Pauline Ngarmpring thought she would take it slow as she began her new life as a transgender woman after transitioning at the age of 49.

Instead, three years on, she is a candidate for Thai prime minister - the country’s first transgender candidate for the post - and her days and nights are filled with campaigning, strategy meetings and media interviews.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday announced 33 per cent quota for women in the allocation of Lok Sabha tickets of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party.

A non-partisan collective is targeting the general elections for equal representation of women in Parliament, but the road to gender-just politics is tricky to traverse

The former Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs who leads the 193-member world body, pointed out that in 2105 it would have taken 30 years to close the gender gap, but now, she told the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), if current trends continue, gender parity will not be reached for “107 years”.

Women have come a long way since the early 1900s. Just this year, a record number of women were elected into Congress, and more women than ever before have launched their presidential bids, vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

As of 2019 from the 535 members in the United States Congress, 127 are women, and 47 out of these women are women of color.