Digital Literacy and Online Safety Programme for women launched

Pothashang News Service: Imphal, December 5, 2018: Manipur governor Najma Heptulla today launched Digital Literacy and Online Safety Programme of Digital Sakti, North East, campaign at Hotel Imphal. The programme is a nationwide campaign to digitally empower young girls and women.

The campaign aims towards sensitizing women and capacity building to help navigate in the internet space but has also empower them to protect themselves and actively respond to issues and incidents like cyber crimes.

The governor said the women of Manipur and North East are very talented and they deserve to be sufficiently empowered with the digital technology for a space in this highly competitive world.
The central government launched the Digital Northeast Vision Document, 2022 in Guwahati on August, 18 with the objective to improve digital connectivity and infuse digital literacy in the North East States in tandem with other states of the country. The central government’s flagship programme ‘Digital India’ launched in 2015 has newly incorporated the North-East Region into the programme, she added.

She expressed her pleasure that as part of the pilot project under Digital Literacy Programme over a one year period, awareness training will be conducted for sixty thousand women in universities across major cities of Haryana, Delhi, NCR, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim on safe and responsible use of internet, social media and e-mail.

Social welfare minister Nemcha Kipgen said the launch of this Programme is for the women of North East, especially for uplifting and digitally empowering the lives of women folks of Manipur.

The current use of internet by literate women is still low in the rural and hilly area which is due to the lack of awareness, ignorance and lack of services as well, she added.

Chairperson, National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma said women safety is a top priority with the knowledge to use internet safely and cautiously.

The commission will organise the same event in Meghalaya and Sikkim in the coming week, she added.

The programme was organised by National Commission for Women (NCW), Cyber Peace Foundation and Facebook.

It was attended by NCW member, Soso Shaiza, president, Cyber Peace Foundation, Capt. Vineet Kumar, policy programme manager, India and South Asia, Facebook, Shruti Moghe, joint secretary, NCW, A. Asholi Chalai, students amongst other.

Announcing to launch the two months long digital literacy campaign, yesterday, Manipur State Commission for Women (MSCW), Meinam Binota said the campaign will surely be effective in minimising the case of crime against women through social media.

She also informed that as a part of the programme a review meeting of State Women Commissions of all northeast regions will be held and action plan for 2018-2019 will be drafted.