Close to 100 children from Katada village in Angul, Odisha are provided education and nutritious meals at Smile Foundation's Mission Education centre - Nari Suraksha Samiti.
Imagine two 4-year-old children in neighbouring villages. One gets a hearty midday meal, a clean home, regular health check-ups; the other is anaemic, eats limited food and visits the clinic only when very ill. A few years later, when they start school, the first child catches words quickly, counts with confidence; the second struggles to read simple sentences, often falls behind in arithmetic.
This is a reality for millions in India. And the gap in early learning outcomes between them isn’t just blameworthy; it’s avoidable — if we properly link nutrition, health and education from the beginning.
Why Early Nutrition & Health Are Foundational, Not Optional
The first 1,000 days of life — from conception through age two — are a period of extraordinary brain development. Neuroscience and developmental psychology show that inadequate nutrition during this window can inflict irreversible damage to memory, attention and problem-solving skills. A seminal 2007 study by Grantham-McGregor et al. warns that under-nutrition in those early years often leads to children entering school late, struggling academically or even dropping out.
India’s own data backs this up. The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS, 2016-18) found that about 38% of children under five are stunted and 17% are wasted. Stunting and wasting are not just physical health markers — they correlate closely with cognitive deficits, poor school performance and lower learning retention. (PMC)
Let’s also consider India’s anaemia challenge: large proportions of young children and pregnant mothers suffer from iron deficiency, which reduces attention span and learning capacity. These combined health burdens make it much harder for children to meet early learning benchmarks in reading and arithmetic.
So when we talk about improving early learning outcomes, especially in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), we are talking about more than better teaching. Without good health and proper nutrition first, even excellent classrooms struggle.
What the Evidence Shows: Health + FLN = Better Outcomes
Recent studies demonstrate more clearly than ever how health and nutrition drive learning.
A November 2024 study in Tamil Nadu (one of India’s more advanced states) found that children with balanced diets — adequate protein, frequent meals, micro-nutrient supplementation — performed significantly better in early grade reading and numeracy than those with poor nutrition. While the gap was most pronounced in Grade 1 and 2, its effects carried forward into higher classes.
The CNNS data (2016-18) revealed that around 38 percent of children under five are stunted and 17 percent wasted. Stunting, especially, has been shown in multiple studies to correlate with delayed cognitive development and lower school achievement. (PMC)
Another survey, using NFHS data and CNNS, finds that undernutrition among children under 5 remains high across many states — an obstacle that directly undermines early learning outcomes. Moreover, children in households with poor sanitation, maternal malnutrition, and food insecurity frequently miss school or are fatigued, further hurting learning effectiveness. (PMC)
These findings show that improving early learning outcomes (reading, counting, comprehension) depends heavily on upstream factors like diet diversity, micronutrients, prenatal and early childhood health services, and overall well-being.
Policy Frameworks & India’s Current Efforts
India has recognised the vital role nutrition and health must play in improving early learning. Some government policies and programmes already address this intersection but often in disconnected ways.
NIPUN Bharat Mission (launched July 2021): officially seeks to ensure foundational literacy and numeracy by Grade 3 across India by 2026-27. This includes children aged roughly 3-9 years, focusing on reading, writing, arithmetic. It implies school readiness and continuous developmental progress. (scert.delhi.gov.in)
NEP 2020 ties early childhood care and education (ages 3-6) to foundational learning outcomes. It recognises that school readiness including physical, cognitive and health readiness is fundamental for children to benefit from primary education. (scert.delhi.gov.in)
Nutrition programmes: ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) and PM-POSHAN (Mid-Day Meal Scheme) are central in feeding children, especially young ones. But evaluations show variable implementation quality, delays, gaps in monitoring and sometimes insufficient attention to cognitive readiness.
For example, in states with high stunting and maternal anaemia, collaboration between education and health/nutrition departments has often been weak — resources and accountability may belong to different ministries, with different priorities.
What We Could Do Better: Integrating Nutrition into Early Learning Outcomes
To truly improve early learning outcomes, India needs to move from siloed programmes to integrated action. Here are key strategies:
Strengthen Coordination Among Ministries Education, health, women & child development must collaborate at all levels — national, state, district. If the health department identifies a community with high child malnutrition, education services need to target that area with extra support (remedial FLN, teacher training, etc.).
Expand School Readiness Interventions Pre-school and early childhood programmes must go beyond counting colours and rhymes. They should ensure children enter Grade 1 well-nourished, without untreated health issues (vision, hearing, anaemia), with sufficient exposure to language, books and stimulation at home.
Monitor Nutrition Indicators Alongside Learning Metrics FLN assessments under NIPUN Bharat are important but they should be paired with data on nutrition status (stunting, anaemia, weight), health check-ups and school attendance. When learning outcomes drop, is it because of teaching, or illness, or hunger, or all three?
Shape School-Based Health & Nutrition Interventions
Regular health camps in schools for deworming, iron and folic acid supplementation.
Nutritionally balanced meals under PM-POSHAN, with quality checks and local food sourcing.
Growth monitoring, early diagnosis of nutritional deficits.
Empower Frontline Workers & Families Anganwadi workers, ASHA, community health workers need well-designed, digestible training to identify not just physical growth problems but developmental delays. Parents must understand why early nutrition matters — not just for health but for learning, reading, problem-solving. Better communication, culturally meaningful messages can help.
Address Cultural & Contextual Barriers In many households, feeding practices are influenced by tradition. Meal frequency, diet diversity, care practices, hygiene and stimulation at home often lag because of lack of awareness, poverty or gender norms. Interventions must be tailored locally and respectful of cultural realities.
Invest in Infrastructure & Supply Chains Nutrient-rich food, clean water, sanitation, reliable supply of supplements and hygiene are not “extras” — they are foundations. Adequate funding, logistics, supply line accountability are essential.
Smile Foundation: Bridging Nutrition, Health & Early Learning Outcomes in Practice
NGOs often fill the gaps left by policy and Smile Foundation offers useful models of integration.
Through Mission Education and related programmes, Smile supports children in vulnerable communities not only with quality schooling but also with nutritional awareness, supplementary feeding, health check-ups and regular deworming. These interventions ensure children are ready to learn when they reach school.
Smile’s model frequently includes digestible training for parents, caregivers and local stakeholders so that practices like healthy feeding, hygiene and early childhood stimulation (talking to, reading to children) become part of daily life — not just something done in a clinic or school.
In areas where Smile operates, observation shows better attendance in early grades, fewer health-related absenteeism cases and more children reading or counting at expected levels earlier than in control or non-intervention areas. These outcomes suggest that integrating nutrition and health with FLN interventions makes a tangible difference.
The Costs of Not Doing This
Ignoring nutrition in early learning outcomes isn’t harmless. The consequences are multi-fold.
Learning deficits become persistent. A child who enters Grade 1 with untreated anaemia or malnutrition may struggle to catch up, even if schooling improves. These gaps can widen over time — reading, comprehension, arithmetic all build on earlier layers.
Economic opportunity is lost. Lower learning outcomes mean fewer students qualified for higher education or skilled jobs. This suppresses productivity, worsens inequality and slows national economic potential.
Social inequalities deepen. Children from poorer, rural, indigenous or marginalised communities often suffer worse nutrition and worse learning outcomes. Without intervention, their disadvantage compounds into lower earning potential, lower health, less civic participation.
Health costs rise. Malnutrition, anaemia, recurring illness, poor cognitive development lead to higher long-term costs for health care, social services, special education, remedial programmes, lost income and broader societal strain.
Early Learning Outcomes Need Early Health & Nutrition
When we talk about “improving early learning outcomes,” if we ignore nutrition and health we are only turning part of the wheel. The full engine of learning doesn’t turn without both parts.
For India, aligning nutrition, health and education policies — especially under frameworks like NIPUN Bharat — is imperative. Ensuring that children enter school well-nourished, healthy and capable of learning is central to achieving reading, writing, arithmetic benchmarks by Grade 3.
If India commits to integrating nutrition, health and education interventions in early childhood supporting frontline workers, strengthening supply chains, engaging parents, tracking health & educational outcomes together, then early learning outcomes can improve dramatically. And when early learning outcomes improve, the rest of education becomes stronger, communities become more resilient and the whole country gains.
Let’s make “good learning” the norm, not the exception for every child, no matter where they are born.
Every year in the month of October, Delhi wakes up to a morning that reminds the world how powerful kindness can be. Amidst the crisp autumn air, in the early hours of dawn, Jawahar Lal Nehru stadium starts bustling with enthusiastic runners from across the world and corporate organisations that come together to run at the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon- World Athletics Gold Label Road Race recognised by the AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Distance Races). The racetrack is set for the test of speed and endurance, while the air echoes with purpose, inclusivity and positive transformation.
The Psychology of Running for a Cause
As much as it is true that marathons are a reminder of how important fitness is to keep our body and mind healthy– marathons like the Vedanta Delhi Marathon, are also a testament to prove that –people run more when motivated by a purpose.
According to experts, it has been observed that the benefits of participating in marathons for a purpose– go well beyond the race itself. They state that physical activity naturally enhances mood and helps lower stress, depression and anxiety; however, these effects are amplified when people run together, creating a sense of belonging and community.
As social beings, humans thrive on shared positive experiences, which stimulate the release of oxytocin—a hormone that reduces stress and deepens social connection. Research further indicates thatvolunteering contributes to higher life satisfaction, while also easing stress and symptoms of depression.
Furthermore, it has been observed that when runners come for marathons for a cause, their endurance limits become more than physical stamina, when linked with empathy. Every kilometer run is no longer just about pushing limits, but about carrying a purpose beyond the finish line. Knowing that each step contributes to a greater cause makes the effort feel lighter, as empathy transforms fatigue into motivation, turning a personal challenge into collective impact.
Corporate Participation: Impact Beyond Race Day
As key social stakeholders, corporates are invited to step onto the track at the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon 2025 for two powerful reasons: first, to demonstrate that their commitment to an inclusive society goes far beyond mandated Corporate Social Responsibility laws; and second, to embrace a unique employee engagement experience that nurtures wellness, strengthens camaraderie, and unites teams around a greater purpose.
Research consistently shows that initiatives like VDHM not only inspire employees, but also cultivate deeper satisfaction, pride, and loyalty — turning every stride into both personal fulfillment and collective impact.
