My Business: Helping women make low-cost sanitary towels

In the last of a new series about entrepreneurs around Asia, the BBC hears from Arunachalam Muruganantham in Coimbatore, India, who has invented a machine to make low-cost sanitary towels.

When his wife explained that she could not afford the item, Muruganantham had an idea, "I thought to myself why don't I make a low-cost sanitary towel for my wife? That was the beginning."

He decided early on not to sell the patent to any commercial company.

Instead, he sells the hand-operated machines to self-help groups run by women who then work as manufacturers, advertisers, sellers and customers.

Video produced by Shilpa Kannan