the times she unltd entrepreneur awards are all set to honour women entrepreneurs across india recognising those who have gone off the beaten track and acted on the courage of their convictions to establish successful business ventures it celebrates women who not only nurture their dreams but have the passion to make it a reality after an overwhelming response an esteemed jury has shortlisted women achievers who will be felicitated for their untiring work in three categories beauty food and fashion here we speak to a bunch of women entrepreneurs who established successful business models despite adversities and challengesgoing greentake the case of nandita iyer who says that ever since she can remember shes had a green thumb the kandivalibased entrepreneur who runs a prolific farm made the switch into the green universe from the world of advertising she says ive always loved plants and admire flowering trees thats something thats been a part of me since childhood my mom has a lovely large terrace garden and weve spent so many fruitful hours working there after graduation nandita joined an ad agency but longed to explore something in the green space i wanted to go back to my passion of cultivating greenery on a longterm basis she saysfate eventually pushed her towards her goals almost 20 years ago a friend talked about someone who had done medicinal farming i read about it and learnt that under organic farming one can do various kinds of farming horticulture vegetable farming even agrotourism where you promote organic agriculture when she did take the plunge nandita bought a land in shahapur ahead of thane we grew vegetables like cucumber karela doodhi as well as a variety of fruit trees in an organic way i remember back then villagers told me yahaan kuch nahi hoga if you see the same land now its lush green she smilesmaking a differencemore and more women are stepping into the entrepreneurial field with statistics showing an impressive eight million women running their own businesses in india coming from diverse backgrounds these women are an important part of the countrys economy establishing successful businesses with an impressive turnover for some of these women passion takes over everything else and eventually becomes a lucrative profession trophylogofor instance entrepreneurship had never been something that 32yearold ritika jhunjhunwala gave much thought to she loved her fulltime profession of teaching textile design at sophia college for women where she had graduated from but life changed a few years ago when she reconnected with friend at a school reunionritika whos passionate about art says my friend fredun medhora a businessman was deeply interested in art folk art had never before been a part of indian textiles in a big way we wanted make it relevant by reviving textile art which has been dying slowly because of the digitisation of shibori blockprints gond madhubani batik and other folk art we wanted to educate people about art and show them the difference when textile art