Safe, comfy and chatting away – women?s empowerment at PCO booths
Monday, June 29, 2009
New Delhi, June 28 (IANS) Anjali Kher, 33, a small-time designer from Srinagar, keeps in touch with her family in the Kashmir Valley from the public telephone booth next to her home in Delhi.
“The booth remains open till midnight and I drop in almost every day after work to call my father and my brothers,” Kher, who lives in Mayur Vihar, told IANS.
The public telephone – including the PCO (public call office) phone booths with STD facilities – in India has become a tool of empowerment for women in middle class India, particularly migrants.
A new study says public telephones are the most frequently used method of making calls by Indian women at the bottom of the social pyramid compared to other South Asian nations like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand.
Indian men at the bottom of the pyramid, on the other hand, rely more on their mobiles, the study said.
