The social, economic and cultural livelihoods in East Pokot are currently subjected to massive change. Sedentarization in East Pokot is spreading. Customary household structures with a male head of the homestead who distributes tasks to his co-wives and children are more and more diminishing. In sedentarized settlements, women as main wage earners are common place. They seek employment as household assistants, fetch water and firewood for money or start small business like brewing or local shops. Men often struggle to adapt to these new surroundings; many are unemployed. As a consequence, divorce rates are high, domestic violence is increasing and birth rates are decreasing. Even in still pastoral settings, household transformations are taking place. More and more women have small brewing businesses. Herewith earned money belongs to the women and has to be used to provide for the needs of them and their children. Many co-wives do not cohabit in one homestead. Rather the customary homestead is divided into geographically scattered independent household units consisting of a mother and her children, which are regularly visited by the homestead head. In pastoral and sedentarized settings, more girls (and boys) are schooling, and FGM is regressing.

This paper focusses on (1) the ongoing changes women are facing; (2) the economic, political, symbolic and social agencies of women; (3) the impact of these transformations on everyday relationships between men and women; (4) the normative notions of right and wrong female behavior.

Women constitute 586.5 million out of 632.7 million males (Census 2011) but they still remain a minority in public life and this difference of gender can be seen in all spheres of life. The provision of educational opportunities for women has been an important part of the national endeavor in the field of education since India's Independence but gender disparity persists with uncompromising tenacity, more so in the rural areas and among the disadvantaged communities. The present paper is an attempt to discuss gender inequalities in literacy level among male and female of general, S.C, S.T, Rural and primitive tribes through National and A.P census and field study on Khond tribe of Visakhapatnam (A.P).

Result indicates that gender based inequality has been found to be responsible for poor female literacy rate.

There is a wide gap between the goals enunciated in the constitution and the real situation of the status of women in India. They thus move away from being pawns in the decision making and improving and managing their lives. The present study examines the empowerment of women addressing the following questions:-

1. Do women feel autonomy or dependency in solving problems?

2. Do women feel innovative and creative or safe playing and security?

3. Do women feel taking challenge and quality seeking or pawn role, laboring mechanically and tendency for routine performance?

Methodology: the study was conducted in two blocks of sultanpur district viz. Dhanpatganj and baldirai of Uttar Pradesh, India. From the list of total villages in the both C.D. blocks, ten per cent villages were selected by proportionate random sampling technique.

Findings: The findings are described on the basis of three dimensions as follows:-

1. The respondents were low empowered in relation to autonomy vs. dependency

2. Empowerment of women decreased towards low level from medium level in relation to self -esteem vs. self-deprecation.

3. Empowerment of women decreased towards low level from medium level in relation to Reflective vs. repetitive behavior

women belonging to weaker sections including scheduled castes/Scheduled tribes/ other backward castes and minorities, majority of who are in rural areas were less empowered. Access of women to education, health and productive resources among others are to be made adequate for social inclusion, self-determination and plentitude.

Ensuring group action is a challenge before administrators, policy planners, and development professionals. Realization ones' potentials is very essential for initiation of individual activism similarly realization of group potential, resources, skills and various other factors are biggest challenge for development. Hence a study was conducted to understand the factors influencing successful participation of women in groups. The study was conducted in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. The district Hathras (Mahamaya Nagar) was purposively selected for the study. The data was collected using well structured interview schedule. The data was analyzed with the help of appropriate statistical tools. Jatvan in Mendu town is a mostly schedule caste Mohlla having 2000 households under Mahamaya Nagar (Hathras) District in Uttar Pradesh. More than 60% of the population living there depends on daily wage for their livelihood. Womenfolk besides doing their household works hardly had any alternative engagement which could improve their lot. The economic activities began with a piggery unit with financial assistance from DRDA (Rs 150,000/- with subsidy of Rs 75,000/-). Presently the SHG has (2009-10) 36 nos. of crossbreed female pigs and 8 nos. crossbreed male with annual income of Rs. 8,28,000 ($ 15000). The major factors affecting enterprise development of members of SHG included education, marketing facilities, value orientation, level of aspiration, attitude towards the entrepreneurship and competitive enterprise.

