• A. STELLA MARY

ABSTRACT After nearly 67 years of independence and despite advancements in various fields, India stands today with a dismal record in several social development sectors. Of the 1.2 billion people in India, most of them live in extreme poverty and the majority of them are women and girls. Some believe this estimate to be around 70% of the female population. Recent estimates of poverty of Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and female-headed households show that caste and poverty status seem to go hand in hand. Virtually one third of the world's child labourers live in India. If you consider the female labour force, then Indian women contribute a much larger share of their earnings than men to a family maintenance. The 60 million Indian households are still below the poverty line. Women form the largest body of unskilled workers being 90% of rural and 70% of urban unskilled workers. Women's issues are now being analyzed by planners through the paradigm of empowerment. The welfare approach which considered women as targets and beneficiaries was replaced by the development approach which raised questions about access to resources, yet disregarded the fundamental issue of unequal gender relations. Welfare was the first approach used in women's development programmes but by the 1980s it became clear that the idea of welfare perpetuated gender biases.

Tinnevelly, Christianity, Palamcottah, Church, Missionary

"GENSIS OF THE TIRUNELVELI DIOCESE TRUST", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.381-384, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1908998.pdf

"GENSIS OF THE TIRUNELVELI DIOCESE TRUST", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp381-384, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1908998.pdf