Singh said the government too had made efforts to address

the issue of women's empowerment by strengthening existing institutions, providing women better access to education and health care, ensuring equal opportunities for their participation in decision-making and mainstreaming gender concerns in processes of development. "While more women are now joining the formal economy as a result, a corollary of these developments has been the heightened risk to their safety and security," he said. Lauding Bhatt's pioneering efforts in the area of women's emancipation and empowerment, Singh said the government would benefit from studying the working of Self-Employed Women's Association. "This is particularly true, for example, for the National Rural Livelihood Mission, which seeks to organize the members of nearly seven crore households, including women, across six lakh villages into self-help groups," Singh said. In his address, President Pranab Mukherjee said gender disparity in the country can be covered only through pro-active intervention in areas such as economic empowerment of women, building of adequate social and physical infrastructure and improving women's role in governance. Empowerment of women is the key to not only meeting the objective of gender equality but also to elicit full participation from all our citizens in nation-building, he said. "We must strengthen the systems and processes that facilitate women to take control and claim ownership of their lives. To lend true meaning to empowerment, we have to expand their freedom of choice," Mukherjee said. He said as poor women were often incapacitated to act individually, social mobilisation for their economic redemption was a critical necessity.