Of late, there has been a lot of discussion around women empowerment and rights of girl children thanks to the growing awareness around these issues and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign. Some of the positive developments include women reaching space, becoming commandos in the defence forces, flying the longest flights as pilots, acing sports at international levels, the Supreme Court upholding the reproductive choice of women as a fundamental right, declaring excluding a married daughter as unconstitutional, and stating sexual harassment at workplace as a violation of a woman’s fundamental rights.

However, while we rejoice how far we have come and celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child, we also need to reflect and ask ourselves how far we still have to go. Statistics such as 45.8 million (4.58 crore) girls have gone missing in the last 50 years due to the practice of female foeticide according to a UN Report and out of 33 million children out of school in India 40% being girls, give us a reminder. NCRB recorded 4.3 lakh cases of crimes against women in the form of assault, kidnapping, rape, etc., and reported that one woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. Not only this, millions of girls in India still don’t receive enough nutrition, clothing, food, etc., which are the basic human needs as per Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, let alone receiving fair wage, pursuing ambitions, etc. These statistics are not mere numbers but many lives living in this situation having to fight those battles every day.

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With the growing access to media and information through technology, we have become used to hearing or reading terms like global warming, climate change, environmental degradation, etc. Most of us have also taken the effort to learn more about the issue through further research or as part of our academic curriculum. Therefore, most of us understand what the issue at hand is. However, some of us do not know either the causes of the issue or its effects. Then, many of us do not know the solutions to the challenge but certainly a majority of us do not act.

What is the first word that comes to your mind when you think of nature, or what do you associate nature with? Trees, water, animals, air, pollution, danger? One important element we forget sometimes is ‘us’. We are a part of nature and nature is not ‘them’ but ‘us’. When we dissociate ourselves from nature is when we think it is just nature that is in danger but we are safe, and apathy could rise out of it. However, when we realise that we, too, are a part of nature, we understand that we are equally at risk and thus, need to take action at least to safeguard ourselves.

We cannot completely stop environmental degradation because it is inevitable with the growing population, scarcity of resources and changing lifestyles but we can certainly slow it down. This can happen by following the 3A concept: Acquire, Act and Achieve. I believe the first step towards change is to educate yourselves and become conscious and informed citizens.

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