Traditional family system has considerably changed due to women's employment . The result of employment of Christian women can be seen in all fields .The adjustment problem resulting from employment of Christian women can be seen in two aspect. First level of adjustment in view of employment and working place and Second is marital and family adjustment resulting from employment.Christian working women are performing role of wives ,mothers and role of employed women at one time. If the family members support them and the women do not feel tension due to different roles, then they will be considered to have adjustment with both the roles. Economic pressure is the main reason for Christian women to go for employment. But education sense of equality and consciousness of modernism has also inspired Christian women to opt a job.

The state of the women empowerment in a country is a good indicator of its socio-economic condition. This is because numerically women make up almost half of the population and surely constitute the most sensitive section of it.The worldwide movement for the socio-economic emancipation of women has acquired particularly in the last three decades and no country today is free from its influence. Bangladesh too is no exception and women empowerment in this country are stepping ahead by dint of their merit and hard work to conquer new horizons. Compared to other developed countries though the women's of Bangladesh were backward for a long time in socio-economical empowerment, even then with the evolution of time the thoughts and consciousness of females are now in the course of change. Transformation of social empowerment of Muslim women is playing all an important role not only in economical development of Bangladesh but also in the shift of thinking and consciousness and culture of educated people of the society.The main objective of this paper is to find out the major causes and nature of changes social empowerment and problems among the Muslim women in Bangladesh. This study will span main social institutions and major possible subjects (family, marriage, education, jobs, social status, security, law, religion, economy, culture,) in the context of recent transformation and changes of social empowerment of women in the country.

Development as a complex process involves the social, cultural, political and economic betterment of people. It is a cultural construct as well as brings new socio-economic order for people.

Women being half of the world's population are the integral part of development processes and they cannot be ignored from development strategies. Government has been implementing development projects, plans, and programs in the rural and tribal areas to improve the quality of life of the people which leads to displacement, resettlement, and even migration of people to various urban sectors. As a result, their socio-cultural and economic lives are influenced and affected in different ways. Any issue relating to women is always culture specific. In case of displacement, the compensation package given to a family is not being utilized properly because of the dominance of the male counterparts in tribal and rural communities.

The displaced women are neither able to assimilate completely with the new environment nor are they successful in maintaining their traditional social position and culture like; family structure, marriage pattern and kinship ties etc. Their traditional agrarian and forest economies undergo changes which are forcing them towards a new occupational structure. Of course, these development projects do give opportunities in the field of employment by paving ways of economic and political empowerment for women but also make them vulnerable to different kinds of exploitation for which their social position remains a big question today.

It has been found that the problems of tribal women differ from a particular area to another area owing to their geographical location, historical background and process of social change. In some cases, they are in a better position than their non-tribal counterparts in social rules and cultural norms. There are many facts that indicated low status for them.

Women empowerment is a burning issue in the present development scenario. The objective of women empowerment is to create an enabling environment, where women can freely exercise their rights both within and outside the home as equal partners along with man. Since, 1990s in the process of participatory development and management in the natural resource sector, empowering women is an important thrust area. Joint Forest Management and Watershed Development projects in various parts of our country have attempted to implement the national policy of women empowerment in the following manner:

i. Enabling environment to realize their full potential and self-worth;

ii. Enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedom;

iii. Equal access to participation and decision-making process;

iv. Changing social attitudes and community practices

v. Mainstreaming a gender perspective in the development process

vi. Building and strengthening partnerships with civil society, particularly women's organizations.

The objective of this paper is to discuss the above points through various illustrations from different parts of India.

The paper examines the attitude of tribal female school students(Xth Standard) towards women empowerment and mental health. The data was based on stratified random sampling, which was based on two sub-groups of Religion (Christian and Non-Christian) and socio-economic status (High and Low). The sample of 320 cases of tribal female students was drawn from the different schools located in Ranchi Town of Jharkhand. Women Social Freedom (W.S.F.) Scale of Bhushan (1987) was used to study the attitude towards women empowerment and GHQ-12 was applied to find out attitude towards mental health.. Results indicate that percentage values of tribal Christian high and low socio-economic status students towards women empowerment and mental health were found higher than that of non-Christian high and low socio-economic status sample group.

