India makes a strong pitch for women empowerment at the UN

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In the last few days India has strongly reiterated its commitment to gender equality and advancing the status of women before the UN.</p>
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Speaking at the 65th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani said: "India remains steadfast in its commitment to build a more just and equal post-Covid world for our daughters and women across the world."<br />
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She highlighted schemes centred around women and girls like financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, providing clean cooking fuel, girl education and the construction of toilets.<br />
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Irani said that India is committed towards advancing the goals of gender equality and women empowerment to ensure that men and women are accorded equal treatment and they enjoy the same opportunities everywhere. "We in India are implementing a series of flagship programmes that focus on significantly expanding women's financial inclusion, employment and self-employment opportunities, healthcare, nutrition, safety, security and education," she said.<br />
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She highlighted that reservations of seats for women in local governance has resulted in nearly 1.37 million elected Indian women representatives getting a first-hand account of grassroots governance who are now formulating and implementing gender-sensitive public policies at the community level.<br />
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"It is a cause of great joy for us that through the financial inclusion Scheme of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana that for the first time in the history of our country over 220 million Indian women were formerly brought into the banking system," she said. Smriti added that the government is promoting women's entrepreneurship and has enabled providing Rs 26 crore collateral-free loans.<br />
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She pointed out that the Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) has gone up from 918 to 934 while the Maternal Mortality Ratio has reduced from 130 per 100,000 live births in 2014-16 to 113 per 100,000 live births in 2016-18.<br />
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Separately, just a day before Smriti spoke before the UN, TS Tirumurti, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, said that achieving gender equality is India's priority focus. He said that the nation is moving from a paradigm of women's development to women-led development.<br />
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Mentioning Rani Laxmibai, Tirumurti said that women have been central to Indian political life. He said: "As a founding member of the United Nations and since the beginning, Indian women leaders have contributed immensely in shaping the concepts and discourse on human rights and gender equality, including through leading by personal example."</p>
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He also highlighted the contribution of Hansa Jivraj Mehta, Lakshmi Menon, Begum Shareefah Hamid Ali, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and others who had worked with the UN in promoting the welfare of women.</p>