The country has made great strides in overall development including socio- economic and cultural development and has become world’s 5th largest economy. At the same time, social inhibitions in respect of women participating in even challenging tasks are fast undergoing changes of new thinking and adopting practical approaches and attitudes. Traditionally, the majority of Indian women are engaged either in agriculture and traditional rural industries or in service occupations , agriculture being the lone sector engaging 70 per cent of the total women working force. However, still, both in urban and rural sectors, their participation in activities involving the learning, the use and imparting of science and technology is far from satisfactory levels. However, one positive development in respect of Indian women is their increased direct or indirect involvement in political activism. As compared to 67 percent turnout by men in the last general elections, women turnout was 66 percent. Besides in voting activities, participation in decision making process, political consciousness , run for political offices and political parties among women is seen on the rise in India. If in one field like enrolment in engineering and technical institutions , women participation is just 20 percent , which could be due to host of reasons , that does not depict that Indian women are any shy in taking to manage and run any activity otherwise thought to be exclusive domain of the men. Flying aircraft , driving trains and manoeuvring fighter jets like challenging activities involving fair knowledge of science and technology are just a few examples where Indian women have been proving their mettle but the moot question is when would the enhanced participation of women in such fields start actually taking place . On these lines, President Ram Nath Kovind while addressing an event in National Institute of Technology in Rourkela recently desired full encouragement to be given to women so as to ensure their increased participation in the twin fields of science and technology. With their such participation , their excellence in these areas was assured as it is generally observed , being a trend across the country, that women students outshined males in examinations and competitive tests. Not only that, women students get more gold medals in arts and other fields depicting their devotion to the concerned subjects. Their added participation in science and technology , however, would mean their enhanced contribution and hence adding new dimensions to the national development. Reforms in our education system have been going on in an erratic and unsatisfactory form so far until the latest new National Education Policy which is there, now after a long gap of four decades. Once fully implemented , it would smoothen the way for more women taking to science and technology as the said policy 2020 , fully elastic in its approach, is envisioned as making India a global knowledge super power. More economic reforms would further pave the way for bringing about massive decline in economic disparities and inequalities in societal sections that would lead to additions in money incomes to lend economic support to women in getting admissions in prestigious institutions like NIT Rourkela which has a greater role to play in achieving the higher levels of performance in furthering the field of technology which is evident from students enrolled in it from 17 foreign countries. It is really laudable that the Institute was adopting five villages as part of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan . This institution is a name in itself with a track record of making a notable contribution in the field of science and technology. The fact of the matter is that we are on a ”spree” to have more of such institutes in the country hence assured participation of more women students. The President while sharing various valuable inputs with the students advised them “do what takes you closer to your aspirations”. The thrust , however, would continue to be on the issue of how more and more women could be motivated to get higher education in science, technology , engineering and mathematics
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