No nation for girls

Worldwide Girls’s Day, noticed on 8 March, will probably be particular for a selected few this 12 months. Girls who’ve achieved success in varied fields will deal with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s social media accounts on that day.

“The platform could also be mine, however it will likely be about their experiences, their challenges and their achievements,” the PM declared in his newest Mann Ki Baat broadcast, reprising the 2020 gimmick when he handed over his social media accounts to seven main girls from totally different fields.

Grandstanding and marketing campaign guarantees come simple to our prime minister. He additionally has an urge for food for catchy slogans and there’s fairly a military at his disposal to maintain up a gentle circulation of catchphrases and one-liners. He noticed the potential electoral dividends in concentrating on girls fairly early in his first time period — and so was born the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ marketing campaign, launched in 2015.

There have been many such through the years — ‘Ujjwala Yojana’ ‘Ladli Behna’, ‘Mahila Samman Financial savings’, ‘Lakhpati Didi’, ‘Drone Didi’, ‘Nari Shakti’… it’s an impressively lengthy record and the prime minister claims his authorities has spent Rs 3–4 lakh crore on varied welfare schemes for girls.

Dr Ranjana Kumari, who heads the Centre of Social Analysis, says, “There isn’t a information on how these schemes have impacted girls. This authorities doesn’t encourage analysis; so, universities and NGOs who work on the bottom are merely not keen to step out and gather information.”

Within the BJP-ruled state of Madhya Pradesh, one such scheme was the Mukhyamantri Ladli Behna Yojana, introduced forward of the 2023 meeting elections. Dealing with anti-incumbency, the then chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took a determined stab to safe the votes of ladies — and the gamble paid off.