Bangalore: Kalpana Kochhar, the Indian American Chief economist for South Asia at the World Bank criticized the gender-inequality in India, reports Aziz Haniffa of Rediff. She was speaking at the NFIA's Women's Empowerment conference and she had all the necessary facts and figures to prove that her criticisms were true.

"South Asia has the highest gender inequality in the world. The gender inequality index uses five indicators including maternal mortality, adolescent fertility, parliamentary representation, educational attainment, and labor force participation, and South Asia ranks the worst on these indicators, even compared with the Middle East and North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, says Kochhar.

Girls in India are discriminated in terms of food and they are always treated as inferior to boys, says Kochhar. She also adds that  '' gender matters for nutrition indicators. Looking at the percentage of children age six months who are two standard deviations below expected weight for age, the percentage is roughly equal at around 32 percent for boys and girls. By age five, the gap widens significantly between boys - 44 per cent - and girls - 49 per cent."

"These differentials persist into adolescence - the percentage of girls 15-19 who have a body mass index of below 18.5 is 47 per cent in India."

Kochhar also advised that "unless fundamental behaviour changes occur, no broad based changes can occur in the true empowerment of women."