Pinkle Gogoi Introduction When we discuss women’s empowerment today, feminism is increasingly aware that the terrain on which women and men acquire their gendered sense of self and social identity is more varied and complex than was assumed in the…
India's digital expansion has brought a darker companion: stalking, sextortion, morphed images, fake profiles and child sexual abuse material. By 2018 it was clear that police stations, forensic facilities and courts had not kept pace. Policing is a State subject, and most State forces lacked both trained personnel and the tools to handle digital evidence.
The One Stop Centres (OSCs) for overseas NRI women were approved only in November 2024 and started being established from 2025. These centres represent an extension of India’s domestic One Stop Centre scheme (also known as Sakhi) to support Indian women facing distress abroad. The domestic OSC scheme was launched on 1 April 2015 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) under the Nirbhaya Fund to provide integrated, immediate support under one roof to women affected by violence in private or public spaces (Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2015; Press Information Bureau, 2024).
Affirmative Action and Empowerment become synonymous when the conversation of Women's rights is brought to the fore. The former cannot be looked into in isolation without the latter. Especially in these trying times as the question of Women’s safety is brought into national cognizance it becomes important to scrutinize the existing policies we have in place for women and how we can better our institutions to changing priorities.
Launched in August 2004, the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) scheme was designed in response to measurable gender, rural, and social disparities in upper-primary education. Its target areas were Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs), defined using 2001 Census thresholds of rural female literacy below 46.13% and a rural literacy gender gap above 21.59 percentage points.
India has introduced a wide range of schemes to support the education, safety, health and economic development of girls across different states and union territories. Despite significant progress in female education and social development, girls in India continue to face structural barriers linked to poverty, early marriage, school dropout, inadequate healthcare and limited economic opportunities. These challenges are not uniform across the country and often vary by state, region, caste, income and rural or urban location. Government schemes for girls have therefore evolved as targeted policy responses to address different dimensions of disadvantage, from educational access and financial support to health, protection and skill development. A state wise comparison is therefore important to assess whether differences in programme design, coverage and delivery are reflected in measurable outcomes such as school retention, delayed marriage, financial autonomy and gender related indicators.
The Self Help Entrepreneur- Livelihoods and Enterprise Application for Prosperity and Sustainability (SHE -LEAPS) was launched on 29th June 2026 at Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Sammelan, in New Delhi. The application, introduced in the context of expanding the Lakhpati Didi target from 3 to 6 crore, aims to strengthen the rural women enterprises associated with Self-Help Groups.