UPSC/STATE PSC
Curated by Experts For Civil Service Aspirants
The Hindu & Indian Express
News 1: Dark sky reserve to come up in Hanle, Ladakh
Background:
- Department of Science & Technology (DST) has announced the setting up of India’s first dark sky reserve at Hanle in Ladakh.
Hanle and dark sky reserve:
- Hanle, which is about 4,500 metres above sea level, hosts telescopes and is regarded as one of the world’s most optimal sites for astronomical observations.
- A dark sky reserve is a designation given to a place that has minimal artificial light interference. The designation is provided by The International Dark Sky Association which is a U.S.-based non-profit organization.
Ideal conditions of the reserve
- Located atop Mt. Saraswati in the Nilamkhul Plain in the Hanle Valley of Changthang, it is a dry, cold desert with sparse human population.
- The cloudless skies and low atmospheric water vapour make it one of the best sites.
Implications of setting up Hanle Dark sky reserve:
- It will help in boosting local tourism and economy through interventions of science and technology.
- This will promote astro-tourism, villagers will be trained to help people with astronomical observations and villages will be encouraged to promote homestays equipped with telescopes that visitors can use to view the night sky.
News 2: Scientists remain sceptical about how nano urea benefits crops
Background:
- Nano urea, a fertilizer patented and sold by the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd. (IFFCO), has been approved by the government for commercial for its potential to reduce import bill.
Nano urea and it’s benefits:
- IFFCO’s nano urea contains nitrogen, an element critical for plant development, in the form of granules that are a hundred thousand times finer than a sheet of paper.
- Nano urea process used “organic polymers” that kept the nano particles of nitrogen stable and in a form that could be sprayed on plants.
- Unlike the coarse particles that is thrown by farmers during sowing, the nano particle form of nano urea, when applied on to the leaves, stimulates enzymes such as nitrase and nitrite reductase, which help plants metabolise nitrogen.
- As nano particles are so small and numerous, they have a lot more surface area relative to their volume, and thus plants are exposed to nearly 10,000 times more in nitrogen.
- Nano urea have a shelf life of a year and it does not cake when it comes into contact with moisture.
- It increases crop productivity and reduces water and soil pollution.
- Application of 1 bottle of Nano Urea can effectively replace at least 1 bag of Urea
- Small size (20-50 nm) of Nano Urea increases its availability to crop by more than 80%.
Issues with nano urea:
- Plants need nitrogen to make protein and they source almost all of it from soil bacteria which live in a plant’s roots and break down the atmospheric nitrogen, or from chemicals such as urea into a form usable by plants. But not all urea cast on plants will be able to utilize it completely.
- Several agricultural scientists are of the view, that chemically packaged urea contains 46% nitrogen, which means a 45-kg sack contains about 20 kg of nitrogen. Contrastingly, nano urea sold in 500-ml bottles has only 4% nitrogen (or around 20 g). The challenge is how nano urea will be able to compensate the requirement of nitrogen required by plants.
- Another criticism is that Urea is highly water soluble and can reach the lowest form of concentration when absorbed. The issue is how increase in nanoparticles can increase the uptake effectiveness of nitrogen.
News 3: Hasina’s visit to focus on water sharing
Background:
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s September 5-8 India visit is expected to focus on issues such as water sharing, energy cooperation, uninterrupted commercial flow and greater connectivity.
Irritants in relations:
- Teesta water dispute is a long term issue as West Bengal objected to water sharing agreement of 2011 which allocates the share of water between India and Bangladesh about 42.5% and 37.5% respectively.
- The China factor plays a crucial role in upholding the security interests of India by Bangladesh while balancing its economic interests, which becomes difficult in this constantly changing geopolitical equation of South Asia.
- The rolling out of National Register for Citizens by India has caused concern in Bangladesh as the identification might lead to deportation to Bangladesh, which will face another issue in accommodating these migrants along with Rohingya refugees.
Convergence of India – Bangladesh interests:
- India and Bangladesh have historical links, common culture and social affinities which will promote tourism as strengthen ties and ultimately lead to open a golden chapter in our bilateral relations.
- Bangladesh is India’s South Asian Largest Trade partner.
- Bangladesh and India have signed motor connectivity pacts such as Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) initiative Motor Vehicles Agreement.
- India shares its longest border with Bangladesh and the continued cooperation between both the countries has led to apprehending of smugglers and non-state actors and successful ratification of India- Bangladesh Land Boundary agreement.
- The Maitree Thermal Power project will be inaugurated by the two prime ministers and this will strengthen ties in the domain of energy security.
News 4: Road accidents in India
Background:
- Former TATA Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry was killed in a road accident on National Highway in Maharashtra.
Precarious condition of roads:
- According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 1.5 lakh deaths occur on roads of India, of which National Highways account for one-third.
- Road accidents has dipped from 4,45,730 accidents in 2017 to 4,30, 116 in 2021.
- Death due to accidents has increased from 1,50,093 people in 2017 to 1,55,622 in 2021.
- As per World Bank Publication ,”Traffic Crash Injuries and Disabilities: The Burden on Indian Society”, in 2021 mentions that India accounts for 1% of vehicles of the world but has a share of 10% of death due to crash.
