Prime Minister has opined that gender bias has been the greatest obstacle in making India fully literate. Giving his opening remarks before a talk on “Centrality of Literacy” by the nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen in New Delhi last evening, Dr. Manmohan Singh said, to eliminate this obstacle, government is focussing on increasing female literacy. He stressed the need to take on the challenge to seek productive collaboration between the government and civil society for durable literacy and mass education. Citing a UNDP report, the Prime Minister informed that there are 771 million illiterate in the world of which 277 million are in India. He said, this means India is home to the one third of non-literate in the world. Dr. Manmohan Singh lamented that though there has been high growth in India's GDP, the literacy rate has remained very inferior at the UNDP human development index. The Prime Minister reiterated that the government is committed to make adequate funds available for the spread of literacy across the country. Echoing the sentiments of Dr. Manmohan Singh, Nobel Laureate Prof. Amartya Sen called the recently passed Right to Education bill a radical step in right direction. He said, many more steps are to be taken to make India fully literate. The Union Human Resource Development Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal informed that 43 new districts in the country will be added to National Literacy Mission other than existing 167 already working under it. He expressed confidence that India will achieve full literacy by 2020.