2 II. RECOMMENDATIONS TOWARDS EDUCATION FOR MINORITY WOMEN A. ‘Education’ must be defined broadly: Mere declarations of intent towards ‘education for women’ (which includes adult and continuing education and capacity building) must be replaced by concrete programmes & substantial resource allocation. India recently enacted a Right to Education Act, guaranteeing the right to schooling for children aged 6-14 years. This Act, while naturally welcome, has served to freeze-frame on schooling, and fueled desertion of other arenas of education. Yet there are scores of minority women, Muslim, Dalit, and Tribal, who remain outside the framework of basic literacy. If we are sincere about approaching the Right to Education through the lens of what minority women need, then prioritizing adult and continuing education in the overall education agenda, must be underscored. Neglect of this means the active neglect of the rights of millions of non-literate, non-skilled women who have not and will never go to any school. Current budget allocation for this is too small. And while we continue to pay diligent lip service to adult education, we appear to count on a ‘volunteer based’ approach. There can be no substitute for State intervention in this arena. In failing to do this, we are in effect turning our back on minority women’s right to education. B. Education for Minority Women: Democracy through New Media With literacy as the fundamental first step, one of the most critical tools of empowerment for marginalized groups everywhere are the tools of new media1. We must be able to use them to reverse the known forms of discriminatory access to information and to power. We must actively make recommendations that encourage governments and civil society groups to deploy tools of new media that can reverse the enormous power of representation that traditional media enjoys over minority groups in general and minority women in particular. To give Minority women access to the power of representation, and the right and the ability to tell their own stories and create their own images is and must be a critical part of the educational terrain. Because trapping minority groups, Muslim groups and particularly Muslim women in images that we beam at them of both oppression and emancipation - is among the gravest injustices we do to them. The ‘demonizing’ impact of traditional media must be increasingly traded 1 Most technologies described as "new media" are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible, and interactive. Some examples may be the Internet, websites, computer multimedia, computer games, CD-ROMS, and DVDs. New media does not include television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications – unless they contain technologies that enable digital interactivity. New media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. Another important promise of new media is the "democratization" of the creation, publishing, distribution and consumption of media content. (Ref: Wikipedia)