The Big Picture: Raising Marriageable Age for Women

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 16th October assured the girls of the country that the government will decide the right age for marriage as soon as a concerned committee gives its report. In June this year, the Centre had formed a 10-member task force under Jaya Jaitley, to recommend whether the legal age of marriage for women could be changed from 18 years. The proposal to raise the legal age for marriage of women carries “enormous" economic and social gains for India, according to a State Bank of India report. The report titled, "Increasing the legal age of women’s marriage: A dominant strategy for societal good, financially empowering women," counts benefits such as lowering maternal deaths and improving nutrition levels in the near term to putting more girls in college and enabling women to achieve greater financial independence in the long-term. In this edition of The Big Picture we will analyse the issue of Raising Marriageable Age for Women.

Guests:
1- Shankar Aggarwal, Former Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development
2- Ruby Bhardwaj, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Delhi University
3- Prof. Charan Singh, Economist & CEO, EGROW Foundation

Anchor: Frank Rausan Pereira

Producer: Sagheer Ahmad