India’s Republic Day (66th on 26 January 2014) had “Nari Shakti” (Women Empowerment) as the theme to showcase the importance that given to gender equality. The Republic Day parade was got a lot of media attention and coverage given that it was attended by American President Barack Obama.
Efforts spread across various years have yielded changes in terms of sex ratio and female literacy rate over the decade 2001 to 2011 in India. The Indian government is increasingly recognizing Indian women’s achievement through highest Civilian awards such as Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna.
The literacy rate for women has improved by more than 11% in the past decade. The sex ratio has increased by 7 from 2001 to 2011. However, the difference in literacy rate between the sexes remain high with women literacy rate falling short of men literacy rate by more than 16%. The sex ratio, though has increased in the past decade, is still not the national average for about 15 states in India.
There is a long way to go before India truly claims women empowerment. The number of female awardees from 2011 to 2015 was only 21% of the total awardees. For the states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh that had higher sex ratio, have contributed only 12% of the total female awardees. The states that lead in terms of literacy rates Kerala, Mizoram and Tripura have contributed only 5% of the total female awardees. Here is a visualization depicting the gender equality and recognition of women in India.
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