Need for National Policy on Women Empowerment

Abstract

In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of India’s Independence movement and India’s first Prime Minister, “You can tell the condition of a Nation by looking at the status of its Women.” In 2016, Government of India and Ministry of Women and Child Development unveiled a draft of National Policy for Women 2016 which would replace the National Policy for the Empowerment of Women, 2001. Almost one and a half decade has passed subsequently National Policy on Women Empowerment was formulated. From that point forward significant strides in global technology and information technology have put India on the high growth which also influence the women in different ways. These changes brought fresh and new opportunities for women along with many challenges. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to highlight the significance of having a national policy on Women Empowerment in India in current scenario. The chapter was written with two objectives in frame: What is the need of a national policy for women empowerment and what major reasons are cumulatively leading to such policy requirements. The research is conducted on secondary data collected from the World Bank, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Ministry of Human Resource Development and National Sample Survey. Data are classified and summarized in tabular form to compare and analyze for the study. The study also analyzes the literature collected from JSTOR, EPW, IMF, World Bank, UNDP, Social Services Abstracts and Sociological Abstracts. The study will have important implications for further designing of new policies as well as for amending the existing ones.