Enhancing Women Empowerment through Information and Communication Technology

INTRODUCTION Across the globe, countries have recognized Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as an effective tool in catalyzing the economic activity in efficient governance, and in developing human resources. There is a growing recognition of he newer and wider possibilities that technology presents before the society in the modern times. IT together with Communication Technologies has brought about unprecedented changes in the way people communicate; conduct business, pleasure and social interaction. The evolution of new forms of technologies and imaginative forms of applications of the new and older technologies makes the lives of the people better and more comfortable in several ways. There is even greater realization that instead of a single-track technology, lateral integration of technologies can deliver startling results and the world seems to be moving towards such converged systems. With the emergence of IT on the national agenda and the announcement of ICT policies by various state governments have recognized the Convergence of core technologies and E-Governance as the tool for good governance, sustainable development, globalization of economy and social empowerment. Information is the key to democracy. With the advent of ICT, it has become possible for the common man to access global information.

The realm of electronic communication encompasses telecommunication, broadcasting, information technology, enabled services and industries, to undergo profound changes leading to a Global Information Infrastructure (GII), which will be capable of carrying any type of information, be it text, data, voice or video. Information is now broadly defined to embrace voice in telephony, text in fax and newspapers, images in video and television broadcasting, and data in computers. All information

can be digitized, transported, stored, retrieved, modified, and then distributed. All of these are getting transportable over common infrastructure viz. high-speed, broadcast, digital electronic highways. Emerging digital techniques, new network alternatives (Intelligent Networks), high bandwidth communication technology, and state-of-the-art software for network functions and services, are the new technology trends evident in the development of electronic communication systems.

WOMEN AND ICT A large group of workingwomen of India is in the rural and unorganized sectors. Socially the majorities of Indian women are still tradition bound and are in a disadvantageous position. Inequality in women's access to and participation in all communications systems, especially the media, and their insufficient mobilization to promote women's contribution to society.

Since globalisation is opening up the Indian economy suddenly at a very high speed, during the past decades, advances in information technology have facilitated a global communications network that transcends national boundaries and has an impact on public policy, private attitudes and behaviour, especially of children and young adults. Everywhere the potential exists for the media to make a far greater contribution to the advancement of women.

ABOUT THE STUDY According to Blanca, ICTs have created new jobs in the field of information processing for baking, insurance, printing and publishing specially for women. To mention, UNCTAD report 2002 says women in Asia & Latin American countries hold more than 20 percent of professional jobs in software services. If one goes by statistics, there are about 8 million internet user women in China & 2 million in India. Further, projections indicate that over 3,50,000 women are expected to be working in remote data processing

by 2008 in India as one million jobs are expected to be created in call center alone by 2007. However, it depends on availability of good telecom infrastructure, IT training in and out of school, training in marketing and business development supported by conducive policies of the government.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Women are the equal beneficiaries to the advantages offered by technology, and the products and processes, which are by product of the technology use. However, it should not be confined to elite group of society but to flow to the other segments of women in Indian society. The study wanted to know about infrastructure (social, economical, educational, etc) available to different segments of the women and social freedom and opportunities in rural and urban areas. The applicability may invite government intervention to stop digital divide among women and also to more empowerment for women with ICT usage.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY o To assess ICT infrastructure in rural areas vis-a vis in urban areas for women empowerment. o To assess the impact of economic/social/academic background of women workforce in ICT. o To assess the status of ICT in education in terms of policies of scholarships, reservations, business development programmes for self-employment for women. o To assess social and health implication of ICT with reference to women workers.

METHODOLOGY While designing methodology the study objectives, as specified in the Research Proposal titled Enhancing Women Empowerment through Information and

Communication Technology were strictly followed. The study has been conducted in

all five major corporations of State of Tamilnadu. ie. Chennai, Thiruchirappali, Madurai, Coimbatore, Thirunelveli. The five corporation in the state of Tamilnadu has been chosen because most of the IT organizations are situated in Chennai and other Municipal corporations. In addition, in these cities comparatively, efficient telecom infrastructure is being made available by government and private service providers. For the purpose of this study, the areas classified by Census 2001 were selected randomly to identify the women folks as respondents. The total sample size was 500. The women includes: working women, house wife who have exposure in information and communication technology and work as part time, Women employees who work in the area of information technology in government and private organizations, members of self help group who also has exposure in the field of information technology and communication. The sampling units were selected using stratified random sampling scheme, as it is evident from the methodology. To channelise the research work, an extensive review of the literature on the topic was discussed in the review of literature chapter.

Conclusion
Today, information technology has changed the communication paradigm, making it no longer difficult to reach a large number of people more or less at the same time; and that too enable them to respond, interact as well as obtain a copy of the information within a low-cost. Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) apart from sensitising people against this heinous crime and helping them in general to change their opinion about a girl child, can also play a highly interventionist role by proactively pursuing cases against erring doctors, booking them under the law of the land.

Reference
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