The world is pursuing a path of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, keys to human development. India is walking the same track, targeting a five trillion economy in the near future.
We expect higher GDP, better economic status and a high standard of living like other developed countries. However, linear infrastructure does not always propel growth and holds negative implications. Often development comes at an ecological cost.
Indian Railway’s expansion into the hinterlands
In the current scenario, the Indian government is focusing on linear infrastructure development across the nation. The commissioning of new railway lines is also being done at a faster pace.
Railways connect India rapidly, with a 59 per cent increase in the average pace of commissioning new lines from 4.1 (2009-14) to 6.53 km per day (2014-18). In addition to our current railway network, the Indian government in 2006 established a new subsidiary, the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) that upholds a motto of sincerity, speed and success.
At present, the Indian Railways run a mixed corridor where mail/express/passenger trains and freight trains share the same track. While freight traffic is the bread and butter for the Indian Railways, mail/express/passenger trains invariably take precedence over freight (Corporate Plan, DFCCIL 2020).
With this in view, the Railway Ministry proposed a dedicated freight corridor that will run separately on a dedicated track. Accordingly, the DFCCIL claims that freight trains would now be able to move at a speed of 100 km per hour.
By 2024, DFCCIL proposes to lay a 3365 km track connecting north to south and west to east (Corporate Plan, DFCCIL 2020). However, the downside is that such sanctioned and proposed corridors will pass through different forest patches of different states and compromise animal safety.
As per a 2019 RTI report received from the Ministry of Railways, railway lines currently pass through 19 protected areas, including national parks, sanctuaries, elephant reserves, and tiger reserves. The details are given below:-
| Railway Lines Running Through Protected Areas | |
| Railway Line | Forests/Parks/Tiger Reserves/Sanctuaries |
| Alipurduar – Siliguri | Jaldapara, Gorumara, Mahananda WLS |
| East Central Railway (Bihar-UP line) | Valmiki Tiger Reserve |
| Kansiya nes – Sasan Gir metre gauge | Gir sanctuary |
| Alipurduar – Siliguri | Jaldapara, Gorumara, Mahananda WLS |
| Raiwala-Dehradun | Rajaji National park |
| Dhanbad division | Betla national park |
| Nagpur division | Reserve forest, malewada |
| Junagadh-Bilkha | Gir sanctuary |
| Madukarai-Kanjikode section | Walayar range, palakkad forest |
| Gondia-Chanda fort | Nagzira, Navegaon and Tadoba |
| Balaghat – Jabalpur | Kanha range |
| Nagpur – Chhindwara | Pench range, sillewani forest |
| Nagpur – Durg | Nagzira RF, Dandakara RF, Dakshin bortalao range |
| Nainpur – Chhindwara | Pench range |
| Joranda – Dhenkanal | Dhenakanal forest |
| Sitabinj – Harichandanpur | Harichandanpur reserve forest |
| Rouli – Tikiri | The Eastern Ghats, Rayagda hills |
| Kakrigumma – Koraput | The Eastern Ghats, Rayagda hills |
| Titlagarh-Singapuram road | Kotgarh elephant reserve, Niyamgiri |
The newly proposed tracks by DFCCIL will have a doubled Hospet-Tinaighat-Vasco line passing through Goa’s Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary.
Karnataka’s Dandeli sanctuary, Lucknow-Pilibhit gauge conversion will increase construction and consequently traffic inside the Pilibhit tiger reserve in Uttar Pradesh.
Similarly, a dedicated freight corridor passes through Gautam Buddha WLS of Bihar and Koderma WLS of Jharkhand.
India’s environment ministry recently exempted 13 pending railway projects worth INR 19,400 crore (2.8 billion USD) and spread over 800 hectares of land from seeking forest permits. These clearances could adversely impact the national park, tiger reserve, tiger corridor, and wildlife sanctuaries across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Goa. It is expected that more protected areas are likely to see railway lines in and around them soon.
The repercussion of Railway expansion on wildlife
The Indian railways’ ministry claims that as many as 35,732 animals were killed on the railway tracks in the last four years. All in all, every day, 31 animals die on the tracks.
In many states, railway lines passing through elephant habitats have led to accidents and the death of 249 elephants during 1987 and 2018.
Since 1987, 18 elephants have been killed in train accidents only in Rajaji National Park. Recent statistics show that elephant mortality due to train hit is ranked third, after electrocution and poaching.
In overall elephant deaths due to anthropogenic causes, rail contributes to almost 12 per cent of India’s total elephant mortality.
According to the official data, the number has been continuously increasing year after year.
The judicious amalgamation of development and conservation
The web of railway tracks will cross through more protected areas and undoubtedly cause more mortality in the coming days. We cannot limit expansion because it would jeopardise the nation’s welfare, but we cannot sacrifice the lives of protected and endangered species to increase the nation’s GDP.
Such a critical situation demands a better strategy in which both development and conservation can go hand in hand. Some key measures have been proposed to balance conservation and development. It is perhaps time to reflect upon them and promise their inclusion at totality.
A. Passage through dense forest should be avoided if an alternative route is available
On several occasions, railway agencies choose the alignment that passes through the protected area to reduce the railway track’s length, thereby lowering the project cost. They do this despite knowing that another alternative route is available. However, such an alternative would cost more.
