GENDER GAP INDEX 2022

Despite an improvement of five places since last year in areas of economic participation and opportunity, India ranked 135 among a total of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2022, which is released by the World Economic Forum. In 2021 India’s rank was 140 among the 156 countries.

India’s Position

• The country is the worst performer in the world in the health and survival sub-index in which it is ranked 146.
• The index shows that it will now take 132 years to reach gender parity, with the gap reducing only by 4 years since 2021 and the gender gap closing by 60.1%.
• The country has scored 0.629, on a scale range of 0 to 1, which is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.
• Women have borne the brunt of the recession, widely dubbed as the 'secession', largely because they work in sectors that were most impacted, such as retail and hospitality.

• India is now one of the worst performers in South Asia, as its rank is 135 among 146 countries.
• The WEF pointed out that the gender gap score recorded its seventh-highest level in the last 16 years, but it continues to rank among the worst performers on various parameters.

India ranks poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117), and Bhutan (126), only the performance of Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) are much worse than India’s.

Economic participation and opportunity

• The report noted that the share of women as professional and technical workers grew from 29.2 percent to 32.9 percent.

• The report also states that the gender parity score for estimated earned income improved; while values for both men and women diminished, they declined more for men.
• The overall rank of India in the economic and participation and opportunity is 143

Political Empowerment

• In 2022 India improved its rank to 48 from 51 in political empowerment but showed a declining score due to the diminishing share of years women have served as head of state for the past 50 years.
• The report also highlighted that the share of women legislators, senior officials, and managers increased from 14.6 per cent to 17.6 per cent.

Education attainment

• In the index of education attainment, India has been ranked 107 positions.
• However, India was ranked the top globally in terms of gender parity for primary education enrolment and tertiary education enrolment and at eighth place for the position of head of state.

Health and Survival Index

• India has the worst ranking at 146 and figures among the five countries with gender gaps larger than 5 per cent -- the other four being Qatar, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and China.

Global scenario

• The global gender gap has been closed by 68.1%, among the 146 countries covered by the 2022 index, the Health and Survival gender gap has closed by 95.8% were as Educational Attainment by 94.4% with Economic Participation and Opportunity by 60.3%, and Political Empowerment by 22%.
• Iceland (1^st) remains the only economy to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap. Other countries such as Finland (86%, 2nd), Norway (84.5%, 3rd), and Sweden (82.2%, 5th) feature in the top 5 position
• South Asia is one of the worst performing regions followed by North Africa and the middle east.

MEDIATION BILL

The parliament's standing committee on law and justice has recommended substantial change to the Mediation Bill.

The bill focuses on strengthening the institutionalization of mediation and the establishment of the Mediation Council of India.

Mediation Bill

Objective

• The bill acknowledges the importance of institutes to train mediators, and service providers to provide structured mediation.
• To provide a body for the registration of mediators and to encourage community mediation.
• To make online mediation an acceptable and cost-effective process.
• To enforce the domestic and international mediation settlement agreements.
• It provides for enforcement of commercial settlement reached in the international mediation between parties from different countries, as per the Singapore Convention on Mediation, to which India was a notable signatory.

The main provisions of the bill

• Draft bill has proposed for pre-litigation mediation, it will also safeguard the interest of litigants to approach the competent adjudicatory court in case of urgent relief is required.
• The successful outcome of mediation in the form of a Mediation Settlement Agreement (MSA) has been made enforceable by law.
• The registration of MSA has also been provided with the State, District, and the Taluk legal authorities within 90 days.
• It will ensure the maintenance of authenticated records of the settlement.
• It will also provide for the establishment of the Mediation Council of India.
• It also provides for community mediation.

Qualification of Members

• Chairperson and full-time members must have the capacity, knowledge, and experience in the mediation.
• Even the people dealing with problems relating to Alternative Dispute Resolution can become members and Chairman of the council.

Panel recommendation

• The panel has shown cautioned against making pre-litigation mediation compulsory and warned the Center against the provision to give the higher court the power to frame rules for mediation.
• The panel has recommended that the compulsory provision of the pre-litigation should be offered as an option to those who are willing to mediate.
• Pre-litigation mediation should be introduced in a phased manner instead of introducing it with immediate effect for all civil and commercial cases.
• The appointment of the Chairperson and members of the Mediation Council should be made by a selection committee constituted by the Union Government.

Proper legislation shaped after discussion with the stakeholder will strengthen the bill and will help in providing a faster and cost-effective resolution to the needy one.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

• It refers to the method of resolving a dispute, which is an alternative for litigation in courts. It mainly includes resolution by a neutral third party, which helps the parties to communicate and resolve the dispute.

Different modes of Alternative Dispute Resolution

Mediation

• The mediator is impartial and helps the parties to reach a mutually accepted resolution of a dispute.
• They only help the parties to communicate so that they can solve their dispute by themselves.
• It leaves control of the outcome to the parties, whether to accept or not.

Conciliation

• It is a non-binding procedure where an impartial third party, assists the party in a dispute in reaching a mutually satisfactory agreed settlement.

Negotiation

• It is also a type or form of ADR for resolving any conflict. Here parties agree upon a course of action and bargain for advantage. It is the most common form of resolving a dispute and through this large number of disputes have been solved.

Arbitration

• It is less formal than the trial and even the evidence is often relaxed. There is no right to appeal an arbitrator’s decision. There is very little scope for judicial intervention in the arbitration process.