VDHM as a Festival of Inclusion
Over the years, the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon has evolved into more than a race– it is a powerful symbol of equal participation. With its doors open for all, especially participants who are differently abled, children, youth and corporate runners, this marathon brings everyone together forging unity through miles and meaning.
Last year at its 19th edition, 78 NGOs and 70 fundraisers raised over Rs 3.28 crores for 12 causes. Collectively, till date the event has raised over Rs 84 crores since its inception.
Corporate participation has become a backbone of this inclusive narrative. At VDHM’ 24, 12 corporates and their teams donned running shoes, not just to compete but to contribute. Leading organisations like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in partnership with Smile Foundation, led the marathon alongside dozens of NGOs and individual fundraisers reinforcing the marathon’s embrace of diversity and purpose.
Carrying forward its legacy with renewed spirit, the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon 2025 is set to ensure that inclusivity is more than just a number — it is a lived ethos. By welcoming a versatile range of groups such as corporates, international athletes and differently abled participants as champions of change, VDHM’25 seeks to embody diversity in motion, transforming every stride into a powerful statement. Beyond raising funds, it raises awareness, nurtures empathy, and forges lasting partnerships — proving that when we run together, we move society forward.
Why Should Corporates Run with Smile Foundation?
For corporates, running at the VDHM 2025 with Smile Foundation is an opportunity to dive into the depth of goodness of health and spread the power of education, for over 2 lakh children from the underserved communities.
The Run with Smile initiative is an opportunity for brands to amplify their commitment towards making their CSR goals a movement for positive change. This year, Smile Foundation is participating in the 20th Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon with the call – “When you run, they learn”.
With education at the heart of Run with Smile, the organisation is determined to ensure that every stridefuels classrooms, creates opportunities and empower young learners across India.
When corporates support education initiatives such as Smile Foundation’s Mission Education through platforms like VDHM– they do more than just funding classrooms. They help bridge the urban-rural divide in access to learning, enable children to pursue higher studies and empower families to move beyond cycles of poverty.
There is no doubt that today as a nation, India has made remarkable strides in education, with children from rural communities enrolling in schools in ever greater numbers. Yet, sustaining this momentum and ensuring that grassroots education is truly inclusive—and aligned with global standards, requires more than policy alone. It calls for corporates to join the movement, not as a one-time intervention, but as a long-term investment of vision, effort, and purpose — fuelling empowerment, skill-building and ultimately, nation-building.
When Corporates Run with Smile, Rural Classrooms Rise with-
Infrastructure Development
By supporting school development in rural areas, children can have safe and well-equipped spaces to learn.
Digital Access and Smart Classrooms
Bridge the digital divide by enabling smart classrooms, e-learning and devices preparing children for a competitive future.
Scholarship programmes
Through Smile Foundation’s scholarship programmes for girls, young girls can continue their education without the fear of dropping out due to financial constraints.
Teacher Training and Capacity Building
To equip students with 21st-century skills, it is vital to train teachers in modern pedagogy ensuring stronger learning outcomes.
Partner Now – From Race Day to Real Change
For Smile Foundation, Run with Smile at VDHM is not just about sponsorship, it is about leadership in action. Each year, when corporates run for a purpose, they channel collective energy into something larger than themselves, transforming endurance and empathy into equitable classrooms, brighter opportunities and empowered futures.
This spirit finds its stage once again at the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon 2025, which offers companies a unique chance to turn intent into impact. As employees come together on race day, they not only celebrate fitness and teamwork but also witness their organisation standing for rural education in India, making the cause feel deeply personal and inspiring.
The impact, however, extends far beyond the racetrack. Such shared commitment uplifts children from underserved communities, while also strengthening the fabric of the workplace. It nurtures loyalty, deepens retention and enhances employer branding, making participation a powerful and purposeful employee engagement.
That is why on 12th October, at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, we invite corporates to stride alongside us for education, for equality, for empowerment. With every step you take, Smile Foundation can go further, strengthening rural communities and shaping a generation ready to lead the nation into the future.
Frequently Asked Questions about Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon
Where is the Delhi Marathon 2025?
The Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon will be held on 12 October 2025, with the start and finish at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi.
How do I participate in Vedanta Half Marathon?
Corporates interested in participating for Run with Smile at the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon’ 25 can participate by contacting – Salony Pandya- +91 99991 80854 or Parul Sharma – +91 92667 40073 or can write us to on email- cp@smilefoundationindia.org
What is the distance of the Delhi Half Marathon?
The Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon run covers 21 km. The marathon also includes Open 10K, Great Delhi Run (~7 km), Senior Citizens’ Run (~4.3 km), and Champions with Disability race.
Healthcare Technology Changing Consumer Behavior in India
Imagine a world where getting healthcare is as easy as making a phone call, where no one is forced to choose between their health and their livelihood. In this world, everyone – from bustling cities to remote villages – can access the full range of health services they need, when and where they need them, without falling into financial hardship. Health experts have a fancy term for this ideal: Universal Health Coverage (UHC). It’s a cornerstone of the Sustainable Development Goals and countries around the globe have pledged to achieve it. Turning that lofty vision into reality is no small feat, especially in the sprawling and diverse Indo-Pacific region. Yet, in the past decade, India has made giant leaps in using digital technology to bring healthcare closer to people’s doorsteps – leaps that offer fun, instructive lessons for many Indo-Pacific nations facing similar challenges.
A Tough Prescription: Health Challenges in the Indo-Pacific
From the highlands of Papua to the atolls of the Pacific, the Indo-Pacific region faces some daunting healthcare hurdles. Consider a place like the Arfak Mountains in West Papua, Indonesia: the scenery is stunning but breathtakingly unforgiving – jagged mountains, dense forests and long winding roads make it a nightmare for health workers to reach far-flung villages. In these communities, modern medicine competes with deep-rooted beliefs in witchcraft. Many villagers attribute illness to “suanggi” (sorcery) and may delay or avoid seeking treatment from clinics. Add to this a shortage of trained medical staff and scant awareness about diseases like malaria and you get a perfect storm of obstacles to delivering care.
Hop over to the Pacific Islands – say Fiji, Vanuatu or Micronesia – and you’ll find a different set of challenges with a similar result. These small island nations struggle with chronic shortages of doctors and nurses, making it hard to achieve universal health coverage. It’s not that people don’t want to train as health professionals; the issue is that there aren’t enough training opportunities locally and many of those who do qualify often move abroad for better pay and facilities.
The World Health Organization notes that nearly every Pacific Island country falls below its recommended health worker-to-population ratios. Despite various international aid programmes and WHO-supported initiatives, the remoteness and isolation of these islands, limited resources and weak health data systems have hampered sustained progress in building an equitable health workforce. In short, small populations spread across vast ocean distances face big hurdles in getting quality healthcare.
If all this sounds like a tough prescription to fill, it is. But this is where India’s recent experience can offer a dose of inspiration. India’s sheer size and diversity mean it has grappled with many of the same issues – remote communities, cultural barriers, limited doctors in rural areas – and it has found innovative, community-driven fixes. Let’s take a closer look at how India’s digital health revolution unfolded and what lessons it holds for its Indo-Pacific neighbours.
From Health IDs to Telemedicine: India’s Digital Health Revolution
Not long ago, India’s healthcare system was largely analouge and urban-centric. Medical records were paper files gathering dust and rural patients often travelled long distances to see a specialist or simply went without care. Over the last decade, however, India set out on an ambitious digital journey with a simple idea: connect every citizen to the health system through technology. The result is a rapidly evolving digital health infrastructure that is bridging the urban-rural divide and making healthcare more accessible than ever before.
At the heart of this transformation is the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), launched in 2021. Think of ABDM as the digital backbone of India’s healthcare. One of its first initiatives was giving every citizen a unique digital Health ID (now called Ayushman Bharat Health Account or ABHA) to store their medical records securely in the cloud. The response has been staggering – as of early 2025, more than 73 crore (730 million) Indians have created their digital health IDs. To put that in perspective, that’s like the entire population of Europe having an interoperable digital health record! Over 5 lakh (500,000) healthcare professionals are registered on the national platform, which means a vast network of doctors and nurses can both contribute to and access patients’ records with the patients’ consent. This nationwide framework makes it possible for a person in a remote village to consult a doctor in a big city and have the prescription or test results added to their digital record instantly. It’s a game-changer for continuity of care.
Building on this digital backbone, India has rolled out telemedicine on an unprecedented scale. The flagship telemedicine platform eSanjeevani is a prime example. Initially piloted to connect rural clinics with city hospitals, eSanjeevani became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic when lockdowns made physical consultations difficult. Today, it’s the world’s largest telemedicine service for primary healthcare. By February 2025, eSanjeevani had facilitated over 34 crore teleconsultations (340 million and counting) since its 2019 launch. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari (north to south) and Kutch to Kohima (west to east), the platform covers all 36 states and union territories, bringing online doctor consultations to even the most sparsely served areas.
Importantly, these eSanjeevani consultations are recorded (with patient permission) into the person’s digital health account, creating a secure health history that travels with them. This integrated approach has not only eased the burden on crowded city hospitals but also ensured that people in rural and remote areas get medical advice without spending half a month’s wages on travel. Little wonder India’s Health Minister calls eSanjeevani a “health sector revolution”, noting how it has made quality healthcare available at home and “democratized healthcare”.
Telemedicine in India isn’t just about general doctor consultations either. It’s being used for specialist services and screenings. For instance, through hub-and-spoke telehealth models, a community clinic (Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre) can connect patients to a specialist in a city hospital. There are documented cases of AI-powered diagnostic tools being piloted, such as apps that help detect diabetic eye disease or cervical cancer from images, allowing local health workers to conduct screenings that would normally require a specialist. These tech tools mean that a village nurse, armed with a tablet or smartphone, can prevent serious diseases by catching them early and then consult a remote specialist via eSanjeevani for follow-up. The result is better availability of care when and where people need it, minimising the need for patients to undertake costly, arduous journeys to far-off hospitals.
India’s digital health leap is not limited to cyberspace; it also has wheels and even rudders! A number of mobile medical units – essentially clinics on wheels – are bringing healthcare to the hinterlands. The Smile on Wheels program by an NGO is one notable example: these are buses or vans outfitted as tiny clinics that visit villages on a regular schedule. In riverine areas of Assam and other states, “Smile on Boat” clinics literally sail to the remote river islands with doctors and medicines on board.
