WCD Ministry and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sign MoC for technical support to strengthen the nutrition programme in India:-
The Ministry of Women and Child Development , Government of India, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) today to provide technical support at the National and State level for strengthening the delivery of nutrition goals, especially during pre-conception, pregnancy and first two years of life.
Further, the Gates’ Foundation will support an enhanced framework of collaboration in Information and Communication Technology enabled Real Time Monitoring (ICT-RTM) of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and technical support on nutrition.
Improving the health and lives of women and children in India, by strengthening nutrition programs in order to promote their holistic development is one of the topmost priorities of the Government. In sync with this focus, the four priority areas of work as part of this MoC would include:
- Development and deployment of ICT solutions for improving and strengthening ICDS Service Delivery System.
- Support Ministry of Women & Child Development in developing a shared national communications campaign for maternal and child nutrition among target populations.
- Provision of technical support for the National Nutrition Mission, Restructured ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP) and Restructured ICDS through a Technical Support Unit at the national and state level for strengthening their capacities to deliver nutrition especially during pre- conception, pregnancy and first two years of life.
- Technical support and Knowledge management support to strengthen human resource capabilities at various levels in order to deliver effective nutrition interventions.
- This collaboration will strengthen the government’s restructured ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP) and National Nutrition Mission, with a focus on technological innovation, sharing best practices and use of data and evidence to enhance performance at the national and state level.
New Draft National Policy for Women:-
After a gap of 15 years, the Centre has come up with a draft national policy for women. The new draft policy is aimed at “re-scripting” women’s empowerment by following a “socially inclusive rights-based approach.”
The policy is roughly based on the Pam Rajput Committee report set up by the MWCD in 2012 which submitted its recommendations last year, including a suggested national policy for women and an action plan to end violence against women.
Significance of this policy:
Since 2001, when the last National Policy for Empowerment of Women was formulated, the concept of women empowerment has seen changes, from being recipients of welfare benefits to the need to engage them in the development process, welfare with a heavy dose of rights. This draft policy has tried to address this shift. It will define the government’s action on women in the next 15-20 years.
Key Details:
- The policy aims to create sustainable socio-economic, political empowerment of women to claim their rights and entitlements, control over resources and formulation of strategic choices in realisation of the principles of gender equality and justice.
- The policy envisions a society in which, women attain their full potential and are able to participate as equal partners in all spheres of life. It also emphasises the role of an effective framework to enable the process of developing policies, programmes and practices which will ensure equal rights and opportunities for women.
- The broad objective of the policy is to create a conducive socio-cultural, economic and political environment to enable women enjoy de jure and de facto fundamental rights and realize their full potential.
- The policy also describes emerging issues such as making cyber spaces safe place for women, redistribution of gender roles, for reducing unpaid care work, review of personal and customary laws in accordance with the Constitutional provisions, Review of criminalization of marital rape within the framework women’s human rights etc. relevant in the developmental paradigms.
- Operational strategies laid down in the policy provide a framework for implementation of legislations and strengthening of existing institutional mechanisms through action plan, effective gender institutional architecture. Advocacy and Stakeholder Partnerships, Inter-Sectoral Convergence, Gender Budgeting and generation of gender disaggregated data have also been given due focus.
- The new policy has suggested dependent care and child care leave not for just working women, but working men too.
The policy defines following as the priority areas:
- Health including food security and nutrition.
- Education
- Economy
- Governance and Decision Making.
- Violence Against Women.
- Enabling Environment.
- Environment and Climate Change.
Oil-for-drugs deal likely with crisis-hit Venezuela
India has proposed an oil-for-drugs barter plan with cash-strapped Venezuela to recoup millions of dollars in payments owed to some of India’s largest pharmaceutical companies.
This payment mechanism would allow Venezuela to repay some of the amount owed with oil.
The proposal would use the State Bank of India to mediate the transfer. The plan is now awaiting approval from the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India, which regulates such payments.
Several Indian generics producers rely on Venezuela as they sought emerging market alternatives to slower-growing economies such as the United States. But the unravelling of Venezuela’s socialist economy amid a fall in oil prices has triggered triple-digit inflation and a full-blown political and financial crisis. Unable to pay its bills, the country is facing severe shortages of even basic supplies such as food, water and medicines.
India, one of the world’s biggest oil importers along with the United States and China, had similarly elaborate barter deals with Iran, swapping rice and wheat for oil.
Speed, Reliability, Safety: 3 Pillars Of Prabhu’s Vision For Railways
-Interview with Raiilway Minister
Disclaimer- We believe interviews are more revealing than editorials ever will be for the simple reason that interviews are usually to the point (sometime off the point though) and represent the authority where as editorials are opinions and above all interviews are usually backed the interviewed person’s institution.This interview is represented as-is and no editorial oversight done by us.Hence read with due care.
