The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325) is celebrating its twentieth-fifth anniversary this year.
To mark this anniversary, the PRIO research project e-Topia: China, India and Biometric Borders and the PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace and Security are organizing a seminar with presentations and a panel debate.
The seminar on Digitalization and Women’s (Dis)empowerment in India brings together researchers of India and Indian researchers to discuss India’s digitalization and societal change with a focus on the experiences of Indian women.
In India, the government has turned to new technologies to provide a range of public services, often in collaboration with private enterprises. Public-private partnerships have thus assisted government agencies develop and apply a variety of digital solutions and ‘smart’ services, amid concerns about digital storage and processing of personal data, infrastructure vulnerabilities, entitlements and rights as related to digital transactions, and not the least, digital divides.
The key questions raised in this seminar are:
- What are the implications of India’s digitalization for women’s empowerment?
- What kinds of technologies and digital solutions are generating new forms of gendered social exclusion and disempowerment, and how is this happening?
The seminar will consist of short talks (15-20 minutes) by invited speakers, followed by a panel discussion. After the panel, we will open the floor for questions and comments.
Convenors
- Åshild Kolås, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
- Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya, PRIO Global Fellow and Distinguished Professor in Public Policy, Maharashtra Institute of Technology ¾ World Peace University (MIT-WPU)
Speakers
- Åshild Kolås (moderator)
- Torunn Tryggestad (PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace and Security): Introduction
- Anjoo Sharan Upahyaya (MIT-WPU, Pune, India)
- Aditi Singh (online)
- Arpita Chakraborty (Dublin City University, Ireland)
- Akansha Rana (online)
- Aarti Srivastava ( online)
Panel discussion
chaired by Priyankar Upadhyaya (BHU and MIT-WPU, Pune, India)
This seminar is organized by the PRIO research project e-Topia: China, India and Biometric Borders in collaboration with the PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace and Security
Speaker bios
Professor Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya has worked as a Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor at the Malaviya Centre for Peace Research, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and has lectured and pubished extensivey on issues of pubic policy, security and gender. She is currently a PRIO Global Fellow and a Distinguished Professor in Public Policy, Maharashtra Institute of Technology - World Peace University (MIT-WPU) in Pune, India.
Dr Arpita Chakraborty is the Vice Director of the Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities at Dublin City University. She is specifically interested in ideas about gender, masculinities, and caste. Her work has been published in leading journals such as Critical Studies on Security, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Economic and Political Weekly, and Religion and Gender.
Ms Aditi Singh is a career civil servant in the Government of India, currently serving as the Director, Program Management & HR at the National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Ministry of Electronics & IT, Government of India, where she leads initiatives on digital public infrastructure and citizen-centric platforms. With a background in computer science, she focuses on enabling digital transformation for social impact and public sector innovation.
Ms Aakansha Rana is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the 2017 batch, allocated to the Uttar Pradesh cadre. She is known for her gender advocacy in administration and her recent high-profile role in managing India's largest religious gathering, the Maha Kumbh Mela 2025 in Prayagraj. Rana holds an integrated MSc in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur.
Professor Priyankar Upadhyaya is a distinguished scholar in the field of Peace Studies. Since 2010, he has served as the UNESCO Chair for Peace and Intercultural Understanding at Banaras Hindu University. In addition, he holds the position of Senior Advisor and Distinguished Professor at MIT-World Peace University, Pune.
Professor Aarti Srivastava heads the Department of Higher and Professional Education at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). She was the former coordinator of the National Resource Centre for Education and the LEAP leadership program in collaboration with Oxford University, UK, and Harvard University, USA.
