NCW's two-year report card under Rahatkar lists Yashoda AI, outreach drives

The National Commission for Women (NCW) released a report card on Sunday, October 25, 2026, setting out the programmes run in the second year of Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar's tenure. Titled "A Shared Contribution", the second-year report lists the Commission's flagship initiatives, field visits and outreach, including the Yashoda AI digital literacy campaign, She Is a Changemaker, Campus Calling and the Shakti Samvad dialogues. Rahatkar, who took charge on October 19, 2024, completed two years in office on October 22 and said she would focus on reaching women who face barriers in getting justice.

The NCW is the main national body that receives complaints from women, takes up cases of violence and discrimination with authorities, and advises the government on laws and policies that affect women. How it uses its mandate matters to millions of women who turn to it when other routes fail. An annual account of its work, released publicly, gives citizens a way to judge what the Commission chose to prioritise.

The report shows a clear tilt towards outreach and capacity-building. Several of the listed programmes are designed to take the Commission beyond Delhi: campus programmes for students, dialogues with women in districts, conclaves and summits, and training through partner institutions. Yashoda AI is the most concrete example. Run in partnership with universities and, in at least one state, the police, it trains women such as self-help group members, ASHA health workers and panchayat representatives in digital skills, online safety and basic artificial intelligence tools. As fraud, harassment and impersonation move online, digital awareness has become part of protecting women's rights.

The report is less clear on the Commission's core function: handling complaints. The coverage of the release did not include numbers on how many complaints the NCW received in the year, how many it resolved and how long they took. Those figures are the most direct measure of whether the Commission's work reaches individual women, and they would make the report card easier to assess. The full report is published as an online document by the Commission.

For readers interested in women's leadership, the report is also a record of one woman's leadership of a national institution. Rahatkar has said her focus for the third year will be to widen the Commission's reach to women who find it hardest to access justice.

Short-term: The report sets out the programmes the Commission plans to build on, and women's groups, colleges and self-help groups can look for Yashoda AI and campus sessions in their areas.

Long-term: If outreach programmes are matched with clear data on complaints and outcomes, the Commission will be easier to hold to account, and its work easier for women to use.

Who is affected: Women seeking help with complaints of violence or discrimination; students and self-help group members reached through the Commission's programmes; state women's commissions; and policymakers who rely on the NCW's advice.

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