Parliaments & Representatives
The Women’s Reservation Bill that ensures a 33 per cent reservation of seats in the Parliament and the state legislatures is meant to empower women in the country and include them in national governance and politics.
The Bill had been pending for a long period, and there was near unanimity on it when it was introduced, though the timeline of it coming into effect has met with some disapproval, as it will not happen in the forthcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Click here to read the full article published by the Gomantak Times on 21 September 2023.
Indian women today are voting in numbers equal to or higher than men in most elections. Their primary reason for voting enthusiastically is to exercise their constitutional right to be counted as citizens. During my research, ongoing since 2019, among women voters in Haryana, I often heard my interlocutors say that they voted because it is their adhikaar (right). Yet they lamented that there was no jagah (place) for women in the political arena.
Click here to read the full article published by the Hindustan Times on 22 September 2023.
When Jacinda Ardern brought her baby Neve to the United Nations for the 2018 General Assembly, then-New Zealand Prime Minister became an emblematic figure of modern women in politics. Her initiative was not only a photo opportunity, she also walked the walk: A few years later, her progressive government helped fund new lactation rooms at the UN headquarters in New York to make it easier for other new mothers to work.
Click here to read the full article published by CNN on 22 September 2023.
The ‘Rising Sun’ which was then a symbol of independence needed some publicity locally and Karunanidhi had asked the women to draw it in front of their homes even as he solicited their support. That the women obliged finds mention in his autobiography ‘Nenjukku Neethi’. In a polling booth for women at Thaneerpalli, the opponent Congress candidate did not get even a single vote when the constituency sent Karunanidhi to the Assembly, thanks to women.
Click here to read the full article published by The New Indian Express on 23 September 2023.
The Rajya Sabha unanimously passed the women’s reservation Bill to reserve one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women on September 21. The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on September 20. Unlike the Lok Sabha, where two of the 456 MPs present in the House had voted against the Bill, all the 214 lawmakers present in the Rajya Sabha voted in its favour on September 21.
Click here to read the full article published by Onmanorama on 23 September 2023.
Exactly 30 years after women’s empowerment got a kick-start with 33 per cent reservations in local self-government bodies, which later went upto 50 per cent, the Elected Women Representatives (EWR)s have not only come a long way – but also gone a long way – to consolidate their position as a crucial factor in nation-building from below.
Click here to read the full article published by the Mangalorean on 24 September 2023.