In a recent public-private initiative in Assam, two mobile medical vans and a boat clinic were launched to serve over 25,000 people annually across 12 hard-to-reach districts and river islands. Each unit comes with doctors, nurses, diagnostic equipment, and free essential medicines. Importantly, they focus on the three A’s – Availability, Accessibility, Affordability – by delivering care right to communities that previously had little access. Patients who might have been an entire day’s travel away from the nearest hospital can now get check-ups, basic lab tests and medicines in their village or island. And if a serious case is identified, the mobile clinics coordinate referrals to bigger hospitals, even assisting with transport if needed. These innovative outreach efforts show a clever blend of old-school community health (bringing services to the doorstep) with new-school tech, as some mobile units are equipped with teleconsultation facilities linking to specialists in real time. It’s healthcare on the move, quite literally.
Making Healthcare Affordable and Inclusive
One of the biggest barriers to healthcare, especially in developing regions, is cost. It’s not just the doctor’s fee; it’s the bus fare to the clinic, the day’s wages lost in travel and waiting and the price of medicines that can all add up to devastating out-of-pocket expenses. In India, these factors historically pushed millions into poverty each year. The government recognised that achieving UHC isn’t just about having services available – people need to afford and access them without hardship. Here again, digital and community innovations have helped bend the cost curve and make healthcare more inclusive.
Telemedicine = savings. Every eSanjeevani consultation a rural family does from their village saves them the cost of a trip to the nearest town or city. Multiply that by 34 crore teleconsultations and you have hundreds of millions of travel miles and rupees saved. In fact, the eSanjeevani service is provided free of charge to patients, effectively eliminating consultation fees for those who use government doctors online. According to official reports, this platform has been instrumental in “ensuring availability, accessibility and affordability” of care by providing free advice and reducing the need for physical visits. It especially benefits those who live in far-flung areas or cannot easily travel – such as the elderly, women with young children or people with disabilities.
The inclusivity impact of these digital services is striking. Over 57% of eSanjeevani’s users are women and about 12% are senior citizens. Traditionally, these groups faced greater barriers in traveling to clinics – women often have household responsibilities or societal constraints and seniors may be too frail. By bringing consultations into the home via a simple smartphone app or a common service centre, telemedicine has opened the doors of healthcare to those who were left standing outside. It’s a powerful reminder that technology, when used thoughtfully, can level the playing field. One might even say telemedicine has become the “great equalizer” for healthcare access in India, much like how mobile phones revolutionized access to communication.
Another major expense in healthcare is medicines. Here too, India has used digital platforms and clever supply-chain thinking to help citizens save money. The government’s Jan Aushadhi scheme, a network of generic medicine pharmacies, uses an online inventory system to stock affordable generic drugs at thousands of stores nationwide. These Jan Aushadhi Kendras offer quality-assured medicines at prices 50% to 90% cheaper than their branded equivalents. For example, a blood pressure pill that might cost ₹100 under a big brand name could be ₹10 at a Jan Aushadhi store. By 2024, over 13,000 such outlets were operational, often linked with digital dashboards to manage stock and demand. Patients can even use a simple online lookup to find the nearest Jan Aushadhi outlet or check if a specific medicine is available. The impact is huge: people with chronic illnesses (who need monthly meds for diabetes, heart disease, etc.) can save thousands of rupees each year.
On the private sector side, a host of online pharmacies and health apps have also emerged, competing to deliver medicines at discounts and sometimes even for free for the poorest. During the pandemic, India’s medicine delivery apps became lifelines and today many of them offer teleconsultation plus medication delivery bundles. Some startups coordinate with local health workers to ensure even remote orders are delivered via postal service or courier to villages.
Then there’s CoWIN, the digital platform India developed for its COVID-19 vaccination drive, which showcased inclusivity by design. The app and website were developed in multiple Indian languages, but recognising that not everyone has a smartphone, the system also relied on old-fashioned SMS and IVR (interactive voice response). People could register for vaccines using basic mobile phones – they’d receive OTPs and confirmation via text – and even get guidance SMS messages in 12 different languages on what to do and where to go for their shot. This multi-channel approach (smartphone app, website, call center and SMS) meant that language or lack of internet wasn’t a barrier. In fact, many village communities mobilized WhatsApp groups where one person with a smartphone would coordinate vaccine appointments for others, using CoWIN and sharing the SMS details. The CoWIN platform ended up facilitating over 2.2 billion vaccine doses, a success unimaginable without its inclusive, digital-yet-accessible architecture.
Crucially, India’s push for digital health hasn’t side lined the human touch – it has augmented it. The real heroes of India’s rural health system are the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) – nearly one million female community health workers who are the first point of contact for care in villages. Recognising their importance, many digital initiatives are built around empowering ASHAs with new tools. For example, ASHAs across several states use a mobile app that replaces the old pen-and-paper registers for tracking pregnancies, immunisations and clinic visits.
One such app, used in Rajasthan, immediately flags high-risk pregnancies (say, if a woman’s haemoglobin is dangerously low) so the ASHA can prioritise follow-up. ASHAs also form WhatsApp groups of new mothers to share infant care tips and vaccination reminders, creating a supportive digital community. These community innovations – local language chatbots, WhatsApp help groups, voice reminders via phone calls for illiterate patients – may seem small-scale, but they significantly boost participation in healthcare programmes. During recent vaccination drives (for COVID-19 and for childhood immunisations), these personalised, community-based digital nudges helped dispel fears and improve coverage. It’s like having a friendly neighborhood health auntie in your phone, guiding and comforting you in the dialect you understand best.
Community Innovations: Health Tech with a Human Face
If there’s one theme that stands out in India’s digital health journey, it’s that technology works best when it’s woven into the community fabric. High-tech command centres and glossy apps alone won’t move the needle on public health; it’s the marriage of tech solutions with on-the-ground human effort that produces magic. India provides plenty of examples of this principle in action.
Take telemedicine again – the eSanjeevani platform is digital, yes, but its massive reach was achieved by linking it with physical Health and Wellness Centres and training community health officers to assist patients in using it. In many rural clinics, an ASHA or nurse is present to help an elderly farmer have a video call with a doctor in the city. These “telemedicine kiosks” or booths at clinics ensure that even those uncomfortable with smartphones can benefit. The technology is humanised – it comes with a helping hand.
Mobile Medical Units (the “clinics on wheels”) similarly rely on local community health volunteers to spread the word of their arrival and encourage villagers to come out for check-ups. In some remote areas, they’ve even experimented with bike ambulances and boat ambulances, and used walkie-talkies or simple apps for scheduling visits when cell networks are unreliable. It’s all about adapting to local context. In mountainous Ladakh, for instance, solar-powered telemedicine kits were given to health workers to use in villages that are cut off by snow in winter – ensuring consultations can continue even when roads are closed.
Another grassroot innovation is the use of vernacular-language voice bots and helplines. One healthcare start-up, BigOHealth, realised that many rural users struggled with text-based apps but were quite comfortable speaking over the phone. So they launched a 24/7 helpline where patients can describe their symptoms in their own language to an operator or AI-driven system, which then connects them to a doctor. By using local dialects and even illiterate-friendly interfaces (like voice commands or icon-based navigation in apps), such services break the literacy barrier. This approach has been vital in expanding the reach of digital health in a country with dozens of languages and varying education levels.
Perhaps the most powerful lesson from India’s experience is that trust and technology must go hand in hand. People trust people – the local nurse, the ASHA didi (sister), the friendly pharmacist – more than a distant app or website. So India has often put those trusted people at the center of its digital rollouts. The government didn’t just launch a Health ID and wait for people to sign up; it enlisted ASHAs and village councils to help families register for their digital IDs during health camps. It wasn’t just a top-down tech deployment, but a ground-up mobilisation. This community-first mindset ensured that digital health tools were seen not as alien intrusions, but as helping hands that amplified what communities were already doing.
Lessons for the Indo-Pacific: A Healthy Dose of Innovation
So, what can countries across the Indo-Pacific region take away from India’s digital health leap? While every nation has its unique circumstances, a few broad lessons emerge that could be as useful as a first-aid kit:
Meet people where they are (literally and linguistically): A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work for diverse communities. Health tech must be tailored to local languages, cultural beliefs and realities on the ground. That might mean having vaccine registration platforms that operate in multiple languages and even via basic SMS – like India’s CoWIN did or using audio and video content to reach populations with low literacy. Humanising the technology is key: a chatbot that speaks the local dialect or informational videos featuring community leaders can go a long way in building trust.
Empower the frontline troops: Community health workers are the unsung heroes in healthcare delivery. Training and equipping them with digital tools can multiply their impact. Imagine a village midwife in the Pacific islands using a tablet app to monitor pregnancies or a health volunteer in a Papuan village doing a video call with a distant doctor to treat a fever. When frontline workers become fluent in using these technologies, they serve as both care providers and tech educators for the community. Plus, their endorsement can assuage fears of new technology. Investing in their continuous training (and yes, paying them decent wages) is one of the best moves a health system can make.
Bring the clinic to the community: Distance and difficult terrain are common challenges in the Indo-Pacific. If people can’t easily reach healthcare, bring healthcare to them. Mobile clinics on vans, boats or even motorbikes can deliver basic services and preventive care. Set up telemedicine kiosks in post offices or community centres where people can drop in for an online consult. Use radio or SMS blasts to send health alerts (for example, reminders for vaccination drives or malaria precautions before the rainy season). These last-mile delivery innovations, as India showed, can dramatically expand access while keeping costs low. In Assam’s case, a couple of boat clinics now serve dozens of islands that had no doctor visits before – an idea easily replicable in archipelagos or riverine communities elsewhere.
Public-private partnership is a prescription for success: One striking aspect of India’s digital health story is the ecosystem that formed. The government built foundational infrastructure (like ABDM, eSanjeevani, CoWIN), but a lot of the innovation came from start-ups, NGOs and the private sector plugging the gaps – be it low-cost apps, health devices or last-mile delivery methods. This kind of collaboration can greatly benefit Indo-Pacific countries. Governments can provide support and scale, while NGOs and tech innovators provide agility and fresh ideas. For example, an NGO in the Solomon Islands might pilot a solar-powered telehealth kit for outer islands, which the government can then scale up nation-wide if successful. Or a tech company in Fiji might develop a bilingual health app for diabetes management that could be adopted by the public health department. Breaking silos and working together multiplies impact.