How do you assess your first two years as railway minister? What were the challenges and constraints you faced?
On my first day, I only knew about railways as a passenger. I started studying it and I realised that it was in deep trouble. So many things that needed to be done had not been done. It was both acts of commission as well as omission that was responsible for the problem.
I said it is inconceivable that such a large organisation, such a large part of the economy, can be overhauled without a long term regime plan. Therefore, I said let us prepare a five-year plan. But I also knew that the challenge when you deal with the overhaul of a sector is that people will keep asking you, that is alright but what about today? And if you solve only today’s problem, you will never solve the long term problem and railways will get into bigger trouble. So I said let us have a five-year plan (now we are extending it to 15 years, so a 2030 plan will also be ready) but also address immediate problems of the people.
I was once at Varanasi station. A train was delayed because of fog. One person told me not only is the train delayed but there is no charging point, so I cannot tell anyone. So I said, we will put up charging points, improve food quality, cleanliness in stations and coaches, retro-fit coaches internally, provide wi-fi. These are small things that can happen in the short term. They are the deliverables for the customer, but not something that will overhaul the railways. What is important is to keep eye on short term without losing sight of long term. That has to be our strategy.
How did you go about it?
My first budget was the first step in that direction. It was also a complete departure from earlier budgets. One budget had ten pages on stoppages, another had several pages on new trains, there were announcements that had not been provided for in the budget, like starting a new division, a new zone. I said we will not make a budget like this, we will give strategic direction to railways, we will talk about challenges and how to address those challenges and the core budget – the financial statement, expenditure-income – will be very precise and sans fanfare.
It was a very deglamourised budget but people accepted it as a good budget. But everyone was stunned that I have not started new trains. We have started new trains but it has nothing to do with the budget. The budget is a financial statement, a policy statement, showing the direction. All these [new trains, stoppages] are operational issues. In that case I should also announce transfer of one official in my budget speech.
And we did something exceptional. Normally, people would be focussed on getting money from the ministry of finance. If it didn’t give, then nothing would happen. And I would blame the finance minister – I want to do so much, he is not giving money.
I said we will not do this. We will very strongly lobby with the finance ministry to get as much resources as possible, but we will not be constrained by the fact that they are not giving. So we raised the money – got Rs 1.50 lakh crores from LIC [Life Insurance Corporation]. We also went outside the budget.
This year’s budget is, in a way, a continuation but it is also a little higher level of change. We are trying to change the Railway Board management structure; we are also considering cross-functional entities. Compartmentalisation of railways is a problem – it is about specialisation but also creates hurdles to seamless functioning, so that has been addressed. Some task forces have been created. Two directorates have been created – one for mobility and one for revenues. Others are in the process of being created. The idea is that we should try to work as a team, in a focussed manner, knowing your objectives very clearly, and then to realise those objectives. Whatever structural changes need to be brought in should be brought in.
There has been scepticism about your revenue projections – you didn’t achieve what you promised to
But that is something beyond me. What is the revenue of railways? It is from freight. The projection of revenues was based on the projection for development of the core sector. If the core sector does not grow as much, obviously we can do nothing about it. It is an externality to the railways. I knew this, but I wanted to challenge the railways.
I will tell you the result of this. Last year, we were ready, for the first time, with capacity for handling 1.2 billion tonnes of cargo. That capacity is there today. Earlier the cargo handlers had to chase the railways, now the railways is chasing them. It is a very different type of approach. Like China does, we created capacity ahead of demand. So supply side constraints have been removed; whether demand will come or not depends on the market.
What are the areas where you feel you could have done more?
A lot of people compliment me for doing a great job. I am not content. But I don’t think making stations clean, making food quality better, reservation experience better is a great thing. Because this is not my objective. I will be happy when we will be able to transform the railways in the real sense of the term – the speed, the reliability, safety. And, in my opinion, the first stage is 2020; then you can actually judge it
Why I am saying 2020? We are adding, doubling, tripling lines, wherever there is congestion. And all of this cannot be done, unfortunately, in one year, but over three to four years. By 2020, we would have added capacity, modernised signalling to a great extent, completed hopefully the dedicated freight corridor so most of the. . .
When will that be completed?
We are planning for 2019, but 2020 in the worst situation. Land sometime becomes an issue.
Railways operating ratio needs to improve, can you do it without increasing freight charges and passenger fares?
