BHUBANESWAR: India cannot progress towards a Viksit Bharat unless the challenges faced by its women are addressed, said External Affairs minister S Jaishankar on Friday.
Chairing a session on ‘Celebrating Women’s Leadership and Influence - Nari Shakti’ at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here, the EAM said the challenges that women face are age-old and deeply percolated into Indian culture and society. “It starts at birth and boils down to the discussion on who has the claim over the resources of a family. That is where the deepest discrimination is practised,” Jaishankar said.
Women are 50 per cent of India’s talent and the challenges they face, are 50 per cent of India’s problems. “If India is to become a modern, industrial and tech-centric society, then we cannot ignore 50 pc of our talent. We cannot deprive them of opportunities or short-change them,” he said.
Jaishankar said under PM Narendra Modi’s leadership, issues about gender equality and women empowerment are very much a part of the country’s foreign policy and international activities. The country, when it chaired the G20, had pushed for the concept of women-led development and got it accepted in the G20 conceptual framework. Thereafter, it again pushed for it when the ‘Summit of the Future’ took place, he said.
“We also do a lot of development cooperation, especially with the countries of the global south. We are present in different ways through projects and capacity-building in 78 countries of the global south and in many of them, our projects target gender-sensitive issues, women’s equality and opportunities for them,” he said.
Stating that the Centre is already taking several initiatives to aid women’s empowerment, Jaishankar said some of these measures include paid maternity leave for 26 weeks, 30 crore Mudra Yojana loans given out to women entrepreneurs, 43 pc of enrollment in STEM is of girls, 28 pc increase in female enrollment in higher education, among other things.
The plenary session had eight women achievers who spoke about their lives and struggles and suggested ways to sustain women's empowerment across various parts of the globe.