Commitment and continuity matter: Digital leaps don’t happen overnight. India’s progress came from years of policy push (like the National Digital Health Blueprint) and sustained funding in both tech and basic healthcare. Indo-Pacific countries looking to emulate this should view it as a journey – start with pilot projects, learn and adapt, and importantly, scale up what works with political and financial commitment. Even maintaining a simple telemedicine network requires training people, updating software and spreading awareness so that citizens know such services exist. Consistency in approach, with room to tweak based on feedback, will build public confidence over time.
In essence, the Indo-Pacific region can take a page from India’s playbook: leverage technology to leapfrog traditional barriers, but do it in a way that’s grounded in community needs and human relationships. A digital health tool is only as good as its adoption by the people on the ground. And people embrace what they find useful, affordable and trustworthy.
A Healthier, Shared Future
India’s digital health leap isn’t about shiny gadgets or cutting-edge AI in isolation – it’s about how these tools were used to include and uplift communities. It demonstrated that a developing country can indeed pioneer health innovations and implement them at mind-boggling scale. For nations across the Indo-Pacific, from small islands to vast archipelagos, the core message is optimistic. You don’t have to wait decades to build hundreds of hospitals and train thousands of doctors to start improving healthcare access. By intelligently deploying technology – and partnering with the people who know their communities best – even resource-constrained countries can make rapid, meaningful gains.
The path to Universal Health Coverage will look a bit different in each country, but sharing successes and solutions is vital. India’s experience shows that digital health, when done right, can be a great leveler, making healthcare more democratic and patient-centric. Other countries in the region are already taking note and adapting these ideas to their contexts. In Bangladesh and Indonesia, for example, telemedicine and health hotlines have taken off. In the Pacific, countries are exploring digital health record systems and e-learning for health workers with support from international partners.
As we move forward, imagine an Indo-Pacific where a mother in a remote Pacific isle can consult a pediatrician in the capital via telehealth, where a community nurse in Papua has a solar backpack to power her medical tablet, where medicine deliveries by drone or boat are routine, and where health awareness info is as common on local radio as the weather report. It’s not a far-fetched dream – it’s the next logical step, building on innovations already in motion.
The famous saying “health is wealth” holds true not just for individuals but for nations. By learning from each other and scaling up community-based digital innovations, we can make huge strides toward that world of accessible, affordable, quality healthcare for all. In doing so, they won’t just be improving health outcomes – they’ll be investing in the overall well-being and economic future of their people. And that is a dividend that will pay off for generations to come. The doctor is (virtually) in – now it’s time to make sure everyone can get an appointment.
Sources:
UNICEF – Challenges of healthcare delivery in remote West Papua
CSIS – Pacific Islands health workforce shortages and migration issues
Press Information Bureau (Govt. of India) – Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission stats (73+ crore health IDs, 5+ lakh providers)
The Economic Times – India’s eSanjeevani telemedicine platform crosses 34 crore consultations (impact on accessibility and affordability)
Invest India – Telehealth usage in India (57% women and 12% senior beneficiaries)
ET Healthworld – Jan Aushadhi scheme providing medicines 50–90% cheaper than market prices
Syllad News – Mobile medical units (“Smile on Wheels/Boat”) serving remote areas in Assam and focusing on availability, accessibility, affordability
Pregnancy is supposed to be a time of hope. A new life. A family growing. But for too many women in India, it’s also a time of risk, stress and danger. The journey to motherhood can be beautiful but only if women have access to good care, support and resources. Otherwise, the outcome — both for mother and child — can be tragic. Improving pregnancy outcomes is not a lofty goal. It’s essential for health, justice and the future of our country.
What Does the Data Tell Us?
India has made real progress over recent decades. Maternal mortality (MMR) which is the number of women who die during pregnancy, childbirth or shortly after has dropped significantly. The Sample Registration System and WHO reports show it declined from about 130 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2014-16 to approximately 93 per 100,000 in 2019-21. (Press Information Bureau)
Still, that’s far from the target. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.1 wants maternal mortality to drop to fewer than 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. (UNICEF)
Behind these numbers are thousands of stories. Women in remote areas who can’t reach reliable care in time, young mothers still growing themselves, families who don’t know which check-ups matter and health facilities that lack basic equipment. These are the issues hurting pregnancy outcomes in India.
Why Pregnancy Outcomes Still Lag
We know many of the causes. They’re not secrets. It’s just hard work, coordination and resources to fix them. Here are the main challenges:
Geography & Transportation Gaps Women in remote villages often have to travel long distances to reach Primary Health Centres (PHCs) or sub-centres. When complications arise, every minute counts but access is delayed.
Shortage of Skilled Human Resources Trained obstetricians, midwives and birth attendants tend to cluster in cities. Rural PHCs and sub-centres might have staff, but sometimes not the ones trained for obstetric emergencies. Some births are attended by unskilled persons because infrastructure or incentives are lacking.
Hidden Costs & Economic Strain Even when government schemes promise free services, there are often hidden costs: transport, diagnostics, medicines and loss of daily wages. For many families, these costs can be large barriers.
Early Pregnancy & Poor Nutrition Adolescent pregnancies remain a serious risk. Younger mothers are more likely to be undernourished, have low body weight or anaemia and their bodies are not fully developed for safe childbirth.
Low Awareness & Cultural Barriers Many women do not know why antenatal care matters or how often they should go for check-ups. In some communities, shame, distance or beliefs lead to delayed or skipped care. Post-partum care is often neglected. Mental health and emotional support are seldom included.
Unequal Access & Socioeconomic Divide Wealthier, urban women have much better pregnancy outcomes than women in poor, rural, tribal or otherwise marginalised communities. Infrastructure varies hugely across states. The poorest often suffer the worst outcomes.
Health System Weaknesses PHCs and sub-centres may lack electricity, diagnostic tools, clean water or blood supply. Referral systems sometimes fail. Emergencies like haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia, infections remain leading causes of maternal deaths and they require quick, skilled and well-equipped care.
What Needs to Change: Key Steps to Better Pregnancy Outcomes
Given what we understand, here are clear, practical, evidence-based measures India (and its states) can scale up to improve pregnancy outcomes. These are not impossible — they exist in parts of India already.
Strengthen Antenatal and Postnatal Care
Ensure every pregnant woman has access to at least 4 essential antenatal check-ups including blood pressure, screening for high-risk conditions, ultrasounds, tests for anaemia, gestational diabetes.
After birth: postnatal checks for mother and baby, monitoring for complications, ensuring breastfeeding support and follow-ups for issues like post-partum depression or hypertension.
Bring Care Closer to Home
Expand mobile health clinics and Improve telemedicine reach for remote areas.
Empower ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists), midwives, local health workers with training for risk detection and referral.
Strengthen regional centres so emergencies can be handled locally instead of transporting long distances.
Nutrition Before & During Pregnancy
Supplementary nutrition programmes, iron/folic acid tablets, ensuring expectant mothers are not malnourished.
Nutritional counselling, food security support, especially among adolescent girls, underweight women and communities with high malnutrition rates.
Community and family-level education campaigns: why certain checkups matter, danger signs of pregnancy, importance of institutional delivery.
Use media, local leaders and peer networks to reduce myths and fears.
Incentivise Healthcare Providers in Underserved Areas
Offer better pay, compensation, career growth for doctors, nurses, midwives willing to serve in rural areas.
Quality improvement initiatives: regular audits, feedback loops, training for emergency obstetric care.
Support Emotional & Postpartum Well-Being
Mental health support during and after pregnancy. Screening for depression, anxiety.
Support for lactation, breastfeeding, rest, recovery.
Social support networks and counselling for women who face complications, infant loss or challenging births.
Ensure Equity & Inclusion
Focus especially on states and districts with high maternal mortality: Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, etc.
Make special efforts for marginalised groups: tribal populations, pregnant adolescents, women with disabilities.
Gender-sensitive, culturally attuned care. Language, social norms, respect all matter.
Improve Infrastructure & Referral Systems
Equip PHCs and sub-centres with necessary facilities: emergency obstetric surgical capability, blood banks, diagnostic labs.
Reliable transportation options for emergencies.
Ensure timely referral all the way up to district hospitals when required.
India’s Progress: Where Things Are Changing, Thanks to Policies & NGOs
India is not starting from zero. Many programmes already exist, progress has been recorded and NGOs like Smile Foundation are helping close gaps.
As noted, India’s MMR dropped from ~130 per 100,000 (2014-16) to ~93 (2019-21). That’s already a big improvement.
Some states are doing even better: Karnataka, for example, has reduced its MMR sharply and states like Kerala have among the lowest MMRs in the country.
Smile Foundation works at the grassroots. Its Smile on Wheels (SoWs) mobile medical units bring prenatal care into remote, hard-to-reach areas.
Programmes like Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 help ensure pregnant women and lactating mothers receive supplementary nutrition, which supports healthier pregnancies and better outcomes.
Smile’s “Bringing Down Maternal Mortality Rate” initiative highlights training local health workers, improving delivery facilities and encouraging institutional deliveries. These have saved many lives in areas previously underserved.
What Smile Foundation Is Doing: Stories & Impact
Here are a few stories and examples of how things are improving on the ground.
In villages where mobile medical units visit, pregnant women who might otherwise skip check-ups are now getting regular visits. This helps catch anemia early, monitor blood pressure, spot risks like gestational diabetes.
Smile’s partnerships often include local clinics and community health workers. They train them in screening for danger signs, ensuring clean deliveries, referring high-risk cases.
Nutrition programmes tied to pregnancy (like supplementary nutrition) are ensuring that mothers who are underweight receive extra food, iron/folate supplements and education about diet leading to better birth weights and fewer complications.
Some Smile projects include postnatal follow-ups: lactation counselling, monitoring for postpartum depression, helping mothers recover physically and emotionally after childbirth.
