While speaking on the sidelines of a meeting in the Turkish capital Ankara in early September, Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief, declared that India’s GDP would be 27 per cent higher if the country had as many of its women working as men.

India is not the only country failing to tap women’s productive potential for its overall economic growth and prosperity. Ms Lagarde also said Turkey’s per capita income would increase 22 per cent if it achieved gender parity in the workforce, and even Japan and the US could increase their GDP by 5 and 9 per cent respectively with workforce gender parity.

On the easy things, there has been a lot of progress over the past few decades — in jobs, health and education.

But India — where fewer than one in three women are in paid work, giving it one of the lowest rates of participation in the developing world — has the most to gain by tackling the cultural and practical forces that keep women out of the labour market.