IN PICS: Women who drive India's economy!

On International Women's Day we bring you images from across the country of working women -- the iron ladies -- who keep the wheels of the Indian economy running.

India's women bouncers Amandeep Kaur (R) and Manpreet stand in a disco pub in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh . Amandeep, started working as a bouncer two weeks before her colleague Manpreet joined her. Both women work part-time as bouncers four nights a week from 8 pm to 2 am.

Alcohol factory employees work inside a distillery at Rangpo village, about 80 km north of the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri.

A woman removes stalks from red chilli at a farm in Shertha village on the outskirts of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

A worker makes kites with images of anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare inside a workshop in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. The kite makers said they made around 300,000 kites this year with Hazare's images and each kite is sold for five rupees in retail shops.

A woman makes cow dung cakes used as cooking fuel in the northern Indian city of Allahabad.

Women agricultural labourers sit in a tractor trailer as they wait to return home at the end of a work day outside Sangli in Maharashtra

A construction labourer carries bricks on her head at the construction site of a residential estate on the outskirts of the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

Labourers climb down from a tractor trolley as they arrive for work at the Buddh International Circuit, the venue for the first ever Indian Formula One race at Greater Noida.

Women inmates prepare scented floating wax candles inside Chanchalguda Women Prison for the Hindu festival of Diwali in Hyderabad.

An employee assembles a computer on the production line at a Dell factory in Sriperumbudur Taluk, in the Kancheepuram district of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Washerwomen stand beside washed clothes kept for drying on the banks of river Sabarmati in Ahmedabad.

Air India air hostesses sit outside the domestic airport as part of a strike in New Delhi.

Childen sit on the ground in a outdoor school during a lesson in Santiniketan village. In Santiniketan village in West Bengal -- the home of Nobel literature prize winner Rabindranath Tagore -- a voluntary initiative helping local Kora and Santhali tribal children to read and write Bengali is now so popular it needs a second building.

An Indian woman at a call centre provides service support to international customers in the southern city of Bangalore  The hiring frenzy at call centres in India is the flip side of daily tales pouring out of the US and Britain, where thousands of software and back-office jobs are being cut as companies take advantage of cheap communications offshore to drive down costs.

Women labourers winnow rice near a paddy field on the outskirts of Agartala, capital of India's northeastern state of Tripura.

Ruby Kour, a performer, gets makeup applied backstage before taking part in a religious play as part of Dussehra festival celebrations in Jammu. Effigies of the 10-headed Demon King "Ravana" are burnt on Dussehra, the Hindu festival that commemorates the triumph of Lord Rama over Ravana, marking the victory of good over evil. The festival will be celebrated on Thursday. Kour played the role of Sita, wife of Hindu god Rama, in the play.

A woman drinks water while having lunch inside a workshop in an industrial area in Mumbai.

A woman farmer carrying paddy crop is silhouetted against the setting sun on the outskirts of Agartala, capital of India's northeastern state of Tripura.

A sex worker watches a Raksha Bandhan festival celebration in a red light area in Mumbai. Raksha Bandhan, an annual Hindu festival celebrating the bond between sisters and brothers, will be celebrated across the country on Tuesday. During the festival, sisters tie a sacred thread 'Rakhi' around their brother's wrist for his well-being, in return for their brother's vow to protect them.

Models pose for photographers at the recently concluded Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2012. The Indian fashion industry is said to be over Rs 750 cr. The Lakme Fashion Week is one of the oldest and the most prominent in India that now hosts almost a dozen fashion weeks twice a year.