March 8th is celebrated as Women’s day across the globe every year since 1975.News from various fields with special emphasis on Women’s day have been combined to give special importance for this day.
ICICI’S Women’s day gift
The largest private sector lender ICICI bank has announced a work-from-home programme to the women workers as a special gift on Women’s day.
Flash points
- ICICI and IIT Delhi have designed iWork @ home platform which enables the women workers to work from home
- The platform has a facial recognition technology which enables authenticity of the worker.
- This was initiated to reduce the drop in working women force due to reasons like Maternity, Child growth ,etc
- Currently the scheme has been implemented within the organization on a test basis enabling 50 women to carry on works such as checking documents for disbursement of loans, image-based verification of cheques for clearance, first-level scrutiny of documents for opening of accounts and processing of export-import documents for payments
Air India Runs the first Longest all Women Flight
As an initiative to promote women joining in Aviation sector, Air India on Monday flew its first world’s longest all women flight from New Delhi to San Francisco.
Flash points
- The flight, which travelled a distance of around 14,500 kilometre in close to 17 hours, was operated as part of International Women’s Day celebrations
- The world’s longest non-stop flight, entire flight operations from cockpit crew to cabin crew, check-in staff, doctor, customer care staff, ATC (air traffic control) and the entire ground handling were handled by women
- The flight was under the command of Kshamta Bajpayee and Shubhangi Singh, along with First Officers Ramya Kirti Gupta and Amrit Namdhari
- Air India CMD- Ashwini Lohari
TATA Housing- SBI Launch Special Home Loan for Women
As a part of the global Women’s day celebrations various organizations launch special plans for women. Tata housing also joined the list by tying up with SBI to provide special home loan.
Flash points
- Real estate developer Tata Housing has partnered with the country’s largest lender, State Bank of India
- TATA Housing allows the women to pay just 20% of the loan initially and the remaining amount can be paid after taking the possession of the property
- SBI will be offering home loans to its women customers at a special interest rate of 5 per cent per annum
- This is a part of Her Ghar scheme and also waived the processing fees on the home loan under this scheme
SBI Life Insurance Launched Smart Women Advantage
To give more emphasis on empowerment of Women, the SBI life insurance launched the Smart Women Advantage scheme as a part of Women’s day celebrations.
Flash points
- ‘SBI Life – Smart Women Advantage’ plan provides for life cover, savings and female-specific critical illness benefits
- It is a participating individual traditional endowment plan which also provides optional benefits of additional pregnancy complication, congenital anomalies (APC & CA) and child birth-related abnormalities, apart from covering other illnesses
Women Representation in Indian Parliament Slips
Though many steps are taken to empower women in various fields, the representation of women in legislation is considerably very low. On the day of celebration it is unfortunate to know that India’s rank in women representation has slipped from 117 to 144.
Flash points
- India though remains to be the largest democracy in the world has been given only 144th rank in terms of women representation in legislation across the globe
- Last year it was in 117th position among 188 nations and the scenario collapsed to 144 among 191 countries in February 2016
- The total % of women in parliament accounts for a meager 12% in Lok Sabha and 8% in Rajya Sabha and an average of 22% on the whole
- Rwanda ranks No 1 with 8% women in the lower house of parliament and 38.5% in the upper house
Mahila e-Haat portal launched by Union Government
With the aim of supporting the as Self help groups of women to sell their products the Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi on 7 March 2016 launched Mahila e-Haat portal in New Delhi.
Flash points
- The Mahila e-Haat portal, http://mahilaehaat-rmk.gov.in, is an online marketing platform to enable women to sell their products across the nation
- The product along with photograph description, cost and mobile no./address of the participants will be displayed on the e-Haat enabling direct contact between sellers/service providers and buyers
- Rahstriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) is primarily involved in the creation of the portal and the entire business of e-Haat can be handled through mobile phone
Stages of empowerment
- First stage: The launch of Mahila E-Haat is the first stage towards achieving the objective of women empowerment
- Second stage: Mahila E-Haat will be integrated with e-commerce portals to provide a larger platform for selling and buying
- Third and final stage: It will culminate into Women’s Entrepreneurs Council which will help to expand this initiative further
