The Washington Free Beacon reports that the United States federal government is currently spending upwards of $50,000 in order to promote women bloggers in India.
From an anouncement in late December 2017, the State Department announced a new initiative in 2018:
“The U.S. Embassy [in New Delhi] continues to support women's entrepreneurship in India following the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Summit co-hosted by the United States and India under the theme ‘Women First, Prosperity for All,'"The SHE VLOGS program seeks to arm North Indian women entrepreneurs with digital skills to enhance business marketing and branding strategy through a series of three video-blogging (vlogging) workshops for entrepreneurs."
The project is officially called “SHE Vlogs: Video Blogging Training for Women Entrepreneurs in North India."
"Through this program the U.S. Embassy seeks to cultivate and empower a network of North Indian women entrepreneurs to strengthen the U.S.-India economic relationship," the State Department said.
There will be three conferences, each two day events, where 75 Indian women total will learn how to make minute long videos in order to promote their business. According to “Women’s Web: For Women Who Do," some of the top 11 female bloggers in India currently write about thrilling topics such as “experiences of being a single woman budget traveler” and “bird photography.” Obviously, there is a high demand for these subjects and that will surely strengthen the US-India economy.
In all seriousness, many female bloggers in India use their platform to discuss egregious violence, sexism, and other issues pertaining to women as well as promote conversation that was simply not possible before the advent of the internet. However, it is not exactly clear why the U.S. government needs to spend $50,000 on a conference teaching them how to make a Youtube video.
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