BOSCH

Introduction

Sonia Gandhi is the President of the Indian National Congress, one of the major political parties of India. She began her political career in 1997 and in 1998 she was elected as the chairman of the UPA and has held her post till date. From the initiation of Mrs Gandhi’s political career many worthwhile changes have been brought about in the country, especially in the lives of women. One such change has been the attempt at removal of gender inequality. Gender inequality means that the roles, rights, and obligations assigned to each sex are not just different, but also unequal with male roles and rights generally being valued more highly than female roles and rights. Gender inequality in India is seen in the family setup, in social institutions, in family planning, in education and in the workplace.

   Web Chart Explanation

Empowering the women - Empowerment is defined as “the expansion in people’s ability to

 make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them.”
 Policy and programs need, as a matter of urgency, to address gender norms that tend to privilege the
well-being of men and boys at the expense of women and girls, leading to women’s lack of economic options and lack of autonomy.

Setting up of educational programmes - Educational programmes will help such as the Design Global Change’s (DGC) proposal: Bringing girls into focus; a gender equality campaign that will raise awareness of women’s important roles through the use of educational materials. DGC created a set of cards depicting Indian men and women in various roles (collecting water, farming, selling goods, etc.); these cards aim to trigger conversations about gender issues among high school youth and are accompanied by a teacher’s guidebook, which will be used to raise awareness.

Providing jobs - Providing jobs for women in urban and rural areas will help in reducing gender inequalities such as creation of IT sector jobs and the proliferation of knowledge-based enterprises run by women in rural areas.

Enforcement of laws - India has a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in advertising, recruitment, hiring, promotion, classification, wages, benefits, assignments, use of facilities, training, and apprenticeship and all other conditions or privileges of employment. The proposed law covers private and public employees, contractors, employment agencies and the union. This coverage also extends to the agricultural employees.