Women In India Are Blessed, Our Scriptures Like Manusmriti Have Given Women Respectable Position : Justice Pratibha Singh

"I think we are a blessed lot of women in India and the reason for that is that our Scriptures have always given a very respectable position for women. As Manusmriti itself says that if you don't respect women and honour them, all the 'puja-paath' that you do has no meaning. I think our ancestors and the vedic Scriptures knew very well how to respect women and how to take care of women and my experience whether in India or in foreign countries has told me that. When you speak to your counterparts in different countries of the world, at a very personal level, whether it is my classmates from Cambridge or very close professionals from different countries, I can tell you that in fact the Asian countries do much better in respecting women- in household, in workplaces, and in society in general. That is because of the cultural and religious background that we have, what our Scriptures tell us", Justice Pratibha Singh has remarked.The Delhi High Court judge was speaking at a conference organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) on the subject 'Facing the unseen barriers: Addressing Challenges faced by Women in Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Mathematics (STEM)'"My grandmother was a business woman. She ensured that I went to Cambridge. And in 1991, and without my own parents by being there. She said 'nothing doing' and she sent me to Cambridge. My mother-in-law has taken care of my children. Without them, I would not have been able to achieve...Because of their heartedness, we have been able to be where we are. The women, and equally the men, play a very important role in our lives to be where we are, to achieve what we want to get here. I had authored a piece called 'Missing women in scientific research' a few years ago. That showed a very startling contrast. I want to give some facts and statistics to drive home the point I am trying to make. More than 50% of the undergraduate STEM students in India are girls. In B.Tech, it is 42%. M.Tech, 63%. Medicine and health related causes, 30 to 35%. In engineering, computer science, it is 19%. And these are from 2018-19. In India over all, the STEM graduates are 43% at the undergrad 1st degree level. Whereas in the US, it is 34%, 38% in the UK, 27% in Germany, France is 32%. This is a World Bank report. So India is 43%. That means we are educating our girls properly. In educational institutions, in fact I remember when I completed my 12th, I did my sciences in 11th and 12th, the natural subject and discipline for women was science- whether it is medicine, physics or chemistry. So you would do a B.Sc. or biotechnology or medicine. Engineering of course was more for boys. But the thing for women was science. If they didn't take science, it was like 'why are you not taking science?'. It was considered surprising why girls are not taking science. Biology, zoology, botany, etc- these subjects were a natural choice""If you look at research papers written in India, the number is appalling. Just 3.4% are women authors. So where have all the 40% women gone? It is just so contrasting. I was shocked myself that it was so startling. If you take joint authorship, then it is 47%. Somewhere down the line as a team, there are women. But as individual authors, they are unable to come out on their own. Out of 3.42 lakhs of R&D scientists, 56,000 were women. So that is about 1/6. Now let us look at filings of patents. A WIPO study shows that China has the largest number of female inventors in the last 20 years which is about 10 to 14%. France has the largest population of female inventors, around 16%. UK is about 8 to 11%. In measurement technology, the largest proportion of women, and biological materials is 34%, medical technology is 23%, otherwise consumer goods etc, it is only 7%. So if we see in PCT filings and patent filings globally, women are not much. In India, out of approximately three lakh patent applications, about 60,000 named women as inventors. Again it is about 1/6. In India, out of 1000 patent applications which are filed, 5% name women as inventors. Only 5%. So 95% did not have women as inventors...Contrast this with women in general by nature. Women are very, very invented. They are creative. It is quite intuitive for women to be inventive. Look at your own household. Do you measure the amount of salt and sugar that you put in any dish? You don't. Your mother, your grandmother, nobody ever measured it. But they do the right thing. Modern women, do they need to be told how much time the microwave needs to be switched on to heat up the chicken or a Dal. They go intuitively that 2 to 3 minutes is enough, or that for this much, 10 minutes is enough. Mentally, we are very inventive and creative. But why is it that we are not able to translate our own inventiveness, innovative mindset into actual material inventions which can be commercialised which can help women in making more progress in society and in their own...

Women In India Are Blessed, Our Scriptures Like Manusmriti Have Given Women Respectable Position : Justice Pratibha Singh

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