While deciding on the selection of route, agencies must keep in mind that the cost of an animal’s life is far greater than the project’s cost. The right decision might save species’ lives and subsequently help them maintain ecological balance. Economic non-viability should not be cited as a reason for non-ecological viability.
B. Imposing restriction on the speed of the trains passing through the dense forest areas
Speed kills both humans and wildlife in different ways. Unfortunately, there are no prescriptions in any rule/act/policy/guidelines on the exact speed limit to be followed by the Indian railways while passing through dense forests/protected areas/critical wildlife habitats.
This is the most contentious and critical point in terms of wildlife conservation. As per a 2016 report, 1200 trains run through India’s protected area, which poses a grave danger to its sensitive wildlife. Evidence from research suggests that a restricted speed limit for trains in dense forests is an effective mitigation strategy to avoid incidental mortalities.
It has been shown that an increase in the speed limit of the train caused more elephant fatalities due to the elephant–train collision. Different committees constituted on mitigation measures also suggest a speed limit of 20 km within the protected area.
Other studies reveal that the frequency of wild animal fatalities is much higher during the night than during the day and hence suggested the restriction on railway movement on the tracks that is passing through the forested area in between 7 pm to 6 am.
The concerned authorities have proposed no pre-defined speed limit applied throughout Indian PAs regardless of their protection status (whether it is a Sanctuary, National Park, or Tiger Reserve).
A Uttarakhand HC order of 2016 states that trains need to run at 30 km per hour while passing through national parks. The 34th meeting of the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) in 2015 also mandated that trains passing through a tiger reserve must travel at a maximum speed of 35 kmph at night and 40 kmph during the day.
In 2013, public interest litigation (Shakti Prasad Nayak Vs Union of India) was filed in the honorable Supreme Court regarding the train’s speed restriction. The Supreme Court passed a Judgement in 2014 on this writ petition, ordering speed restrictions to be strictly followed by trains of Indian Railways passing through dense forests and is applicable across India.
In this crucial verdict, the order pertaining to the speed limit was generic, and no range was defined, and hence there was no clarity on the speed limit.
Such a policy gap attracts a slew of unwanted incidents, the cost of which is borne solely by ‘protected’ species. Several new railway projects will increase the traffic within various protected areas in the coming days, but there are no speed limit mandates in order.
Several times, forest officials report that the railways have not adhered to the prescribed speed limit. The railway officials are fully aware of the flaw in policy and are confident that no one will penalise them despite casualties on the track. It would perhaps be prudent at this stage to define the speed limit for the country’s entire protected area and draft strict penalty provisions for the railways.
C.Need for a monitoring committee on the efficacy of mitigation structures
Any development project necessitates an environment impact assessment (EIA), and in such a study, various mitigation measures such as culverts, overpasses, bridges, and tunnels are proposed to facilitate safe passage to animals from one side to the other so that the rail tracks do not pose a risk or a barrier. Such mitigations fulfil the concept of sustainability and ensure animal permeability.
The concern is that mitigation measures proposed by EIA agencies should not be limited to paper only, required for clearance from the relevant authorities. Project personnel should abide by the suggestions made by the EIA organisations. Several accredited agencies do the EIA and propose well-designed mitigation structures by keeping in mind the habitat use of animals, water flow regime, movement pattern and several other ecological parameters.
For such environmental projects, a monitoring committee should be established to oversee the technical recommendations made by authorised agencies for the mitigation structure to be designed correctly and in the best interest of the endemic species. This committee will also monitor the effectiveness of the constructed design in terms of animal use.
Way Forward
In the past two decades, several projects were cleared with mitigation structures. However, it is time to assess the efficacy of those mitigation structures, and a detailed study has to be conducted. The results of this study can strengthen our policies relating to EIAs and implementation and mitigation strategies in linear infrastructure developments.
A guideline prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) titled “Eco-friendly measures to mitigate impacts of linear infrastructure on wildlife” in 2016 (WII, 2016) is being largely suggested by various apex agencies like the National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) during clearance of project for implementing mitigation measures.
In the last five years, there has been a tremendous increase in the linear infrastructures in and around protected forest areas. Also, there have been scientific advancements and knowledge generated in the past few years pertaining to mitigation strategies. It is high time to review and update the existing WII guidelines and make them more scientifically robust by improvising them with recent knowledge and experience.
There is growing recognition that people and wildlife can coexist in human-dominated landscapes with appropriate tools and management, public policies, and societal support.
An ancient Sanskrit verse expresses “Ati Sarvatra Varjayet “, meaning anything in excess is harmful. This verse shares the key to sustainable consumption. Human conflict with wildlife has contributed to the decline and extinction of many species, terrestrial carnivores and herbivores.
The loss of a species as a result of train collision had a cascading effect on the ecosystem. This skewed growth-oriented approach will continue to put more pressure on forest lands. Nature has already defined the line between animals and humans, and it is our responsibility to keep it as straightforward as possible. It is time to make sustainable consumption and instil one’s ethical and social responsibility for nature conservation.
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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.