The Journey of Women Empowerment in India

World renowned author Diane Mariechild once said, “A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.” So true are her words and certainly worth implanting in our lives by providing women the right environment and space to grow and blossom. On the eve of the International Women’s Day 2016, we at newspatrolling, salute the spirit of womanhood and take the pledge to support the various policies and programs for women empowerment.

Miles to go…

Although women in India have progressed significantly since the country’s Independence, newspatrolling notes that their true empowerment still eludes us. Today, Indian women can be seen contributing to every sphere of the country’s social, political and economic streams. They are now active in almost all domains – be it defense, police, politics, administration, corporate, sports, science, entertainment and the rest. And they are entitled to receive double credit because most of them are doing all this alongside their home responsibilities, which in itself is a full time job. It’s a proven fact that women are much better performers than men when it comes to juggling office work with home responsibilities. Indian women are also making waves internationally, as can be seen with names like IndraNooyi (chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo), SaniaMirza, SainaNehwal, Sunita Williams (astronaut), etc.

However, despite the giant strides, a significant percentage of the women population in India still struggles with various issues related to social needs, financial & legal options, health & nutrition, etc. Data available with newspatrolling indicates that this stratum of women in India often have to deal with issues such as violence, child marriages, trafficking, lack of education, gender bias, etc. As per the Human Development Report 2015 published by the United Nations Development Programme, India ranks 130 in the Human Development Index (HDI) from a total of 188 countries surveyed. This ranking is based on various parameters, and many of these parameters relate to women issues such as life expectancy at birth, inequality in education, inequality in income, maternal mortality rate, share of seats in Parliament, etc. Such a low HDI score simply means that India, as a country, has plenty to do before it can claim to have truly empowered its women.

How can you help

Of course the government and other agencies are doing their bit for women empowerment in India, but it would be difficult to achieve the goal unless each of us contributes to the cause. We at newspatrolling, are not asking you to organize a ‘morcha’ or call a ‘bandh’, rather, we just recommend that you be more thoughtful about women empowerment. Look around your home, your school, college, workplace, and public spaces to identify areas where you can help and contribute to women empowerment. Newspatrolling believes that we, as a nation, can progress faster and more responsibly if we have a society that provides equal rights to everyone. So, women empowerment is the common goal we all should aim to achieve, starting this Women’s Day 2016.