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By:

Asha Tripathi

14 April 2025 at 1:35:28 pm

Stop Comparing, Start Growing

Success does not grow in comparison; it grows in focus. Over the years, women have made significant strides in every sphere of life. From managing homes to leading organisations, from nurturing families to building successful careers, women have proved that strength and resilience are deeply rooted in their nature. Financial independence has become a significant milestone for many women today, bringing with it confidence, dignity, and the freedom to shape one’s own destiny. However, along...

Stop Comparing, Start Growing

Success does not grow in comparison; it grows in focus. Over the years, women have made significant strides in every sphere of life. From managing homes to leading organisations, from nurturing families to building successful careers, women have proved that strength and resilience are deeply rooted in their nature. Financial independence has become a significant milestone for many women today, bringing with it confidence, dignity, and the freedom to shape one’s own destiny. However, along with growth has come another silent challenge — the tendency to constantly observe, compare, and sometimes even compete with the journeys of others. But a crucial question arises: Is it necessary to track the growth of others in order to grow ourselves? From my personal experience of more than two decades as an entrepreneur, I have realised something very powerful — true growth begins the moment we stop looking sideways and start looking within. A Small Beginning I had a flourishing career of teaching abroad, but when I restarted my career after moving back to India, my beginning was extremely small. My very first assignment was a simple home tuition for a single student, and the amount I earned was meagre. There was nothing glamorous about it. No recognition, no large batches, no big earnings. Just one student and one opportunity. But instead of worrying about how others were doing, how many students they had, or how much they were earning, I made a conscious decision—my only focus would be on improving myself. I focused on teaching better, preparing better, and becoming more disciplined and consistent. And slowly, without even realising it, things began to grow. One student became two, two became a small group, and gradually, over the years, the work expanded beyond what I had initially imagined. Looking back today, I can confidently say that the growth did not happen because I competed with others. It happened because I competed with myself yesterday. Comparison Creates Noise When we keep watching others' journeys too closely, we unknowingly divert our own energy. Comparison creates unnecessary noise in our minds. It brings doubts, insecurities, and sometimes even negativity. Instead of walking our own path with clarity, we start questioning our speed, our direction, and our worth. True success grows through focus, not comparison. Every woman has her own story, her own pace, and her own struggles that others may never see. The path of one person can never be identical to another's. So comparing journeys is like comparing two different rivers flowing towards the same ocean — each with its own route, its own curves, and its own rhythm. As women, we already carry many responsibilities. We balance emotions, relationships, work, and society's expectations. In such a life, the last thing we need is the burden of comparison with one another. Instead, what we truly need is support for each other. When women encourage women, something extraordinary happens. Confidence grows. Opportunities multiply. Strength becomes collective rather than individual. There is enough space in the world for every woman to create her own identity. Each of us can build our own niche without stepping on someone else's path. Choose Encouragement Envy weakens us, but encouragement empowers us. Rather than questioning how someone else is progressing, we can ask a more meaningful question: "How can I grow a little better than I was yesterday?" Lift As You Rise Today, after twenty years of experience, the most valuable lesson I have learned is simple yet profound — focus on your own work with honesty and dedication, and success will quietly follow you. We, women, are capable, resilient, and creative. We do not need to pull each other down or compete in unhealthy ways. Instead, we can lift each other up while building our own dreams. Because when one woman rises, she does not rise alone. She inspires many others to believe that they can rise, too. And perhaps that is the most beautiful form of success. (The writer is a tutor based in Thane. Views personal.)

Silicon Shivers

Indian technology stocks have long served as a barometer of global risk appetite rather than purely domestic confidence. A sudden swoon in Indian technology stocks on Thursday that saw tech biggies Infosys, TCS and Wipro slid by as much as 5 percent in a single session was a reminder that India’s IT giants remain deeply exposed to shifts in sentiment on Wall Street.


The slump dragged the Nifty IT index down nearly as far and placing it among the market’s worst performers for the second time in over a week.


It reflected renewed turbulence in American technology shares, sending out a clear message that India’s IT champions, despite their scale and maturity, remain tethered to sentiment in the United States where both their largest clients and their most unsettling technological challenges reside.


Overnight declines in US technology stocks, whether driven by interest-rate jitters or shifts in investor fashion, routinely echo through Dalal Street. What made Thursday’s episode more unsettling was not the macro trigger but the fears that artificial intelligence (AI) may finally pose a structural threat to India’s labour-heavy IT services model.


Recent advances in generative AI by firms such as Anthropic have reignited debate over whether automation can displace the bread-and-butter work of Indian outsourcing firms. Coding, maintenance, testing and customer support are the tasks AI tools promise to make faster and cheaper.


If clients can secure the same outcomes with fewer billable hours, pricing pressure is inevitable. Markets are reacting to that possibility well before its full effects are visible in earnings.


The unease runs deeper than margins. India’s IT industry employs more than five million people and has long functioned as a white-collar shock absorber, drawing in graduates from engineering colleges and offering a path to middle-class security. It is precisely this scale that makes AI unsettling. Entry-level roles like testing, support and routine coding form the base of the employment pyramid and the natural point of insertion for automation. Even modest productivity gains, multiplied across such a vast workforce, could translate into a gradual thinning of opportunities for newcomers.


In theory, displaced workers can be retrained for higher-value tasks. In practice, the pace of automation may outrun the speed at which skills are upgraded. Unlike earlier technology shifts that altered delivery models or infrastructure, AI strikes at the repetitive work that underpins mass employment.


While there has been no major company-specific negative announcement from Infosys, TCS or Wipro, the sell-off reflects global tech weakness and resurfacing AI fears rather than a sudden deterioration in domestic fundamentals.


Some analysts argue this cycle may nonetheless be different and that Indian IT has doubled in size since the cloud era and now finds itself as the incumbent rather than the insurgent. The truth lies between complacency and panic. Indian IT is unlikely to be hollowed out by AI, but its role as a mass employment engine could well be poised to weaken.

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