‘Women empowerment only through education', The Hindu.

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‘Women empowerment only through education', The Hindu.

Honour: Governor and Chancellor E.S.L. Narasimhan confers the honorary degree on Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development Daggubati Purandeswari in Tirupati on Friday.

TIRUPATI: Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development Daggubati Purandeswari has said that sustained empowerment of women is possible only through education and called it an all-pervading solution to the multifarious problems of mankind.

Quoting Swami Vivekananda, she said “Educate your women first and leave them to themselves; then they will tell you what reforms are necessary”. She was delivering her address at the 14th convocation of Sri Padmavathi Mahila Viswa Vidyalayam (SPMVV), after receiving the honorary degree of ‘Doctor of Letters' from the Governor and Chancellor E.S.L. Narasimhan. The Minister made no bones of her delight on the honour coming from the very institution which was founded by her father Late N.T.Rama Rao. Dr.Purandeswari regretted that the Indian philosophy assigned a place of ‘near divinity' to womanhood, while it had turned out to be a myth in reality, pointing to the diverse deprivations bothering the womenfolk. Referring to a study by International Labour Organisation (ILO), she said women formed a third of official labour force and performed two-thirds of the workload, yet received only a tenth of the world's income and owned less than 1 p.c. of property. Across South Asian countries, she felt that the participation level of women from lower social strata in the political governance was ‘negligible' and attributed the general indifference to ‘violence and insensitive political culture'. Hailing former Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao for the concepts of 33 p.c. reservation and Self-Help Groups respectively, Dr. Purandeswari said that the proper implementation of the two were sufficient to ensure women's empowerment.

Mr.Narasimhan called the present decade as crucial for imparting ‘quality education' and urged the Minister to accord top priority to the sector. “If we do not act now, we will be held guilty by the future generations”, he cautioned. Mr.Narasimhan expressed pain at the “conversion of Goddess Saraswathi into Lakshmi”, making a veiled attack on commercialisation of education. Earlier, he conferred degrees, doctorates and gold medals to meritorious students. Vice-Chancellor G. Sarojamma read out the annual report, while Registrar E. Manju Vani, Deans R.Jayasree and V.V.Lakshmi were present.