If you increase freight rate, you will lose more share. This year, railways, for the first time probably, reduced the freight. Because then we get more business. My colleagues are talking to various industries. We asked the Cement Manufacturers’ Association, we will reduce [freight] by 5 per cent, how much more [business] will you give? They said we will give you 15-20 per cent more. So this is one strategy.
Globally, you cannot run railways based on these two streams of revenue – freight and fare. In most major countries, the contribution of non-rail revenue is 30 per cent. In India, it is not even 1 per cent. So we have created another directorate – to increase non rail revenue. One [source] is advertisement, then station redevelopment.
But it doesn’t seem to have got too much interest; also there are issues about civic infrastructure in the vicinity
Work on 10-20 will definitely start this year. It is a completely transparent process. We will put all the technical information on the website, then we will invite bids. This is done at the level of general manager because station redevelopment is a very local issue. People bid for it. Then they will try to normalise the proposal, it is a technical issue. So once it is normalised, to say that operational issues are handled, then it will be handed over to a two-member expert group, one technical and one financial. The short-listed companies will again be put on the website.
At that time of I have given a bid for Rs 100 crore, you have a right to improve on it, say Rs 120 crore. But you may do it just to kill competition or spoil the bid. To make sure it does not happen, the first bidder will have right of first refusal by taking the Rs 120 crore. So this is a very unique bid formula. It is not Swiss challenge; it is Indian challenge. Swiss challenge starts with unsolicited bid, but we start with solicited bid.
I am talking to the states. We are forming joint venture companies with them, I am suggesting that we put station development in that. The advantage for them is that the land is ours, they don’t put any money. What are our advantages – they give us more floor space index. Why? Because they also feel the city will get developed properly.
The second strategy is working with foreign governments. Korea, Japan, China, France, Germany are all interested. They will work with the state government entity. I asked the Delhi chief minister, he is interested.
But in many cities, the approach to stations is so congested. What’s the point in having a snazzy station when getting there is a harrowing?
That will be taken care of by the state government, civic bodies. Plus I have already talked to [urban development minister] Venkaiah Naidu. I don’t think a city can be smart without a smart station, so why not include smart station development as part of Smart City?
How much interest has been expressed?
Pre-bid conferences have been held in most of the zones, and there is a lot of interest. We did one for Surat – 17 bids have come.
You are criticised for overly focussing on middle class segment
Look, what are we. We are a transporter. What is my core job? It is to transport people and goods. So if I don’t take care of my customer, why will they come to us?
What is the progress on Rail Development Authority? Why are you shying away from calling it a regulator, which was the original idea?
Functions are completely regulatory. If regulators are going to accept cost as a starting point, then fix fares, that is a very simple thing to do. I want regulators to add one more function, which is very important, which is to find out how to improve efficiency. If you don’t do that, what is the point? I will keep increasing my cost, and the regulator decides the fare. So my customer is going to be overloaded with this.
A regulator should do development work, try to reduce the cost, increase the efficiency. If you don’t do that, what is the purpose? This is my own contribution to the whole process. The Debroy committee had spoken about the need for a regulator. I said it is a good idea, but if you don’t improve the efficiency, if you make it cost plus, how can the economy develop?
You are also not tackling the rigid rail bureaucracy
If you want to have disruption as the sole purpose of doing change then why does change make sense? I personally believe the whole purpose of change is outcome based. If the idea is to come and demolish everything, then it is a great victory because nothing is remaining. But nothing is functional either. Is that a purpose? That is why we have created these cross-functional directorates.
So it is not true that we are not touching. We are changing the bureaucracy. We are talking to the officers’ association. It is a 150 years old organisation, it has not changed much; you cannot just tell them that from tomorrow, what you did for 150 years was wrong. It is counter-productive. Rather, you tell them this is the outcome you want, this is the best way to achieve the outcome. They will also realise it. So the changes we are making are very significant but we are not making a big announcement about it because it will become counter-productive.
The railway unions are very strong. They can trip you up.
We have excellent relations with them. Is having good relations a problem? What is important to realise is that the same union is cooperating with us on safety, on customer service.
What is the progress on shift to accrual based accounting?
That project is on. See, we use generic terms and create a problem. All expert committees have spoken about accounting reform – single entry-double entry, cash to accrual. What is the reform? This is a basic thing. Have I done something more?
What we are doing is an outcome-based accounting. If you have outcomes to be derived, it cannot be done post creation of expenditure. You measure it that time, but the process has to start with budgeting. So it is a way of tracking budgeted expenditure, output and outcome. It is a very complex thing. World Bank people have said nobody has done it, this is how it should be done. They are also collaborating with us.
Recent Posts
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.