India, March 16 -- When Time magazine named Safeena Husain one of 16 Women of the Year 2026, she was standing outside at a Mumbai philanthropy conference, looking up at a sky so clear she could see the stars. "That almost never happens in Mumbai," she told me later. "I felt so inspired."

Making the impossible visible has been Safeena's life's work. For two decades, she has searched for the girls in India's most forgotten villages, the ones with names like Maafi (forgive me for having a girl) and Missed Call (we asked God for a boy, but he missed the call).

I had known I would love Safeena Husain before I even met her.

As a mother of three girls - engineers, athletes, dreamers - I've felt deep gratitude to the women who made those futur...