There is a crisis unfolding in Indian homes, offices, maternity wards, and rural health centers, and most of it goes unspoken. Women carry the emotional architecture of this country, holding families together, absorbing workplace pressures, navigating life transitions that come with barely a pause, let alone support. Yet when it comes to mental healthcare, they remain among the most underserved.
On 27 February 2026, Bengaluru will host the Mpowering Minds Women's Mental Health Summit. Mpower, an initiative of the Aditya Birla Education Trust, is bringing together clinicians, policy advocates, lived-experience voices, researchers, and changemakers for the second edition of the Summit. This is a full-day national forum built around three deceptively simple words: acceptance, action, and advocacy.
Why this conversation can't wait
The numbers are difficult to ignore. Women in India are twice as likely as men to experience depression, and they carry a significantly higher burden of stress and anxiety disorders. A 2021 survey found that women accounted for 39% of stress-related mental health disorders and 30% of anxiety disorders — higher proportions than men across these categories. According to the National Family Health Survey, roughly 30% of Indian women report experiencing gender-based violence, which directly compounds the risk of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress.
Stigma, geographic inaccessibility, financial dependence, and cultural expectations that frame emotional struggle as personal weakness rather than public health concern all play a role in lesser number of women accessing mental health.
Meanwhile, women worldwide still perform more than 75% of the world's unpaid domestic labour and India is no exception. The invisible weight of caregiving, layered on top of professional and social roles, accumulates.
This is the backdrop against which the Mpowering Minds summit is being held.
What the summit is about
The 2026 edition is being led by Neerja Birla, founder and chairperson of both the Aditya Birla Education Trust and Mpower. She has been unequivocal about why this matters at a systemic level, saying ahead of the event that safeguarding women's mental health must be woven into India's growth priorities. The goal is measurable action, stronger support ecosystems, and institutional accountability for women's psychological well-being.
Chief guests include Lakshmi Hebbalkar, Karnataka's Minister of Women and Child Development, bringing the policy lens; Dr. Prathima Murthy, director and senior professor of psychiatry at NIMHANS, bringing the clinical and research perspective; and Rohini Nilekani, chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and co-founder of EkStep, who understands the scale at which community-driven change must operate.
The science of what we carry: Intergenerational trauma
One of the most significant conversations will center on intergenerational trauma, how early experiences shape the emotional architecture of women across generations. Two internationally respected researchers lead this session: Professor Eamon McCrory, CEO of Anna Freud and professor of developmental neuroscience and psychopathology at University College London and Professor Peter Fonagy, CBE, professor of contemporary psychoanalysis and developmental science, also at UCL.
Their work collectively spans how childhood adversity rewires brain development, how the effects of trauma are transmitted — consciously and unconsciously — across generations, and what evidence-based interventions can interrupt that cycle. For India, where the intersection of poverty, gender-based violence, early marriage, and limited mental healthcare is still stark in large parts of the country, this research has deeply practical implications.
Dr. Akkai Padmashali, a trans rights activist who has spent decades fighting for dignity and inclusion against enormous odds, and Anju Bobby George, Olympic medallist in athletics and a woman who navigated both elite sport and the social expectations placed on Indian women, will share deeply personal perspectives on identity, stigma, and what it actually takes to keep going when systems and society push back.
Mothers, bodies, and the care nobody offers the caregiver
Maternal mental health remains one of the most neglected areas of women's healthcare in India. Perinatal depression affects a significant proportion of new mothers, but it is routinely missed, minimized, or attributed to hormones and adjustment, as if distress during and after pregnancy is simply part of the deal.
The summit addresses this directly, with experts including Dr. Janhavi Nilekani, founder of the Aastrika Foundation, which focuses on respectful maternity care; Dr. Duru Shah, a leading gynaecologist and reproductive health specialist; Dr. Padmaja Samant, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at KEM Hospital; and Dr. Meghna Singhal, founder of Raising Family Academy. Together, they will examine what early intervention actually looks like, what perinatal support systems need to exist, and why the mental health of mothers cannot be separated from the health of the families they sustain.
Masaba Gupta, founder of House of Masaba and someone who has spoken candidly about the pressures of building a public-facing brand while navigating personal challenges, and Sunita Wazir, head of transformation for global health and wellbeing at Hindustan Unilever, will explore the specific emotional load carried by women professionals and what psychologically safe workplaces actually look like in practice beyond the policy documents.
No conversation about women's mental health in India is complete without interrogating the systems that are meant to protect them. Sarah Fathima, IPS, deputy commissioner of police for southeast Bengaluru, and Jasmine Kalha, co-director and senior research fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy, will address the urgent need for gender-responsive mental health systems. The summit closes with a forward-looking conversation led by Ira Khan, founder and CEO of Agatsu, a mental health platform that focuses on young people, and Dr. Zirak Marker, child, adolescent, and family psychiatrist and chief medical advisor at Mpower.
The 2025 edition of the Mpowering Minds Summit, held in Mumbai with a focus on youth mental health, brought together voices from institutions including Harvard Medical School, NIMHANS, the World Economic Forum, and Mental Health First Aid International.
The Mpowering Minds Women's Mental Health Summit 2026 will be held in Bengaluru on 27 February 2026. For more information, visit mpowerminds.com/summit.
