India ranks poorer on gender equality index

Despite government's several efforts and promotional program to motivate people to save the girl child, the gender gap between men and women is increasing year by year as the latest released reported.

In the latest Gender Gap Review of the World Economic Forum (WEF) released on Monday India showed a dismal performance in 2008 and got 114th positions among 134th country slipping by 1 position as against last year's report.

For reviewing the actual status of women, human resources, gender equality and health, an annual review study had been begun in 2006 covering most of the rich and poor countries in which India had secured 98th position in the inaugural edition of the review in 2006.

But since then, India has shown poorer performance in gender gap index and other two pillars - health gender gap and education gap. Only in political empowerment, India has improved its condition and grabbed 24th rank.

This could be because of the government's conscious efforts to empower women at the local body or Panchayat level, said US ambassador-at-large for global women's issues Melanne Verveer by adding that women's empowerment is important for the growth of the country because it is integrated with the economic prosperity of the nation.

But in other three pillars, India's performance was worst after Pakistan in the South Asian countries. Pakistan was ranked on the 132nd position while Sri Lanka leads the ranking by securing 16th position, Bangladesh was at 94th position, the Maldives at 100, and Nepal 110th position.

In other three pillars, in economic participation and opportunities for women India was ranked at 125, and in the case of educational attainment it ranks 116 among the 160 nations while on health and survival of women India got 128th position.

On the contrary, in the group of top emerging countries, India was far behind from Russia, China and Brazil that ranked on 51st, 60th and 82nd positions respectively.