"Empowerment means moving from a position of
enforced powerlessness to one of power".
"Tall claims of women empowerment and taking health care to the remote areas sounded hollow..."
With a phrase like this for the first line of a news story, one will be compelled to think how empowered we, as women, really are. The news item refers to a case in the Gatla district of Jaipur. Although the article mainly focuses on how the condition of women in India is still not as good as it is expected to be after so much (mostly false claims!) has been done to improve their condition, it also throws light on gender issues. The baby being a girl resulted in the husbands' reluctance to accept the child, seen as a typical case of gender discrimination. It also questions the efficiency of the government in times like these.
Ironically on the same day, i.e. August 9, 2009, another article was published in Times of India newspaper about a woman in Delhi who delivered a girl in a n open park near Nizamuddin dargah. Even she had been abandoned by her husband but now finds some strength in the Ladli Scheme under the Janani Suraksha Yojana. The article throws light on the various programmes by the government, and many more by non-government organisations (NGOs) to improve the condition, mainly health related, of women in our country. A number of names have been mentioned which are working towards this cause. "..she is one of the very few who have managed to benefit from the government's social welfare schemes..." With so much being written, maybe one can hope for a healthy future for Fatima's daughter, Alisha.
It is hard to gauge how much of it is really the way it is mentioned though. So many schemes that exist are hollow from within as their existence is mostly namesake. To actually measure the growth that is taking place we might need to wait longer, as such a substantial growth is yet to be witnessed.
