Discussion on women and gender issues in India, on July 13.
AB Wire
As part of the annual Spotlight Speaker Series, the American India Foundation’s (AIF) Young Professionals DC Chapter will host a high-level panel on the topic of women and gender in India. The event will take place at WeWork Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. at 5:30 PM on July 13th.
The event comes at a time where the issues of health, well-being, and rights of women and girls around the world is front and center in the international development sector. Girls and women are the undeniable key to developing India’s economy and social progress, according to a press release.
This is AIF Young Professionals DC Chapter’s second annual Spotlight Speaker Series event. Each year this event focuses on bringing expert minds to Washington DC to discuss issues of development, public health, and livelihood in India.
Prestigious speakers this year include experts Dr. Shareen Joshi, Georgetown University; Anuba Bhonsle, author and journalist; and Anshu Gupta, Founder of Goonj.
Dr. Shareen Joshi is an expert in economic development, gender, applied economics, with a focus on India and South Asia. She holds a doctorate in economics from Yale University. Her research focuses on poverty alleviation and demographic change in the developing world. Most recently, her work has focused on the effects of maternal and child health programs on the well-being of families in Bangladesh and the impact of self-help group participation on the lives of women in rural Rajasthan.
Anubha Bhonsle is an award-winning journalist from India. She is the author of ‘Mother, Where’s My Country’, a non-fiction reportage on the tangled and tragic history of Manipur. She has a body of work reporting on politics, gender, conflict and development. In recent years she has worked extensively from areas of strife, focusing on the intersection of civil society movements, gender, human rights and political protests. She is a founding member of CNN-IBN. In her role as Executive Editor, Bhonsle has led the channels’ coverage of major news events, reporting from the ground.
Popularly known as the ‘Clothing Man’ and recipient of 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award, Anshu Gupta is the founder of Goonj, an organization with a mission to make clothing a matter of concern and to bring it among the list of subjects to work on for the development sector. Under his leadership, Goonj has used urban waste as a tool to trigger large-scale rural development work. Gupta is an Ashoka and Schwab Fellow, apart from being a member of the Humanitarian Crisis Council of the World Economic Forum and has been listed by the Forbes magazine as one of India’s most powerful rural entrepreneurs.
All raised funds will directly benefit AIF’s signature program, the Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI), which is designed to reduce maternal and child mortality in rural, impoverished areas of India.
Founded in 2001 at the initiative of President Bill Clinton following a request from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, AIF has impacted the lives of more than 2.3 million of India’s poor and aims to reach 5 million by 2018.