Why Better Pregnancy Outcomes Matter: More Than Just Statistics
It’s easy to see maternal mortality ratio, MMR and imagine they’re just numbers. But behind each rate are lives, families, futures. Improving pregnancy outcomes means:
Fewer mothers lost, fewer babies lost or born underweight.
Healthier infants who survive, thrive and begin school ready to learn.
Lower long-term health costs (for mothers and children) and less burden on health systems.
Stronger families, communities when mothers are healthy, children do better, families are more resilient.
Also, addressing pregnancy outcomes is crucial for India to reach its SDG goals and to build a healthier, more equitable society.
A Motherhood Vision of Hope & Action
India’s journey toward safer pregnancies is already in motion. We have seen progress. We know what works. The question is, do we amplify our efforts, streamline implementation and ensure that no woman is left behind — no matter where she lives, her social status or how much money she has.
Here’s what I believe we can do and what voices like yours can push for:
Advocate that every health facility in remote areas is capable of handling emergencies.
Strengthen community health models; support ASHAs, midwives, mobile clinics.
Push for better nutrition programmes for pregnant women early — long before childbirth.
Ensure postpartum care, emotional support and follow-up are built into every maternal plan.
Because when mothers are safe, healthy, supported — pregnancy becomes a journey of joy, not fear. And when that happens, babies born are healthier, families are stronger, communities prosper and our country fulfils its promise.
At first glance, the Indian school system looks like a success story. Primary enrolment is nearly universal, with over 95% of children stepping into classrooms by age six. The country has built thousands of new schools, trained teachers and rolled out free textbooks and midday meals. But, in many places, somewhere between a girl’s first letter in Class 1 and her teenage years in Class 9 or 10, something goes terribly wrong.
She disappears.
Across the globe, nearly four in 10 adolescent girls fail to complete their upper secondary education. In India, the number is starker: nearly 40% of girls drop out before reaching Class 10 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2023). These numbers reveal a broken promise. Secondary education is more than just the next rung in the ladder; it’s the critical gateway to agency, employment, delayed marriage and dignity.
So why does the dropout rate spike precisely when girls need education the most? And what can be done to fix it?
Why Secondary Education Matters for Girls
Secondary education is where the magic, and the hard reality, begins.
Primary school teaches children to read, write and calculate. Secondary school, by contrast, prepares them to think critically, solve problems and specialise. It determines streams of study, vocational pathways and higher education opportunities.
For girls, finishing secondary school is one of the strongest predictors of empowerment:
Economic independence: Completing secondary school increases women’s lifetime earnings significantly. The World Bank estimates each additional year of schooling raises wages by 10–20% (World Bank, 2022).
Health benefits: A Lancet study shows that each additional year of education lowers adult mortality risk by 2%. Women who finish secondary school are more likely to survive childbirth and raise healthier children.
Social outcomes: Staying in school delays early marriage, reduces the risk of domestic violence and fosters confidence in civic participation.
The cascading effects are undeniable. UNICEF calls secondary education for girls the “most cost-effective investment” a society can make in breaking intergenerational poverty. However, despite these benefits, the path to completing it remains steep, rocky and for many, impossible.
The Fragile Transition from Primary to Secondary
Why do dropout rates climb so sharply at this stage? The answer lies in the fragile transition years — from childhood to adolescence.
Primary schools are often located close to home, sometimes even within villages. By Class 6, however, many children must travel farther for secondary schools. Distances lengthen and safety becomes an issue. The curriculum grows more demanding, but academic support rarely keeps pace. And adolescence itself brings added layers of menstruation, social pressures and household responsibilities that families often interpret as reasons to pull girls out.
Families that tolerated six years of schooling for daughters suddenly balk at the added costs of uniforms, transport and exam fees. With boys still seen as future breadwinners, the choice of who stays in school and who drops out too often follows predictable gendered lines.
Breaking Down the Barriers
Let’s unpack the forces driving this exodus of girls from classrooms.
1. Socio-Cultural Norms
At the heart of the dropout crisis are deep-rooted cultural expectations.
Child marriage remains a major driver. According to UNICEF, India has the largest number of child brides in the world, accounting for one-third of the global total. Research by Girls Not Brides finds that every additional year of secondary schooling reduces the likelihood of child marriage by 6%. But, in many rural communities, the pressure of marriage and childbirth looms large as soon as a girl enters her teens.
Household responsibilities also cut into study time. Cooking, caregiving and cleaning are still disproportionately assigned to girls. Families view daughters’ education as a poor investment since they will marry into another family. Sons, meanwhile, are groomed for economic roles. The result? Girls’ education remains expendable when household resources are stretched.
2. Economic Barriers
Money, or the lack of it, is another wall.
Secondary education introduces new expenses: uniforms, books, higher fees, exam costs and transport. Even when tuition is nominal, hidden costs add up. A family struggling to afford food and shelter weighs the short-term economic relief of pulling a girl from school against the long-term (and abstract) gains of keeping her in.
Girls’ labour is also central to family economies. In rural India, adolescent girls are often expected to help in agriculture, tend animals or support siblings at home. For poor families, the economic logic of immediate labour outweighs the promise of future wages.
Generational poverty also creates a dangerous perception: “Why invest in girls when they will leave after marriage?” This thinking erodes motivation to finance secondary education.
3. Safety and Accessibility
Safety is the silent deterrent.
Secondary schools are often miles away, requiring long walks or unsafe bus rides. Harassment on the way to school including verbal, physical or sexual abuse is a real threat. Surveys find that a large number of girls drop out due to abuse.
For parents, safety fears translate into school withdrawal. The solution seems easier: keep daughters at home.
4. School Infrastructure and Quality
Even when girls reach school, conditions often drive them away.
Sanitation: Globally, only 47% of schools have adequate water and 46% have proper toilets. In India, too many schools lack private, functional toilets for girls. Managing menstruation becomes a nightmare. A UNESCO study found that one in ten girls in sub-Saharan Africa misses school during menstruation up to 20% of the academic year. India shows similar patterns.
Female teachers: Their absence makes classrooms less comfortable for adolescent girls, particularly in conservative areas.
Teaching quality: Overcrowded classrooms, outdated curricula and uninspiring teaching leave girls disengaged. When education feels irrelevant, motivation crumbles.
5. Policy and Implementation Gaps
India has strong policies on paper. Scholarships, free uniforms, midday meals, laws against child marriage — all exist. But the devil is in implementation.
Many scholarships never reach their intended beneficiaries because of bureaucratic hurdles or lack of awareness.
Child marriage laws are unevenly enforced, especially in rural pockets.
Pregnant or parenting girls often find no legal or institutional support to return to school.
UNESCO monitoring shows that in 63% of countries, legal protections for pregnant or married girls to continue education are absent. Without enforcement, policies remain lofty words, not lifelines.
The Human Side: A Teenage Girl’s Choice
Consider the case of Rina, a 14-year-old from Madhya Pradesh. She excelled in primary school, often topping her class. But the nearest secondary school was five kilometres away. The journey involved walking through fields where harassment was common. Her father worried. Her mother needed help at home. The family could not afford bus fare. At 15, Rina was married to a local shopkeeper.
Her story is not rare but painfully ordinary. Each dropout represents a fork in the road: one path leading to opportunity, the other to curtailed potential.
Smile Foundation’s Work
Mission Education: With over 700 centres, it supports children aged 3–18, focusing on secondary-level retention for girls. More than 44,000 girls have received in-school vocational education, blending academics with practical skills.
Scholarships: Over 2,000 scholarships help girls pursue secondary and higher education, especially in STEM and vocational fields.
Swabhiman Programme: Tackles menstrual stigma by providing sanitary products, health awareness and safe spaces, ensuring girls don’t miss school during their periods.
Infrastructure & STEM Labs: Investments in sanitation, digital classrooms, labs and sports equipment make schools inclusive and engaging.
Teacher Training: Capacity building equips teachers to support adolescent girls better, fostering classroom environments that encourage retention.
These interventions don’t just keep girls in school — they transform the experience from survival to empowerment.
Holistic Solutions
Fixing dropout among girls in secondary education isn’t about a single silver bullet. It requires layered, holistic action:
Bring Schools Closer: Build more secondary schools in rural areas; provide safe transport options.
Address Safety: Enforce zero tolerance for harassment; community patrols and safe routes for girls.
Invest in Sanitation: Private toilets and menstrual hygiene management in every school.
Financial Incentives: Conditional cash transfers and scholarships that directly reward families for girls’ secondary completion.
Cultural Shifts: Campaigns that normalise education over early marriage.
Mentorship & Female Teachers: Role models matter. Hiring and training more women educators is key.
Policy Enforcement: Strengthen monitoring of child marriage, scholarship delivery and re-entry policies for young mothers.
Why This Matters for All of Us
The question is not just why dropout spikes among girls in secondary education. The question is what it costs us as a society when it does.
Every girl who leaves school too soon represents lost productivity, lost innovation and lost leadership. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that closing gender gaps in workforce participation could add $770 billion to India’s GDP by 2025. Secondary education is the linchpin.
We know why girls drop out. We know what it costs. And we know what works.
The challenge is commitment. It’s whether families, communities, policymakers and civil society are ready to make secondary education for girls not just a right, but a reality.
Because when a girl finishes secondary school, it’s a victory for healthier families, stronger economies and more equal societies.
On a bright morning in a village in Madhya Pradesh, Rekha Devi scrolls through her son’s old smartphone, squinting at the WhatsApp orders popping up for her hand-woven baskets. Just a few years ago, these baskets rarely sold beyond the weekly haat (market). Today, she ships them to customers in Indore and even Delhi. Her phone has become a ticket to markets she once could only imagine.
From farmers and artisans to micro-entrepreneurs and teachers, women form the backbone of rural livelihoods. But, for decades, their labour has been unrecognised and underpaid. Fewer than one in five women globally are landholders, according to the FAO. In India, the figure is similar — land and credit remain firmly in men’s hands. And while women make up nearly 75% of agricultural workers, their role in formal markets is shockingly limited.
Now, a new frontier of digital access to markets is opening but the road isn’t smooth.
The Digital Gender Divide: The Missing Half
Let’s start with the hard truth. Rural women are still on the wrong side of the digital divide.
According to the NSO’s CMS-Telecom survey (2025), 51.6% of rural women aged 15+ do not own a mobile phone, compared to just 19.3% of rural men.
