Asia and the Pacific

Colonel Jamila Bayaz, a 50-year-old mother of five, this week became the first women to be appointed police chief  in Afghanistan. Bayaz will lead the 1st District of Kabul.

Women voters outnumber men in 22 of the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu.

In the previous Lok Sabha elections in May 2009, women outnumbered men in 15 constituencies.

Maximum in southern districts

As in the past, the southern districts account for a maximum number of such constituencies – Madurai, Sivaganga, Virudhunagar, Dindigul, Theni, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi and Tuticorin.

As a young girl in Bangladesh, you could say I grew up parallel to the legendary rivalry between the country’s main political foes, Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia: two very powerful women with some serious political capital. Hasina is one of the only surviving members of her family, the majority of whom were brutally assassinated by army officials in the aftermath of Bangladesh’s bloody Independence. Khaleda Zia, on the other hand, is the widow of career military officer, Ziaur Rahman, founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) that Khaleda Zia now heads.

iraha, NEPAL, SOUTHERN ASIA: Sanju Kumari Das is a petite, soft-spoken woman, but don’t let that fool you. Hailing from Siraha, a volatile district in Nepal’s eastern Terai, this formidable 26 year-old commands the attention of political giants, helps end nationwide strikes, and is one only a handful of female radio show hosts in Nepal.

Finding out why women’s voices are not being listened to is imperative to increasing the proportion of female political representation in Cambodia, a meeting heard yesterday.

The Committee to Promote Women in Politics (CPWP) – which is made up of 12 organisations – hosted discussions in the capital that included discussion about the importance of having a legislative population that is at least 25 per cent female, one of Cambodia’s Millenium Goals.

Although a good turnout of female voters has been recorded in the recent Assembly elections, the Election Commission of India wants to identify areas where the women turnout has been low and reasons for it. 

The ECI has issued instructions to states to focus on low women participation areas under the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) plan for the forth coming Lok Sabha elections.