Gender

ndia has witnessed a near doubling of its women’s employment rate between 2017-18 and 2023-24 – rising from 22 per cent to 40.3 per cent, according to recent data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey.

In one part of the world, floods inundate entire cities. In another, droughts silently wither crops. Glaciers, which took centuries to form, are disappearing in decades. Groundwater, hidden and unseen, is being depleted faster than it can be replenished.

Women farmers were trained in better feeding, mineral mixes, housing, and preventive healthcare, along with support to access finance and markets. Gradually, goat mortality dropped from 53 percent in 2022 to just 9.6 percent in 2025.

In 2023 alone, roughly 260,000 women worldwide died during or shortly after childbirth, with 22 per cent (about 58,000 maternal deaths) occurring in the Asia-Pacific – many of which were preventable with timely midwife-led care.

UN-mandated independent investigators have uncovered “systematic torture” in Myanmar’s military-run detention facilities.

The global human rights watchdog said that Afghanistan now faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, exacerbated by donor governments’ aid cuts and the return of 1.9 million refugees expelled from Iran and Pakistan. 

The second edition of the Just AI Awards – Asia Pacific is now open for nominations, spotlighting individuals and organisations that are building ethical, inclusive, accountable, and impactful AI solutions for the public good.

Special provisions have been made for meeting expenditure on conveyance and boarding and lodging as well as enhanced post placement support for women to encourage the participation of women in skill development programmes.