Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : The Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu on December 16, 2018, appealed to all political parties to arrive at a consensus and ensure the passage of Women’s Reservation Bill for providing reservation to women in the Parliament and state legislatures. He pointed out that reservation of seats for women in Panchayats and Municipalities has proved to be successful. He was addressing a gathering at the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) Conclave after presenting Women Transforming India Awards 2018, organised by the NIITI Aayog, WEP and UN in India, here.
CEO of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant, the UN Resident Coordinator in India Yuri Afanasiev, Tennis Star Sania Mirza and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.
The Vice President said the contribution of Indian women to GDP, currently at 17%, was well below the global average of 37%. Only 27% of women in India were gainfully employed. “These are the numbers that pose a challenge to the lawmakers of this country, and this is where NITI Aayog’s efforts in empowering women entrepreneurs through WEP is specially commendable,” he added. Observing that a country cannot progress if half of its population was not encouraged to be equal partner in progress, he said the good news, however, was that India in the past few years has recorded a healthy growth in women entrepreneurship.
Across the country, there are more than 8 million women who have started or are running their businesses, with more than 58% of women entrepreneurs starting their ventures between the ages of 20 and 30 and the onus was on initiatives like WEP & Startup India to keep up the momentum, he added.
Naidu said the discrimination against women has to end be it in terms of differential wages or skewed opportunities for career advancement. The Vice President said that 5 “E”s have to be given importance: Education of high quality, Equality of opportunity in all fields, empowerment through skiling, emancipation from discriminatory and exploitative practices and enabling conditions for economic upliftment including equal rights to property.
Naidu also expressed happiness that 55,000 women masons called Rani Mistris have been trained by the Jharkhand government over the last year. They played a crucial role in that State’s achievement of Open Defecation Free status and helped construct more than 15 lakh toilets under the Swachh Bharat mission, he added.
The Vice President presented Women Transforming India Awards 2018 to 13 women who have excelled in various fields from different parts of the country. The Vice President congratulated the NITI Aayog for creating this platform, the WEP Summit, to deliberate on the various facets of women empowerment, a crucial ingredient of growth and an essential precondition for development.
The NITI Aayog organised the 3rd edition of the Women Transforming India Awards 2018 and launched the upgraded portal of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) on December 16, 2018, according to a PIB release.