Gujarat an average performer in female empowerment, ranks 10th among 21 states

By Rajiv Shah
Gujarat ranks tenth among 21 major Indian states in top consultants McKinsey Global Institute’s (MGI’s) new Female Empowerment Index (Femdex), released recently. A decade ago, a United National Development Programme (UNDP)-sponsored report, released by the Ministry of Woman and Child, Government of India, came up with an almost ranking, putting Gujarat as an average state in what it called Gender Development Index (GDI).
The calculations made by the MGI, on a scale of one, gives Gujarat a Femdex value of 0.56, which is lower than Kerala (0.67), Himachal Pradesh (0.63), Tamil Nadu (0.60), Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, and Karnataka (all 0.59), and Uttarakhand (0.57).
The report, titled “The power of parity: Advancing women’s equality in India”, says that the state-level Femdex scores range from 0.42 to 0.70. It finds that some of the lower states such as Mizoram, Meghalaya, Goa, and Sikkim have considerably good Femdex scores, ranging between 0.70 and 0.64.
This suggests, the report states, that there are “pockets within India where gender gaps are roughly in line with those in Argentina, China, or Indonesia”, which have Femdex value of about 0.66 to 0.70, though adding, “The top five states account for just 4 percent of India’s female working-age population.”
The lowest five state Femdex scores (in increasing order) are in Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, ranging from 0.42 to 0.49. The scores suggest, according to the report, that gender equality levels in these states is as low as those in Chad and Yemen, which have a Femdex of 0.47 and 0.45, respectively.
“The bottom five states account for some 32 percent of India’s female working-age population, representing a large opportunity to improve India’s national position on gender equality”, the report comments.
Though the report believes, “aggregate Femdex scores are highly correlated with per capita GDP (r=0.68, based on a correlation with log of per capita GDP)”, it does not say why Gujarat fairs badly in Femdex despite its per capita GDP being one of the highest in the country.
The McKinsey report merely says, “There are outliers. For example, Kerala has slightly lower per capita GDP than Maharashtra’s, but a significantly higher aggregate Femdex of 0.67 compared with 0.59 in Maharashtra.” Despite Gujarat’s per capita GDP being one of the highest, it scores 0.56.
“The strong linkage between gender equality in work and in society that McKinsey Global Institute identified in its global research holds true for India’s states (r=0.65). As is the case globally, Femdex scores for physical security and essential services are significantly higher than those for gender equality in work”, the report says.
The report says, “The India Femdex is a tool that enables us to understand where each state stands on gender parity, and also to identify which gender gaps are the largest in each state.”
It adds, “It would be useful to create a more refined version (for example, with gender-disaggregated data on financial and digital inclusion and time-use studies to calculate relative time spent by men and women on unpaid care work) and use it track progress made by states to close gender gaps over time.”

Comments

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

India’s green energy push faces talent crunch amidst record growth at 16% CAGR

By Jag Jivan* A new study by a top consulting firm has found that India’s cleantech sector is entering a decisive growth phase, with strong policy backing, record capacity additions and surging investor interest, but facing mounting pressure on talent supply and rising compensation costs .

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Beyond sattvik: Purity, caste and the politics of the Indian kitchen

By Rajiv Shah A few week ago, I was forwarded an article that appeared in the British weekly The Economist . Titled “Caste and cuisine: From honeycomb curry to blood fry: India’s ‘untouchable’ cooking”, it took me back to what I had blogged about what was called a “ sattvik food festival”, an annual event organised by former Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad professor Anil Gupta.

Search This Blog