Even when phones are present in households, they are often shared, with men controlling usage.
NFHS-5 (2019–21) found that only about 25% of rural women had ever used the internet, compared to nearly 49% of rural men.
Think about that for a second. In a world where markets, jobs and even social life are moving online, three-quarters of rural women remain disconnected.
And yet, paradoxically, smartphone penetration is rising fast. Among rural mobile phone owners, more than 75% of women already use smartphones. The problem now lies with their agency, skills and autonomy.
Why Digital Markets for Women Matter
Why make such a fuss about rural women going digital? Because the payoff is enormous.
A woman’s economic participation has a multiplier effect:
Higher household income (studies show women reinvest up to 90% of their earnings into family welfare).
Secondary research underscores this. A World Bank report noted that women’s increased digital participation could add $700 billion to global GDP annually. In India, bridging the gender gap in mobile internet use alone could contribute billions to the rural economy.
Digital platforms — be it Flipkart Samarth, Meesho, Instagram Shops or WhatsApp groups — act as equalisers. They allow Rekha in Madhya Pradesh or Sushila in Odisha to bypass exploitative middlemen and reach urban and even global consumers. For the first time, women can control not just production but also pricing, branding and marketing.
Barriers on the Digital Highway
But let’s be honest. This revolution isn’t happening at scale — yet. Several barriers hold women back.
1. The Digital Divide
Connectivity has improved dramatically under Digital India, with 4G networks covering almost every village. But affordability and reliability remain concerns. For many families, one phone is shared by all and women are the last in line.
During COVID-19, this divide was glaring. Boys logged in for online classes while girls were handed chores. In many households, when there was only one smartphone, the son got it.
2. Digital Literacy Gaps
Owning a phone isn’t enough — you need to know how to use it. Many rural women lack basic digital literacy. Opening an app, making a UPI payment or navigating an e-commerce platform can feel intimidating.
This is compounded by education gaps. Female literacy in rural India still lags behind men (65% vs 82%, Census 2011). Without targeted training, digital tools risk reinforcing exclusion rather than bridging it.
3. Socio-Cultural Constraints
Even when women have phones, cultural norms often restrict their use. Husbands may monitor calls. In-laws may frown on women “wasting time” online. Women are discouraged from handling money, which translates into hesitation around digital finance.
Freedom to step into markets, even virtual ones, clashes with deep-rooted patriarchy.
4. Financial Exclusion
Cash is still king in rural India. Only about 77% of rural women have a bank account they use themselves, according to NFHS-5. Access to credit is even worse. Without financial tools, online selling is difficult.
Digital trade requires UPI, mobile wallets, micro-loans or at least a savings account. Without these, rural women cannot scale businesses beyond their neighbourhood.
What Works: Digital Markets for Women
Despite the challenges, sparks of innovation are lighting the way.
1. Internet Saathi
Launched by Google and Tata Trusts in 2015, this programme trained rural women as “Saathis” to teach others digital skills. By 2019, it had reached 30 million women in 300,000 villages. The model proved that peer-to-peer training works.
2. Self-Help Groups (SHGs) Going Digital
Under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), SHGs have become digital enablers. Women use WhatsApp groups to coordinate sales of handicrafts, dairy and farm produce. In Andhra Pradesh, SHGs trained in digital payments now run rural e-commerce hubs.
3. Meesho & Social Commerce
Platforms like Meesho have empowered millions of “social sellers,” many of them rural women. With minimal capital, women sell clothes, cosmetics and household items through WhatsApp and Facebook. Meesho reports that 80% of its sellers are women and a large share come from Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns.
4. Common Service Centres (CSCs)
Part of Digital India, CSCs act as rural digital hubs, offering services from telemedicine to e-commerce. Women entrepreneurs known as Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) run many CSCs, serving as role models for others.
5. NGO-led Programmes
Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman programme integrates digital literacy into its health and entrepreneurship training. By combining financial education, tablet-based learning labs and mentorship, it has impacted over 190,000 rural women across six states in 2024 alone.
These women don’t just learn how to use a smartphone — they learn how to turn it into a business tool.
Building the Digital Markets for Women Roadmap
So how do we go from scattered success stories to systemic change? Here’s a roadmap:
Expand Infrastructure Affordable internet, better connectivity and more rural digital hubs. Government must push telecom companies to close the last-mile gap.
Digital Literacy at Scale Community-based training through SHGs, NGOs and schools. Teach women not just how to use apps, but how to leverage them for trade, marketing and payments.
Women-Centric Fintech Promote UPI, mobile wallets and micro-credit designed for women. Build digital credit histories that can unlock larger loans.
Social Norm Shifts Campaigns showcasing role models — women entrepreneurs who sell online, manage finances and succeed — help normalise digital participation.
Policy and Institutional Support Link Digital India, Startup India and NRLM explicitly with women’s entrepreneurship. Provide subsidies for women entrepreneurs to buy smartphones.
Rekha’s Ripple Effect
Back in Madhya Pradesh, Rekha’s earnings from online basket sales have doubled her household income. Her daughter now dreams of becoming a teacher. Neighbours ask her to teach them how to set up WhatsApp stores.
The promise of digital markets for rural women is enormous but only if access, literacy and empowerment go hand in hand. Otherwise, the same inequalities that lock women out of traditional markets will replicate online.
India stands at a crossroads. With over 200 million rural women of working age, empowering even a fraction of them digitally could transform the economy. The stakes are not just economic — they are about dignity, autonomy and equality.
Because when a woman in a village can sell her baskets to a buyer in Delhi—or London—it is more than a transaction. It is a rewriting of history: from invisible labour to visible power.
It begins, as many things in India do, with a blackboard.
A blackboard and a piece of chalk — worn down, smudged with fingerprints, leaving behind not just equations and spellings but also the faint outline of a teacher’s life.
On September 5th every year, we celebrate Teacher’s Day. We garland portraits of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, we post sentimental notes about our “favourite teacher,” we remember the kindness of one who saw us, or the toughness of another who refused to let us slide. And then, we scroll away.
But somewhere in a government school in Uttar Pradesh, or in a classroom perched on a hill in Ladakh, a teacher still stands with that blackboard. Somewhere in a Smile Foundation digital classroom in rural Assam, a teacher clicks open a solar-powered projector and asks a group of children what they want to be when they grow up.
And somewhere, a student says: A teacher.
Teachers: The First Influencers
Before Instagram reels and motivational speakers, teachers were our first influencers. They taught us how to read poems, yes, but also how to measure time, how to whisper secrets across a row of benches, how to stand up when your name is called.
Remember the teacher who smelt of chalk dust and jasmine oil, who asked you to stop doodling? Or the one who told you that your scribbled essay about wanting to be an astronaut wasn’t silly? They were not just filling heads with knowledge, they were opening doors into possibility.
But, the irony is that in India — a country that worships teachers in rhetoric — we often abandon them in reality.
The Everyday Heroics (and Hardships) of Teachers
According to the Government of India’s UDISE+ 2024-25 report, the country now has more than 1 crore teachers. That’s an incredible number, but it hides another truth: schools in many parts of the country still function with too few staff, some with only one teacher managing multiple grades.
This shortage stretches teachers thin. It also reflects larger challenges — contract teachers with irregular pay, classrooms without electricity, toilets that don’t work. It’s like asking someone to conduct a symphony with a single cracked flute. And then blaming them when the music sounds thin.
The Smile Foundation Lens
Here’s where Smile Foundation comes in, not with the arrogance of saving but with the humility of partnership.
Through our Mission Educationprogramme, Smile has supported over 200,000 children so far across India. That means not only enrolling children but training teachers in digital pedagogy, equipping classrooms with projectors and integrating life skills into lessons.
In one rural classroom, a teacher who once relied only on rote learning now uses videos to explain solar eclipses. In another, a young teacher in Jharkhand has been trained to recognise the signs of digital addiction among her students.
Smile doesn’t just count the children. It counts the teachers too. Because empowering teachers is like lighting a thousand lamps — each child’s mind becomes a wick catching fire.
Teacher, Interrupted
Teaching in India comes with its interruptions.
There’s the story of Meena Devi, a Smile-supported teacher in Bihar, who cycles kilometres to school every day. One monsoon, when the river flooded and the bridge collapsed, she still turned up. How? By wading through waist-deep water with her sari tied up. “The children are waiting,”
Or Shailendra Sir in Delhi’s slum cluster school, who uses theatre to teach. “When children act,” he says, “they remember.” His plays about hygiene and gender equality make students laugh, cry, and — without realising it — learn.
These stories are lived truths.
A Cultural Love Story with Teachers
In Indian films, teachers are recurring archetypes. From Rajesh Khanna in Bawarchi (teaching life lessons while cooking) to Amitabh Bachchan in Black, to Shah Rukh Khan in Mohabbatein with his violin and idealism — teachers are portrayed as life-changers.
But the reel often hides the real. The majority of Indian teachers are women, many balancing unpaid household work with professional teaching. They are the ones staying up to grade papers by candlelight or counselling a malnourished child who can’t concentrate. Their heroism doesn’t come with violins, only with stamina.
So perhaps the truest Teacher’s Day tribute is not flowers or chocolates, but infrastructure, training and respect.
The Smile Classroom
Step into a Smile Foundation classroom and you see this tribute in action:
Digital empowerment: Teachers receive training in using projectors, tablets and curated e-learning modules.
Health integration: Because you can’t teach a hungry child, Smile runs health check-ups in its schools. Teachers are trained to identify malnutrition, vision problems and refer them to Smile on Wheels mobile clinics.
Life skills: Beyond A-B-C, teachers are supported to deliver sessions on digital well-being, gender sensitivity and problem-solving.
Beyond the Blackboard: Teachers as Mentors
Think back to your own life. Chances are, the most memorable teacher wasn’t the one who stuck strictly to the syllabus. It was the one who stayed back after class to ask if you were okay. The one who lent you a book. The one who said, “You can do better, I know it.”
Smile Foundation invests in teacher capacity building precisely for this reason. Because when teachers are empowered, they don’t just produce students who can score marks — they produce students who can dream.
The Debt We Owe Teachers
In many ways, every scholarship, every mobile clinic, every smile on a child’s face ultimately loops back to a teacher. Because it was a teacher who said, “Try.”
