Union Minister Smriti Irani and former CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates at the Alliance For Global Good On Gender Equity And Equality event, in New Delhi, Wednesday, February 28, 2024.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday said that indices like the Global Gender Gap Report are "instruments strategically positioned to embarrass the Global South", and called upon Indian experts to create a computing framework which will take into account the ground reality in India.
Speaking at an event at industry chamber FICCI, the minister stressed the need to study the loss to Indian industry vis-a-vis investment due to such indices which she said "are used to embarrass India, knowing well that they do not capture the entire data."
Reports like the Gender Gap Report brought out by the World Economic Forum and the Global Hunger Index Report overlook the reality on ground, she said.
"We know that the Global Gender Gap Report is also an instrument which is strategically positioned to embarrass the Global South," Irani said.
"We recently announced a global alliance for gender equity and equality at the World Economic Forum. We can take these instruments of creating computation frameworks, first apply domestically, and then offer it to our friends in the G20 universe. Under India's presidency for the first time we have a working group for girls and women," she said.
A Global Good Alliance for Gender Equity and Equality was launched at the World Economic Forum 2024 with the support and endorsement by WEF and the Government of India.
The Indian official delegation was led by Irani, along with Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and R K Singh.
"Who feeds the international gender gap index? International agencies which are currently functional in India, who know the reality on ground, and yet, (they) either will depend on old data, or no data, or feign absolute ignorance," she said.
Talking about the Global Hunger Index, she said, "They call up five people and ask 'are you hungry'. A poll that doesn't take into consideration that 800 million people have received for the past two-and-a-half years free food at their doorstep.100 million beneficiaries, 25 million women, 75 million children below the age of six receive supplementary nutrition and when these numbers come, one of these international agencies express anguish at the gap in understanding the Indian reality."
"For too long these realities were dressed up and presented so that we could be made to feel that either we are in need of rescue or we are in need of ideation. That is why today the rise of our country is not financial alone, it is also intellectual where we can (provide) evidence (for) everything we say, when you do it on a false premise, we will counter you number by number," she said.
She said the successive gender gap reports disregard the 1.5 million women who are elected to panchayats.
"My angst is that it has been two years since I said compute at least women who have been elected to office in panchayats... It's as though they don't matter for the ones clinking their wine glasses in the Lutyens' segment of the development sector," she said.
"We know that nine crore women manage 37 billion dollars every year through their self-help groups. When Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi speaks about one crore women becoming Lakhpati Didis, what does that denote... They have taken credit from banks, serviced them, NPA is less than three per cent. They have shown fiscal discipline, they have kept the rural economy going, and these are women who are not counted in the Global Gender Gap Report," she said.
"Gender budgeting in the past decade has gone up by 239 per cent. The intent of the Modi government is more than obvious, help us implement it better," the minister added.
India ranked 127 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report 2023 released by the World Economic Forum, an improvement of eight places from the earlier rank of 135 in 2022. In the Global Hunger Index 2023, India was ranked 111 out of a total of 125 countries. The government had termed the reports "erroneous and having malafide intent".