Increased representation for women can unleash a broader process that can be set in motion by the strength of sheer numbers. One measure of whether it is important to have women in important policy formulation roles is to examine how a largely male-dominated system of government has served women. It turns out that India performs very poorly in this regard. Despite a few heartening examples to the contrary, in general Indian...

The North East Students’ Organisation today demanded special constitutional status for the region to thwart the threats of increasing Chinese aggression and unabated influx from Bangladesh. NESO, the umbrella body of all student groups in the region, will soon send delegates to New Delhi to highlight the problems and hold a meeting of the Northeast MPs Forum to draw the Centre’s attention. NESO chairman Sammujjal Bhattacharyya told reporters here that...

  Democratic political systems in every advanced western country have faced challenges posed by the role of political finance or money spent during elections. On the basis of their specific experiences, these countries have tried to tackle the issue of political funding during polls. The democratic political system is corrupted if elections are contested on the basis of financial resources provided by rich individuals or business corporations as these donors, from the...

Not a quota within quota but a commitment to social justice and a proactive offer to field women from the subaltern strata. That is the way to silence the opponents of the Bill.  Fourteen years and one small victory later, the Women's Reservation Bill has again begun to look iffy. In all this time, a lot many things could have been done independent of the fate of the Bill. Those in...

FOR THE human race to survive, Mahatma Gandhi would always insist, its women must eventually take charge of the affairs of men. In the last 150 years, incredibly courageous women’s rights movements have waged epochal battles across the world, most notably in the US, to wrest parity from generations of chauvinistic men, bringing themselves adult suffrage, working rights and numerous social, political and economic benefits. So, for India to become...