Thaindian News

Mumbai, Jan 4 (IANS) Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar was Tuesday honoured with a doctorate by the SNDT Women’s University on its 60th convocation day.Maharashtra Governor K. Sankaranarayan conferred the honorary degree on the speaker.

“I feel extremely honoured and privileged to receive the honorary doctorate conferred upon me,” Meira Kumar said.

“The SNDT University, which is India’s first women’s university, has over the years emerged as a premier knowledge centre. Its role in educating women in multi-disciplinary formal and non-formal streams is, indeed, commendable,” she added.

Speaking about the critical role women played in India’s freedom struggle, Meira Kumar said that India is amongst the first countries in the world to have a woman prime minister and today, a woman president.

“The chairperson of the ruling coalition is a woman and so is the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha. Today, India is one of the world leaders in having professionally qualified women,” she said.

Meira Kumar, however, expressed concern over still-prevalent social evils like gender discrimination, female foeticide, dowry and domestic violence.

“The female literacy rate has grown from 8.9 percent in 1951 to 57 percent in 2004 and yet there is a gap of 20 percent between the male and female literacy rates,” she said.

“Women continue to lag behind in terms of level and quality of entrepreneurship and employment due to lack of skills, capacity-building, education and training opportunities and technological and financial support,” she added.