SABLA for Adolescence Girl

Sabla: The road to empowerment and self esteem for adolescent girls

 

Through various schemes including Sabla, the government is investing in the health, nutrition and development needs of adolescent girls to advance their rights to education, health and protection. This will help them to build a future of gender equality and justice

 

Adolescence is a phase during which major physical and psychological changes take place in children, along with changes in their social perceptions and expectations. Adolescence is also the stage when young people extend their relationships beyond parents and family and are intensely influenced by their peers and the outside world. This is the time that they need the maximum understanding and caring. 

There are nearly 1.2 billion adolescents in the world, that is, those aged between 10 to 19 years. 

Studies show that millions of adolescents today do not enjoy access to quality education, basic sexual and reproductive health care, support for mental health issues and disability, protection from violence, abuse and exploitation and forums for active participation. 

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SOCIAL COMPETENCIES

Social Competencies: Human development beyond the individual

 

Individuals cannot flourish alone; indeed, they cannot function alone. The human development approach, however, has been essentially individualistic, assuming that development is the expansion of individuals’ capabilities or freedoms. Yet there are aspects of societies that affect individuals but cannot be assessed at the individual level because they are based on relationships, such as how well families or communities function, summarized for society as a whole in the ideas of social cohesion and social inclusion. 

Individuals are bound up with others. Social institutions affect individuals’ identities and choices. Being a member of a healthy society is an essential part of a thriving existence. So one task of the human development approach is to explore the nature of social institutions that are favourable for human flourishing. Development then has to be assessed not only for the short-run impact on individual capabilities, but also for whether society evolves in a way that supports human flourishing. Social conditions affect not only the outcomes of individuals in a particular society today, but also those of future generations. 

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Challenge of Good Governance

The Challenge of Good Governance in India: Need for Innovative Approaches 

 

The need is to go for ‘million negotiations’ that would ensure that government, market and civil society work together for the poor 

 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, in his famous Tryst with Destiny speech of 15th August 1947 succinctly put the task before people’s representatives and the services in the following words; “….. to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.” These works are still in progress. A deeper look at these tasks would clearly establish that these goals are entirely within the realm of governance. 

Meaning 

There is no accepted definition of governance. There is divergence of opinion about the meaning of governance between the conservatives and the liberals, between socialists and the communists.  

In recent years the word governance has become a very fashionable term and is being used in a variety of ways and that covers a large number of organizations both in public and private domains. 

For our purposes, however, we are confining governance only to public domain. We are concerned here with that form of governance which serves the citizens by safeguarding territorial integrity of the State and securing individual security, rule of law and the delivery of services ranging from education, health to livelihood and food security. 

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RTI-A Right to Good Governance

RTI-A Right to Good Governance

RTI act democratized the information and decentralized the power. Power no more remains confined to select few, rather it was made available equally to all the citizens

 

“That Government Is Best Which Governs Least.” - Henry David Thoreau

 

Good governance, in modern democracy, means democratization of governance. In participatory democracy people elect their leaders to govern them. But governance is not the monopoly of elected leaders. When governance becomes the privilege of select few or when the people who are governed are kept out of the affairs of governance, it degenerates into misgovernance and becomes a travesty of democracy.  

Good governance is characterized by transparency and accountability and the best way to ensure transparency and accountability in governance is through increased and informed participation of people. People are biggest stakeholder in governance, they have a critical and crucial role to play. So, it is imperative that people must have the right to know about the activities of the government.

 

In 2005, Indian Parliament passed Right to Information Act [RTI] which gave the common citizen the right to seek information regarding government projects, schemes and other activities. It was a landmark Act which came with the potentiality to change the very idea of governance and the power equation between common people and the government. The act was promulgated with the vision of democratization of governance and empowerment of common people Therefore, Right to Information has been given the status of a fundamental right under Article 19(1) of the Constitution. 

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Human Development Index

The Human Development Concept

Human Development is a development paradigm that is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means - if a very important one - of enlarging people’s choices.

Fundamental to enlarging these choices is building human capabilities —the range of things that people can do or be in life. The most basic capabilities for human development are to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community. Without these, many choices are simply not available, and many opportunities in life remain inaccessible.

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