Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts of Businesses in Rural Areas

Shashi Bala is Fellow, & Coordinator: Center for Gender and labour Studies at V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, Noida (an Autonomous organisation under Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India, India). She was awarded Ph.D from the Centre of Study for Diplomacy, International Law and Economics, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Presently, she is coordinating the activities of the Centre for Gender and Labour Studies at the Institute. She divulge in trainings and researches on various dimensions pertaining to Labour economics & development policy; Skill development; Social security ; Gender budgeting; Behavior skill management etc., with central focus on gender issues. She was the Visiting Researcher in 2008 at Korean Labour Institute, Seoul, South Korea. She is a member of the Task Force on Gender Equality in the World of Work, Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India, India. Puja Singhal is Assistant Professor at National Centre for School Leadership (NCSL), NIEPA, New Delhi. She is a gold medalist in Economics and has a Doctorate from the Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur (Rajasthan). She has also worked with V.V.Giri National Labor Institute (Ministry of Labor and Employment) and was involved in policy-oriented projects. Now she organizes workshops, training programs on gender and leadership at NCSL and works as a National Coordinator of five states of India. In 2015, she presented her paper at 4th European and International Conference for Learning Innovations and Quality (LINQ), at Brussels (Belgium). She has published extensively in the form of books, research papers, and articles in peer-reviewed and reputed academic journals, like Emerald, IGI Global, Inderscience, etc., and also received the best paper award twice. Her areas of special interest are Vocational Education, Gender issues, E-Learning and Innovation in education, Skill Development, School Leadership. She can be accessed at pujasinghal@niepa.ac.in.