- During lockdown, deaths and accident cases came down.
Reason behind accidents:
- Due to low visibility in the months of December and January in the period between 6 pm – 9pm.
- Highest cases is attributed to negligent driving and speeding.
New 5: NCRB data regarding sedition cases
Background:
- Assam recorded the most number of sedition cases in the country in last eight years, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
NCRB report on sedition cases:
- In between 2014-2021, India had 475 cases of sedition, of which Assam accounted for 69 cases, which means that 1 in 6 sedition cases are from Assam. It is followed by Hryana with 42 cases and Jharkand with 40 cases.
- Cases registered under Section 124A of the IPC have been mentioned under the subhead ‘Sedition’ and cases registered under Section 121, 121A, 122 and 123 IPC have been given under the subsection ‘Others’.
Sedition:
- Sedition, which falls under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, is defined as any action that brings or attempts to bring hatred or contempt towards the government of India and has been illegal in India since 1870.
- In 1962, the Supreme Court decided on the constitutionality of Section 124A in Kedar Nath Singh v State of Bihar and upheld the constitutionality of sedition but limited its application.
- In 1995, the Supreme Court, in Balwant Singh v State of Punjab, held that mere sloganeering which evoked no public response did not amount to sedition.
News 6: Chile votes on proposed Constitution
Background:
- Chileans on Sunday voted in a plebiscite to adopt a new Constitution which will change the polity of South American country.
New constitution:
- The proposed charter is intended to replace a Constitution imposed by the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet 41 years ago.
- In 2021, Chileans elected delegates to a constitutional convention.
- It was the first in the world to be written by a convention split equally between male and female delegates.
- The new constitution focuses on social issues and gender parity, enshrines rights for the country’s Indigenous population, and puts environment and climate change at forefront.
- It also introduces rights to free education, health care and housing.
- The new Constitution would characterize Chile as a pluri-national state, establish autonomous Indigenous territories and recognize a parallel justice system in those areas.
About Chile:
- Type of Government: Unitary presidential republic
- Capital: Santiago
- Currency: Chilean peso
- Chile is world’s top copper producer.
- India and Chile have a preferential trade agreement
About plebiscite:
- In plebiscite, the opinion of the people is obtained on any issue of general public importance. It is generally issued to solve territorial disputes.
News 7: Tamil Nadu reiterates plea for a bench of Supreme Court in Chennai
Background:
- Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Sunday yet again reiterated the State’s request for establishing a Regional Bench of the Supreme Court in Chennai and allowing Tamil to be used in the Madras High Court as one of its official languages. He also insisted on representation of all sections in the appointment of judges.
Constitutional mandate:
- Article 130 of Constitution declares Delhi as seat of the Supreme Court. It also authorises Chief Justice of India to appoint other place or places as seat of Supreme Court and can take this decision with the approval from the President.
Setting up regional benches:
- 18th law commission of 2019 recommended setting up of regional benches of Supreme Court of India.
- Arguments Against:
- It might lessen the binding force of decisions of Supreme Court
- Huge infrastructure cost of setting these benches will again strain the public exchequer.
- It has been argued that setting up virtual courts is more effective than setting up regional benches
- Arguments in Favour:
- It will ensure the reduction of pendency of cases and will lead to speedy disposal of cases.
- It will make litigations less expensive for petitioners from areas aside from New Delhi as constant travelling causes a serious strain.
- It will ensure that justice is not denied to citizen due to any disabilities and will align to the core aim of Article 39A.
- Setting up regional benches will increase number seats of judges and will enhance the pace of justice delivery
News 8: PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Background :
PETA India has exposed the abuse of Assam’s elephant Joymala (known as Jeymalyatha in Tamil Nadu), including the use of weapons such as pliers by the latest mahout, who was brought in after numerous other mahouts were caught on video beating her. The shocking report also reveals that she was beaten so ruthlessly she can be heard screaming in pain in a viral video at the holiest of places – the sanctum sanctorum of the Krishnan Kovil temple, where she is kept chained to the floor.
Indian Elephant – Endangered
PETA-People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
- It is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president,
Wildlife Protection Act, 1972
- Provides for the protection of the country’s wild animals, birds, and plant species, in order to ensure environmental and ecological security. Among other things, the Act lays down restrictions on hunting many animal species.
- It provides for the establishment of wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, etc.
- It helped India become a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES – also known as the Washington Convention and was adopted as a result of a meeting of IUCN members)
The Act created six schedules which gave varying degrees of protection
- Schedule I and Schedule II (Part II) get absolute protection, and offences under these schedules attract the maximum penalties.
- Species listed in Schedule III and Schedule IV are also protected, but the penalties are much lower.
- Animals under Schedule V, e.g. common crows, fruit bats, rats and mice, are legally considered vermin and may be hunted freely
- The specified endemic plants in Schedule VI are prohibited from cultivation and planting
Constitutional Provision for Protection of Wildlife:
- Article 48A of the Constitution of India directs the State to protect and improve the environment and safeguard wildlife and forests. This article was added to the Constitution by the 42nd Amendment in 1976.
- Article 51A imposes certain fundamental duties for the people of India. One of them is to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures.
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.