On this Teacher’s Day, we must ask: how do we repay this debt? Not in Instagram posts, but in systemic change. By filling vacancies, ensuring fair pay, training teachers in new pedagogies and respecting the emotional labour they bring.
Smile Foundation is already doing its part. By treating teachers not just as deliverers of syllabi but as catalysts of change, Smile ensures that Teacher’s Day is not just one day — it’s every day.
When Dr Radhakrishnan suggested his birthday be observed as Teacher’s Day, he was reminding us of the dignity of the profession. Decades later, amid smart classrooms and solar-powered tablets, that dignity is still drawn in chalk on a blackboard in a dusty village school.
Teachers are the quiet architects of India’s future.
So perhaps the real garland this Teacher’s Day is not flowers but faith. Faith in teachers, who hold both chalk and dreams in their hands.
Why India’s Youth Remain Sceptical of Skilling Programmes
A Decade of Skilling Programmes, A Generation of Doubts
July 15, 2025, was a double milestone. The world marked the 10th anniversary of World Youth Skills Day (WYSD) and India celebrated a decade of its flagship Skill India Mission. It was meant to be a proud moment. After all, India boasts one of the world’s largest young workforces and skilling programmes were to be the lever for transforming this demographic dividend into economic gold.
But if you listen to young people — the very beneficiaries these programmes are meant for — the mood is more sceptical than celebratory. They carry certificates, but not confidence. They attend classes, but don’t land jobs. They scroll through job portals and wonder if all the promises of Skill India were just another chapter in the long book of missed opportunities.
The Data Behind the Disillusion
7 out of 10 youth are economically disengaged because they lack market-ready skills.
86% of students report they don’t feel prepared for jobs involving AI and emerging technologies.
In 2022, only 40.3% of young men and a shocking 27.4% of young women were employed.
90% of adolescent girls and young women in low-income countries lack internet access, locking them out of digital skilling opportunities.
In 2023-24, only 14.29% of vocational trainees undertook courses, and the share of trainees attending ultra-short courses (< six months) jumped from 22% to 44%.
Even among those trained, youth unemployment remains high at ~17%, raising tough questions about programme effectiveness.
Verifiable data show low placement offers, despite official reports claiming otherwise.
Apprenticeships remain a tiny fraction of India’s workforce, cutting off crucial pathways for on-the-job learning.
India has allocated billions of rupees to skilling programmes like PMKVY (Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana), NAPS (National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme) and Skill India’s digital and international tracks. But, outcomes remain patchy, monitoring weak and long-term impact poorly evaluated.
No wonder youth view the ecosystem with suspicion.
The Trust Deficitin Skilling Programmes
Ask any student or trainee and they will tell you: the problem isn’t unwillingness to work — it’s mistrust.
Short-termism over substance: Most courses last weeks, sometimes just days. Certificates are issued, targets ticked off, but depth is missing. Employers demand problem-solving skills and real proficiency. Youth end up over-certified and under-prepared.
Curriculum misalignment: Training modules often lag behind market needs. While courses teach basic digital literacy, companies are hiring for coding, data analysis or domain-specific software. The disconnect fuels frustration.
Lack of mentorship: Even when jobs are secured, poor onboarding and zero mentoring result in high turnover. Youth feel abandoned, questioning whether training centres or employers genuinely invested in their success.
What Global Models Show
The contrast with global best practices is stark:
Germany’s Dual Education System blends classroom learning with apprenticeships, ensuring graduates step into the workforce job-ready. Industry and educators co-design curricula, keeping it relevant.
Singapore’s SkillsFuture Initiative (2015) focuses on lifelong learning, offering financial incentives for continuous education tailored to individual career paths. It prepares citizens for both present and future skills.
Both systems underscore what India lacks in terms of employer integration, quality assurance, mentorship and transparency.
Why India’s Youth Call Skilling a Mirage
Beyond systemic flaws, the numbers reflect social realities:
Gender disparity: With only 27.4% of young women in jobs, India’s skilling ecosystem fails to address structural barriers like unpaid care work, mobility, and safety.
Digital divide: 90% of adolescent girls in low-income countries lack internet access — India’s rural youth face the same barrier, especially in states like Bihar or Jharkhand. Without connectivity, digital skilling remains rhetoric.
Stigma: Vocational training still carries the label of “second-class education.” Parents push for degrees, even if jobless, rather than skills training that may lead to modest employment.
All of this combines to create a perfect storm of mistrust.
Smile Foundation: A Community-Driven Alternative
Instead of chasing numbers, Smile Foundation designs training around actual community needs and industry linkages. Its specialised centres across India train low-income youth in:
Digital marketing
Data entry and IT services
Retail and customer service
Hospitality and healthcare support
Courses don’t just deliver technical know-how. They embed soft skills, communication and life skills so trainees can navigate interviews, workplaces and long-term careers.
Importantly, Smile aligns courses with industry demand collaborating with employers ensures trainees graduate into roles with actual openings. This approach breaks the cycle of “certificates without jobs.”
Smile’s work also tackles inclusivity. Many of its trainees are women, first-generation learners or youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. By reducing dropout rates, providing mentorship and creating job linkages, the programme chips away at the trust deficit plaguing India’s larger skilling ecosystem.
The Way Forwardfor Skilling Programmes
India cannot afford for its youth to lose faith in skilling. The demographic dividend will not last forever and mistrust corrodes ambition. Restoring confidence requires:
Long-term, quality training — shift from token short courses to year-long, employer-linked programmes.
Transparency & accountability — independent audits of placement rates, salaries and long-term employment impact.
Industry integration — continuous employer feedback to keep curricula current.
Digital inclusion — expand connectivity for rural youth, especially girls.
Mentorship & support — structured onboarding and workplace mentoring to reduce attrition.
Equity focus — tailor programmes for women, rural youth and marginalised groups.
Can Trust Be Restored?
Ten years into Skill India, scepticism is the biggest obstacle. Young people don’t lack ambition but there is still hesitation about their lack in belief that the system will deliver. Certificates without jobs, short-term courses, inflated claims — these erode trust.
But models like Smile Foundation’s livelihoodprogramme show another way rooted in community, aligned with industry and focused on dignity as much as employability.
If India truly wants to unlock its demographic advantage, it must learn from its youth that trust isn’t built by slogans but by outcomes.
How Cultural Norms Hold Back Women’s Economic Participation
In a Bengaluru neighbourhood, Yashoda lived the life many women in India are expected to. She stayed at home caring for her child while her husband drove a cab. Work outside the home was never framed as hers. It was, in many minds, unnecessary — even improper. But when Covid-19 crashed into her world, when her husband lost his work, the fragile status quo dissolved. With little external support, she joined an entrepreneurship training programme run by Smile Foundation’s Swabhimaninitiative, built a business making organic cosmetics and brought other women from her community along.
Yashoda’s path from invisibility to agency is not unique but it is rare. It shows how much is possible when targeted support meets a woman ready to break through. But it also throws into sharp relief the powerful cultural norms that so often prevent women from even imagining such a path — let alone walking it. To achieve gender equality in earnings, in work, in dignity, we must understand and dismantle these norms. And we must support, scale and strengthen interventions like Smile Foundation’s, which are proving that change is possible.
The Landscape
India continues to have among the lowest female labour force participation rates (FLFPR) in the world. According to recent government and independent reports:
Only 37% of women aged 15 years and above participate in the labour force (urban + rural), compared with roughly 75% for men.
The majority of women who do work are in informal sectors, which means unstable incomes, lack of benefits and little social protection.
Many women exit the workforce when they marry, have children or when household responsibilities intensify; re-entry is difficult, especially into decent, formal work.
These numbers are not only discouraging — they reveal that economic opportunity in India is deeply gendered, with cultural norms shaping both possibility and constraint.
How Cultural Norms Limit Women’s Economic Participation
Cultural norms influence what is considered appropriate for women and what is not in many overlapping ways. Among them:
Early socialisation: From early childhood, girls are often taught to value sacrifice, caregiving, modesty. They are discouraged from taking risks or asserting themselves. Boys are more often encouraged to explore, lead, compete. These messages shape aspirations, confidence, choices of subjects in school, and later, work.
Family expectations & reputation: Marrying early, staying close to home, avoiding unsupervised travel, avoiding jobs with “inappropriate hours” — these are often family decisions. The risk of social censure or “losing face” can keep women from seeking opportunities, even when external supports exist.
Unpaid care work & the double burden: Women bear a disproportionate share of domestic work: childcare, eldercare, cooking, cleaning. Studies show Indian women spend 5-6 hours a day (in some studies, even more) on unpaid household work, compared with an hour or less for men. This leaves far less time, energy or flexibility to engage in paid work or to invest in training or upskilling.
Mobility, safety and visibility constraints: Working hours that include early mornings, late evenings, night shifts; workplaces far from home; being in male-dominated spaces — all these can be seen as socially risky for women and families often restrict them. Lack of safe public transport, harassment, infrastructural deficits further compound the issue.
Invisible discouragement/absence of role models: If you never see women like you in roles outside the home or leading businesses, or speaking confidently in public life, it sends a message that those roles are not for you. Many women internalise this, limiting what they try.
The Cost of Inaction
When women are held back by norms, the costs ripple:
Economic loss: India loses out on potential GDP growth when half its population is under-utilised. Women’s labour is often less rewarded or undervalued; when participation is low, economic growth is less inclusive and less resilient.
Inequality persists: Income, access to healthcare, education, decision-making power remain skewed. The status of women in households influences child nutrition, health, school enrolment, especially for girls.
Vulnerability in crises: Households without diversified income sources are more fragile. When disasters, health crises or economic shocks happen, women with no independent income lose more.
Intergenerational effects: Norms enforce themselves. Women who never worked or led enterprises cannot serve as models for daughters or nieces, and cycles of dependency, low expectations and constrained opportunity continue.
Smile Foundation & Swabhiman: Turning Cultural Norms Through Action
What is Swabhiman?
Launched in 2005, Swabhiman is Smile Foundation’s women-empowerment programme that reaches out to marginalised and socially excluded women.
Its work spans reproductive and child health, nutrition, entrepreneurship development, digital financial literacy and sustainability programmes. It also works on government convergence and systems strengthening.
Scale & Impact (recent years):
As of the 2023-24 period, more than 190,000 women have been impacted through Swabhiman.
