By Alekya Pratap Neelakantam
No honest observer can claim that all is hunky-dory on women’s issues in India. Isolated atrocities continue to scar society and demand collective introspection. Yet, to deny the scale, intent, and continuity of the Narendra Modi government’s push for women’s empowerment would be willful blindness. For decades, successive governments spoke the language of gender justice but delivered little beyond symbolism. What distinguishes the present dispensation is not rhetoric, but structured intervention—economic, legal, and social—designed to make women independent stakeholders in a fast-changing, modern Bharat.
As a young entrant into active politics, with academic grounding and no baggage of entitlement, I feel neither compelled nor embarrassed to state a simple truth: no previous government at the Centre has initiated pro-women reforms with this degree of seriousness, scale and discipline. That is precisely why the Opposition—ideologically exhausted and politically discredited—finds this record so indigestible.
At the heart of the Modi government’s approach is Mission Shakti, an umbrella framework addressing women’s needs across their life cycle. Its two pillars—Sambal for safety and security, and Samarthya for empowerment—signal a clear shift from welfare dependency to capability building. This is not tokenism; it is systemic reform.
Economic empowerment remains the strongest pillar of this transformation. The expansion of the Lakhpat Didi scheme is emblematic. By 2025, an astounding 1.48 crore women from Self-Help Groups had already crossed the ₹1 lakh annual income mark. These are not urban elites or NGO poster faces, but rural women who were once invisible to policy. Financial independence, after all, is the first real liberation.
Equally path-breaking is the NaMo Drone Didi Yojana, which challenges entrenched gender stereotypes head-on. By providing drones to 15,000 women SHGs and training them as drone pilots for agricultural operations, the government has placed cutting-edge technology in women’s hands—quite literally. This is empowerment that flies above patronising politics.
Skill development initiatives launched in 2025 further underline this intent. NAVYA focuses on adolescent girls in aspirational districts, equipping them with future-ready skills such as digital marketing, cybersecurity and AI-enabled services. Complementing this is the AI Career for Women programme, aimed at rural undergraduate colleges, targeting the training of 8,000 young women in its first year. These are not cosmetic schemes; they are investments in India’s future workforce.
The implementation of new labour codes from November 2025 marks another structural leap. By prohibiting gender discrimination, mandating equal pay, and allowing women to work across all sectors—including night shifts and underground mining, with safety safeguards—the Modi government has dismantled legal barriers that earlier governments hesitated to touch.
Safety and legal protection, often reduced to slogans by political opponents, have been strengthened through concrete legal reform. The introduction of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam has consolidated laws dealing with crimes against women, ensuring stricter punishments and faster processes. Platforms like the SHe-Box portal and the expansion of Nari Adalats bring justice closer to women, especially at the grassroots.
Health and education interventions complete the picture. The upgradation of two lakh Anganwadi Centres into Saksham Anganwadis by 2026, the Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi initiative, and the expanded Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana—now incentivising the birth of a second girl child—reflect a holistic understanding of women’s well-being.
This is why the Opposition fumes. It thrives on grievance politics, not empowerment. It protests laws it never had the courage to draft, and mocks schemes it never had the vision to conceive. Women, however, are voting with experience, not slogans.
Empowerment is not declared in press conferences; it is built policy by policy. And on that count, the Modi government’s record speaks louder than the noise of a frustrated Opposition ever can. (The author is a decorated academician with multiple academic degrees and is Secretary of the BJP’s Secunderabad Mahankali District.)
