Women Empowerment in India

Women’s empowerment is a current global phenomenon. The five basic categories of empowerment of women today are social, educational, economic, political, and psychological. There has been paradigm shifting in development and governance in India. Empowerment approach got momentum during the period of 1985-2002. It further followed by gender mainstreaming approach during the period of 2002-2007. The Eleventh Five Year (2007-2012) emphasized on women and child development agency while the concept of inclusive growth got momentum during 2012-2017. Now the focus is on women led development in the context of G20. The inclusion of gender perspectives and concerns at all levels and phases of development planning, policy, programming and delivery mechanisms has been widely acknowledged as afundamental strategy for empowering women in India. In view of the commemoration of 250th birth anniversary of Raja Ram Mohan Roy through fostering women empowerment and transformation in India, a series of National and regional workshops under the auspices of Ministry of Culture, Government of India, were organized at Mangalore (Karnataka), Solan (Himachal Pradesh), Jaipur (Rajasthan), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) during 2023. The selected papers presented in these workshops have been considered for publication in this edited volume. The volume comprises of 20 well written papers which deal with various dimensions, aspects and facets of gender equality, women empowerment, gender inclusion, gender mainstreaming, social and educational reforms, women education, women entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, women in police, safety and security etc. It is expected that the volume will be highly useful in understanding of various facets of women development in India and evolving roadmap for their empowerment and women led development in India.