President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurates India’s first Gender Park at Kozhikode

President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated India’s first Gender Park at Kozhikode district of Kerala. It is also the first of its kind gender equality convergence centre in Asia.
The park is an initiative of the Social Justice Department of the Kerala Government to promote research and other initiatives to enable total gender equality.
Key facts

• The Gender Park seeks to encourage women to take part in developmental and decision making process.
• It has been launched as part of supporting the efforts of the State and Central governments in ensuring an inclusive, discrimination free society.
• It covers issues pertaining to all three genders and in accordance with the 2015 gender and transgender policies of the state government.
• The Gender Institute at the park will mainly focus on learning, research and capacity development.
• It seeks to bring together the state, civil society and academia on a common platform to promote studies and research on gender issues to address the gender issues.
• This platform seeks to create an environment to share global knowledge and experiences in reducing gender inequalities.
• It also seeks to create awareness of the critical linkages between gender equality, economic growth and poverty reduction to effectively address gender related issues in national development processes.

State Government under its Gender Policy is planning to roll out ‘She Taxi’ that aims solely at empowering women. Earlier in 2016, State government had launch ‘Gender Taxi’ that is owned and operated by transgenders under its Transgender Policy (first such policy in the country).

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2016