More than 76,000 women were sensitised on reproductive and child health through door-to-door visits, community mobilisation, street plays, etc.
About 72,000 women accessed actual health services — camps, telemedicine, etc.
In FY 2023-24, 68 women-led micro-enterprises were established through Swabhiman.
What interventions are in play under Swabhiman that help shift cultural norms, not just outcomes:
Entrepreneurship and Skills: Swabhiman provides training in business skills — financial planning, marketing, operations — and helps women to start small-enterprises (tailoring, food carts, handicrafts, etc.).
Financial Literacy & Digital Skills: These are central to enabling women to manage income, savings, to access loans, to use digital tools for their businesses or for marketing.
Health & Nutrition as Foundational: Swabhiman treats health not as separate from economic empowerment, but as its base. Without reproductive health, antenatal care, nutrition, women are less able to seize opportunities, especially those demanding sustained effort.
Community Mobilisation & Norm Change: Swabhiman works not only with women but also engages men and boys, families, community leaders to shift how women are viewed and what they are expected to do. This is key for lasting change.
Linkage to Markets & Finance: Starting a business is one thing; sustaining it is another. Swabhiman helps women get connected to formal finance, mentorship and market access so they aren’t working in isolation.
How Swabhiman Illustrates Paths Forward Against Cultural Constraints
Let’s revisit the major cultural obstacles and see how Swabhiman addresses them and where more work remains.
Cultural Constraint
How Swabhiman Confronts it
What More Is Needed
Socialisation & belief that women’s place is home
By providing stories, role models like Yashoda and others; by enabling women to start micro-enterprises that are socially visible; by sensitising communities (men & boys) to accept women’s economic roles.
Expand reach in more conservative or remote areas; sustain media, education system interventions that reshape belief at early age.
Unpaid care: lack of time and energy
Swabhiman doesn’t eliminate care burden, but by increasing income potential, improving health, and raising awareness, it helps women make trade-offs that are more favourable. Some training may enable more flexible or home-based work.
Public policies like affordable childcare, elder care; flexible work norms; subsidies or care allowances. Without these, even trained women can struggle to scale their work.
Mobility & safety constraints
Swabhiman’s community based approach reduces distance barriers; in many cases, enterprise or training is done locally; engaging men and local leaders helps ease restrictions on mobility. Health interventions may reduce the need for travel for basic health access.
Improvement in infrastructure (safe transport, lighting), legal systems for harassment, safer public spaces; more remote / hybrid models of training and entrepreneurship.
Financial exclusion, lack of knowledge
Financial literacy modules; digital skills; helping women access formal finance and market linkages. Swabhiman helps women start businesses.
Expand the scale of credit, reduce bureaucratic barriers, collateral requirements; integrate financial inclusion with social norms work so women can control assets and income.
Lack of visibility and role models
Stories of change (like Yashoda, Ishwati etc.) are publicised; Swabhiman supports women-led micro-enterprises whose successes are visible; mentors help.
More media representation; connecting women across states, caste, class; platforms for women to share their journeys; public recognition.
Policy & Systemic Levers: Building Beyond Pilots
While programmes like Swabhiman are essential, they cannot by themselves overcome every structural obstacle. For sustainable change, broader systemic reforms and policy shifts must accompany them.
Integrate gender norms change into education from early childhood: Not just “gender sensitivity” as a subject, but building curriculum and school culture that values shared household work, equal participation, leadership by girls — all reinforced in both formal schooling and co-curricular spaces.
Childcare, eldercare, support for care infrastructure: Government needs to invest heavily in affordable public day-care, after-school care, eldercare services; incentivise private sector to provide these; ensure workplace laws accommodate caregivers.
Safe mobility and workplace safety: Safe public transport, street lighting, accessible transit routes; enforce harassment and safety laws in workplaces; ensure policies for women working shifts or remotely.
Financial inclusion and property rights: Strengthening implementation of laws around inheritance, land owned by women; making credit accessible (low collateral, accessible formal procedures); ensuring women have control over accounts and income; promoting savings and insurance.
Inclusive economic policies: When designing schemes (e.g., for small businesses, MSMEs, start-up grants), ensuring they are accessible to women — tailored application processes, mentorship, non-traditional sectors, recognition of home-based enterprises.
Norm-shifting public campaigns & community leaders: Engage religious leaders, elders, local influencers; use media to reshape narratives of what women can do; ensure men are part of the conversation.
Monitoring & evaluation with gender lens: Collect detailed, disaggregated data (by gender, caste, location) not only on participation but on agency: who controls income, whose decisions are respected, who leads. Use this data to inform policy.
From Tradition to Transformation
Yashoda’s story illuminates what one woman can do if belief, training and opportunity align. Smile Foundation’s Swabhiman programme shows that a well-designed intervention can touch hundreds of thousands of lives — translating cultural norms into changed expectations, economic opportunities, health improvements and greater agency.
But for India to truly shift, such programmes need to move from the margins to the mainstream. Cultural norms are strong because they are woven into family, religion, economy, daily life. To unravel them requires not only helping women overcome barriers one by one, but altering expectations across generations, across families, across institutions. When programmes like Swabhiman are scaled, when policy supports them, when entire communities see women not merely as caregivers but as breadwinners, leaders, agents of change — then we begin to build a society in which more women like Yashoda don’t need to wait for crisis to make the break, but are supported, encouraged, expected and enabled to step forward every day.
We must insist that women’s economic participation is not a side-issue or charity; it is central to social justice, to economic growth, to the very character of our democracy. Because a nation that holds back half its people holds back its own future. And when those people move forward, we all move forward.
Growth for All with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
There is a kind of magic that happens when you give. Not the kind with fireworks or Instagram filters, but the brilliance of someone’s life shifting just a little, because another person cared. Daan Utsav is about that magic. It is India’s festival of giving, celebrated from October 2-8 every year, when people large and small come together to give what they can — their time, their skills, donations, kindness.
This Daan Utsav 2025, we want to pull aside the curtain and show you how Smile Foundation is turning giving into change and how you too can gift a smile, or maybe something more too.
What is Daan Utsav and Why It Matters
Daan Utsav (formerly Joy of Giving Week) is a week that asks us: what does generosity mean, beyond the wallet? It’s not owned by any one group — schools, corporates, NGOs, families, strangers all join in. You can give money, but you can also give your ears, your hands, your ideas. That’s what makes it powerful.
It is during this week that the ripple effects of small kindnesses become visible. A meal shared, a book donated, time spent teaching, a hygiene kit handed out — these are gestures, sure. But they also become part of someone’s story, their hope.
Smile Foundation: Gifts That Multiply
Smile Foundation, since its inception in 2002, has been turning those gestures into systems that uplift. We are among India’s large grassroots organisations, with over 400 ongoing projects in education, healthcare, livelihood and women’s empowerment across more than 2,000 villages and urban slums in over two dozen states.
Here are pieces of their work that shine especially during Daan Utsav, but actually work throughout the year:
Mission Education: Enabling underserved children to enrol (or re-join) mainstream schools, giving them books, uniforms, learning materials. This is foundational to giving the gift of opportunity. (
Smile on Wheels (SoW): Mobile health units that reach underserved areas — rural villages, urban slums — providing primary healthcare, preventive check-ups, basic medicines. Health is part of giving too.
Women empowerment & livelihood: Smile’s interventions train women (and youth) in vocational skills, soft skills, supporting their independence. When you help someone stand on their own feet, the effect multiplies into their family and their community.
Daan Utsav 2025: Gift a Smile
What does “Gift a Smile” mean?
It means choosing to give something that touches more than just the moment. It may be:
Supporting a child’s education supplies through Smile’s Mission Education
Contributing to mobile health unit campaigns so villagers can access health care without travelling many kilometres
Sponsoring a vocational training opportunity for a young person
During Daan Utsav 2024, Smile Foundation partnered with corporates, volunteers and communities to organise “Volunteer Days,” distribution drives, creative fundraising and awareness-spreading.
This year, in 2025, the opportunity is even larger — more children, more villages, more hands needed to reach smiles waiting in silence.
A little girl who dropped out of school because her family couldn’t buy uniforms. Smile’s Donation of Uniform and Stationery programme (as part of Mission Education) helps her return. A boy whose nearest clinic is hours away, gets healthcare in a Smile on Wheels van. A young woman in a slum is trained in tailoring or basic digital skills, starts earning. These aren’t big numbers in headlines, but in their homes they are everything.
Giving Not Because You Have to, But Because You Can
In many of my conversations, people say, “I don’t have much, what can I give?” The answer is: whatever you do give matters.
Time: volunteer to teach or mentor
Resources: donate books, clothes, health supplies
Skills: if you are a designer, teacher, storyteller — offer help in that capacity
Money: even small donations help run projects that reach many
Smile’s website provides clear ways to Donate, Volunteer, Partner.
Daan Utsav 2025: How You Can Participate
Here are some practical ideas:
“Book Smiles Drive” – collect books from friends/neighbours, deliver to Smile-supported schools
SkillShare Weekend – teach a workshop (drawing, music, coding) with children in your area or online
Health Camps – support or volunteer for local mobile units under Smile on Wheels
Micro-donations – pick a child’s need (uniform, fee, nutrition) via Smile’s portal, gift that directly
Spread Joy Online – share stories of people helped by Smile; create a chain of gratitude posts
Why Smile Foundation’s Model Works
Smile’s model works for several reasons:
Holistic approach: Education + health + livelihood + empowerment. You don’t just fill one gap, you shore up many.
Deep reach: Thousands of villages, remote slums, underserved areas. It’s not just city-centre optics.
Transparency and reporting: Annual Reports, data on numbers reached, projects live, programmes alive. The kind of giving you can trace.
Gift a Smile
So here we are, on the cusp of Daan Utsav 2025. The dates are fixed: October 2-8. The question is: How will you give?
Will you gift a school uniform, a healthy meal, a few hours of teaching? Or lend your skills to make someone else’s day? Or simply uplift someone with your time?
Gifting a smile is not just for big wallets. It is for big hearts. It asks: what can I do, right now, to make someone else’s tomorrow less heavy?
Smile Foundation is ready. Projects are there. The children, youth, women waiting for just a little help — they are there. The act of giving bridges the gap between kindness and impact.
