Empowerment cannot be confined to few policies made and bills passed by governments. This brings in a need for an alternative definition of the term. Women empowerment should not and cannot stagnate as a word of law but has to emerge and transform the individual from within. Indian philosophy has given as a wonderful term “Shakti” to explain this idea. The verb root “Shak” implies power and energy and translates as the ability to do something. It is rightly observed that what we need is not the fight for women's status but for human worth. The claim is not to end inequality of women but to restore universal justice.

There is an urgent need to address this, Society needs to wake up and look for the root cause of this inhuman crime. One of the major reasons for these happenings is illiteracy and lack of awareness among women. If education is made available to the women, the rate of crimes against the women would definitely go down. As we move into a new century, we dream to move into united and discrimination-free India. Today, the global environment has become highly competitive and dynamic, compelling rapid changes in the management of all types of organizations. Re-engineering, self-managing teams, flattening hierarchies, designing computer to perform most of the menial and routine work, using new technologies to deliver and collect complex information systems to the frontline of the organization thereby eliminating intermediaries, de-jobbing or downsizing, etc. have made many jobs redundant. Competent people are shifting the focus from a structured job in which using the traditional approach to work and not worried about their status and positions. What is required is entrepreneurial spirit, ability to empower, multi-tasking and capability of working in self- managing teams, besides employee nurturers and good communicators. These qualities favour the woman managers because it is embedded in their natural way of working. This close fit between women, the changing nature of work, managerial style and organizational desire to hire, retain and promote qualified women managers.

One of the richest underutilized resources in India is the talents of its women and the country has for many years squandered this talent in a shameful fashion.

Although women constitute about half of the country's population, but they do not represent half or close to half of the working population. Most Indian business and technology- based magazines have one or more features on corporate executive focus. Searching through several issues of such magazines and newspapers, it was observed that women executive representation is less than five percent. Why are there so few women in senior management positions despite a significant increase in women employment in the last few years? Is it so because the women are less ambitious, less committed, less qualified and less willing to take up senior positions?

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