10 MILLION WORKING WOMEN

Te Ao Hou, September 1960, Page 26

10 MILLION WORKING WOMEN Having secured political emancipation, social equality, economic independence and opportunities for education, Indian women are playing their part today in almost every sphere of national activity. There are at present more than 10 million working women in India, nearly half of whom are self-supporting. About 9,000 are engaged in legal work or in business, some of them in important executive jobs: the chairman of the Scindia Steam Navigation Company, for instance, is a woman. Social work in another field in which women are very active. The Social Welfare Board (75 per cent of whose members are women) is headed by Durgabai Deshmukh, and women run most of India's 10,000 voluntary welfare agencies. There are now 87,000 of them in the medical and health services. 21 per cent of the country's teachers are women, all primary schools are now being placed under lady teachers. Literacy among women has increased fourfold since 1951. The latest statistics available put girl students at 11 million, including 200,000 in vocational training institutions. In higher education, there are two women Vice-Chancellors—Hansa Mehta of Baroda University, and Sarda Mehta of the Indian Women's University in Poona. Indian women have also distinguished themselves in the arts, letters and journalism. The National Academy of Music, Dancing and Theatre is headed by Nirmala Joshi, and the Theatre Centre, which is affiliated to the International Theatre Institute, by Kamladevi Chattopadhaya. The first professional theatre in India, the Hindustani Theatre, is run by Monika Misra, and every Indian language has its women poets, novelists and short story writers. There are also women scientists, engineers, economists and research scholars, while Prema Mathur, India's first woman commercial pilot, has won many races and has received an award of an American trophy.