Key words: Women empowerment, tribal, Christian, non-christian, socio-economic status

The present study is an effort to make universalize the thinking of the youth of rural areas.This study revails the comparative thinking of men & women of young age.In Indian society, the gender discrimination mostly depends on men. The main reason of exploitation of women is their non-participation in decision making.Beside this the revolutions done by women of Dalit & minor class prove that women want to participate actively in politics and they can do anything for their upliftment and well being. It is clearly seen in the education & Health of rural area.Here girls & women are forced to do house hold & agricultural work, boys & men are regard capable of Education & outside activities.At village level to get rid of these obstacles,it is required that education must be provided for rural youth. The youth can take a stride step to abolish evils, when they come in contact with better transportation & communication. The different programmes for the upliftment of women should be

presented with awareness in the society without thinking about caste & religion, can be helpful in eradication of discrimination to some extent.For this woman participation is of crucial importance who understands their values in a right way.

Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimentional and multi--layered concept,which should enable the individuals or a group of individuals to realise their full identity and power in all spheres of life. Empowerment is a complex term which may be measured in terms of women's freedom to shape their lives,their control over resources and their access to basic facilities,their level of political participation,their ability to take their own decision and to remove hinderances in their path to progress.In recent years empowerment of women has been recognised a central issue in determining the status of women.Education is a milestone of women empowerment because it enables them to respond to the challenges,to confront their traditional role and change their life.Besides economic independence of women will also create social changes.

Though it is perceived that the status of a woman is enhanced by empowerment it is not yet explained how it empowers women in the family set-up.The power relations in a family are a very important aspect from the point of view of empowerment of woman.An employed woman may be very powerful and efficient in an organisation but the situation at home may be different.The empowerment achieved through employment is analysed through eight elements of empowerment e.g.self-esteem,importance in the family,role in deciding the number of children,decision making in family matters,role of employment in keeping up individuality,increase in self-dependence,family income and in securing the respect of husband and in-laws.

In our study we would compare the role of empowered women and house-wives in their family life.

Contemporary China has experienced interwoven influences of communist revolution, persistent Confucian cultural belief, and economic reform. Accordingly, gender norms and gender roles have greatly changed in workplace and family, though gender inequality still remains evidently. This paper aims to discuss changing gender relation in China since 1949. Issues, such as men's and women's participation in the economy, family status and gendered division of labor for unpaid family work, gender issues relating to work, social policies addressing gender equality at work, and agents of social change, are explored.

The diffusion of ICT has come to play a major part in development programs around the world. Among them, the mobile phone have been used, to combat poverty and give the people an opportunity to join the new information society that is widely spoken of and experienced in developed world. But there is a tendency of being too optimistic about technological effects. The Village Pay Phone (VPP) is one ICT development program, initiated in Bangladesh by Grameen Telecom aims to diffuse the advantages of the mobile phone to rural people that had no other access to telecommunication services and thus include them in combating their poverty through initiating micro-enterprises. The program targets women that live in rural areas to become owners of a mobile phone. By making women owners of a mobile phone which they can rent to others it is said to empower the female owner of the VPP and enable her to generate own income. The paper concerns development and women empowerment of the female owners as a result of the mobile phone and the VPP as it studies women empowerment through the VPP program as a subjective experience with no clear causes and effects. The paper has a hermeneutic phenomenological approach and highlights the women's experiences. Thus it brings findings that do not correspond fully to previous research of this program and that do not support the tendency of technological optimism in development programs.

In Brazil, the world of the rodeo has been oft-represented as an arena of (male) sociability and practice linked to rural heritage and modes of life. Yet today's increasing rural and urban interconnectedness has eroded not only rural/urban divisions but also boundaries separating men's and women's activitities and areas of expertise. Our own original ethnographic research on rodeo looks at how this erasing of boundaries and borders has been played out within an arena of sporting and leisure practice once thought to simply reproduce clear separations between rural and urban and men's and women's lives, practices and bodies. Thus, a new scenario has been created, enabling women from both urban middle class and rural poor or working class origin to develop forms of participation with potentially empowering consequences. At the discursive level, this has generated fascinating attempts to re-negotiate the "traditionalist" discourse that has played an important role in the recent history of Southern Brazil. At an interactional level, many contradictions emerge, as some men resist change and many women are forced to deal with ambivalence (their own or that of others) and with persisting forms of stigmatization. Thus, our study presents a radical example of new dislocations - favored, in this case, by the feminization of "traditional" equestrian practice - and of the anguishes, uncertainties and challenges they bring with them.