Rama Krushna Das
Manas Ranjan Patra
ABSTRACT
E-Governance in India is fast progressing to the era of digital opportunities. Digital opportunities in India have shown the paths of collaborative governance and mission 2007 recognizes the role of women to be more important. Role of women in overall development of society needs no debate. In India, women who constitute almost half of the population are integral part of overall development of the nation and policies are abundant to support the cause though a lot is still needed to be accomplished. One of the major challenges at the hands of policy makers and implementers is to empower the women and especially in rural India. Rural India is still under the grip of digital divides, though overall India as a nation has shown the promises of digital inclusion and digital opportunities. However, these opportunities are yet to have its outreach in rural areas. National Informatics Centre, a national agency in India is striving towards supporting the digital inclusion strategies of India with active deployment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabled services. In this paper, it is argued that digital inclusion outreach is better achieved through collaborative and group based approaches and thus Women Self-Help Groups (WSHGs) show these promises. This paper presents the success story of some women WSHGs in Ganjam district of Odisha province by introducing web-based applications for better dissemination of information regarding their products and performance.
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Index Terms
- e-governance and digital inclusion: creating smart rural women in India
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