This reframing points to the next phase of women’s economic participation: the market architecture around entrepreneurship, including institutional procurement, sourcing requirements, finance, and the capabilities businesses need to participate in formal demand
Turning to why this architecture matters beyond economics alone, Kanta Singh, Deputy Country Representative, UN Women India, spoke to how design shapes outcomes at scale: “When you design for women, you design for the whole world. If the country has to progress, women have to shape narratives and economies.”
The conversation also surfaced an important mindset shift, one that reshapes the narrative around rural and urban women entrepreneurs, whose aspirations and constraints differ significantly. Ajaita S., Founder & CEO, Frontier Markets, captured this distinction: “Rural livelihood missions are about access, while urban livelihood missions are about innovation. It’s important to understand this distinction and design businesses accordingly. The narrative needs to change. The questions we ask women shouldn’t be, ‘What can you do?’ They should be, ‘What do you want to do, and what are your aspirations?’
Her point brought the conversation back to agency and demand: economic participation works best when women are able to shape the enterprises and livelihoods they want to build, while institutions create the conditions for those enterprises to compete and grow.
Putting People First: From Inclusive Hiring to Inclusive Business
Building on this momentum, AIF’s second session, “Putting People First: From Inclusive Hiring to Inclusive Business,” tackled the theme of Disability Inclusion as an Economic Imperative for India’s Future Workforce.
The numbers tell a clear story: only around 36% of persons with disabilities participate in India’s workforce, compared to nearly 60% of people without disabilities. This represents a missed economic opportunity. A country cannot build a future-ready workforce while leaving a significant share of its talent outside the architecture of work.
That’s why AIF placed disability inclusion at the heart of the Charcha 2026 conversation.
As a convenor of this session, AIF brought together government and business leaders to explore a question that goes beyond hiring: how do we build organizations where persons with disabilities can not only join the workforce, but contribute meaningfully, build careers, move into higher-value roles, and lead?
Manmeet Nanda, IAS, Additional Secretary, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, GOI, put the ambition clearly: “Inclusion is not just about opening the door but widening the frame.” The opportunity lies in expanding pathways beyond entry-level employment into white-collar and leadership roles.
The business perspective brought the discussion from policy ambition to organizational practice. At The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group, 500 persons with disabilities are part of a 3,500-person workforce. Akshay Tyagi (He/His), DGM – Talent Management & DEI, pointed to what determines whether inclusion works: “It’s not the policies that are shaping the landscape, but the lived experiences.” Vibha Kothari, Head, DEI, Zomato, has seen the business value of employing persons with disabilities while emphasizing that disability is not homogeneous and inclusion must respond to different needs.
Sheetal Bathija, Culture Lead – International Hubs, NatWest Group, brought the responsibility back to organizational culture and senior leadership. Sushmita (SushAmita) Jain, Global Disability Inclusion Lead & Manager, Inclusion & Belonging, Wipro, placed the stakes over a much longer horizon: “We are at an inflection point where what we do today will reflect over the next 20 years.”
For AIF, this conversation builds on work underway for years. Disability inclusion cannot be reduced to awareness, hiring targets or compliance. It sits across the systems that determine how people experience work: governance, accessibility, technology, talent development, leadership, culture and career progression.
That is the thinking behind DI-verse, AIF’s workplace disability inclusion certification, championed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt. of India. DI-verse gives organizations a structured pathway to strengthen disability inclusion across the employee lifecycle, from recruitment and accessibility to employee experience, culture and measurement.
The conversation at Charcha reinforced why this work needs to move across the ecosystem: from government policy and employer practice to the organizational systems that shape access, experience and progression. For AIF, that is the value of convening: bringing these perspectives together, grounding the discussion in practice, and turning conversation into action.
At Charcha 2026, AIF bolstered bold conversations and decisive action, advancing women’s economic participation and bringing disability inclusion from the margins into the mainstream.
