The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam 2026 could not get through Parliament primarily because it was clubbed with the delimitation exercise. This is despite the earlier passage of the Women’s Reservation Act of 2023, which reserves 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha for women. The current reality is that in Parliament and most state assemblies, the proportion of women is not even half of the 33 per cent reservation being talked about. This raises a question: Is reservation the only way to empower women? While it may be desirable, we don’t think that it can result in true empowerment.

To truly empower women, give them quality education, develop their skills for suitable jobs, and incentivise women’s employment in the formal sector. Only then will their participation in the workforce increase in a meaningful way.

Unfortunately, India’s female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) in 2025 stood at just 40 per cent, as per PLFS data from MOSPI, although ILO (2025) puts this figure at 32.4 per cent, against 68.6 per cent in Vietnam, 59.1 per cent in China, and 80.7 per cent in Nigeria. At the state level, Bihar records an FLFPR of just 24.7 per cent, while Uttar Pradesh (UP) stands at 32.4 per cent, Jharkhand at 43.7 per cent, and Odisha at 47.3 per cent. Bihar also reports the highest fertility rate at 2.8, compared to the all-India figure of 1.9 (Sample Registration System, 2023), consistent with its high annual population growth rate of 1.43 per cent against the national average of 0.9 per cent. More concerning, it is girls in Bihar who exhibit the highest dropout rates in schools across states:........

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