The lesson from the rest of the world is that seat reservation for women to merely increase their representation in the legislature will not do; they need to be empowered in the real sense.  During the debate in Parliament and outside over the Women's Reservation Bill, many people have referred to quota “success stories” worldwide — proposing that India could gain from the experience of about 40 other countries that...

It may still happen. If the Women's Reservation Bill - which was tabled in the Rajya Sabha yesterday amidst chaos and disruption - does actually get passed by both houses of Parliament, it will bring to closure an issue that has been hanging fire for 14 years in national politics. It may even be law in time for the next general elections in the country. Of course, it will be...

Overwhelmed by the victory in the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, women's groups on Wednesday asked the government to place it in the Lok Sabha at the earliest to sustain the momentum. “We hope that the United Progressive Alliance will do so immediately, and evolve strategies to address the possible obstacles to its smooth passage,” the National Women's Organisations — a collective of several groups —...

We stand at the cusp of big change — the Rajya Sabha has, in a volatile and momentous session, passed the Women’s Reservation Bill. After 14 years of stop-start, when demands for sub-quotas within the category of “women” for other disadvantaged groups hobbled the bill’s progress, it has finally been set in real motion. As the drama in the Rajya Sabha demonstrated, it will not be easy. Competing demands to...

Encouraging women's participation in politics, the historic bill to reserve 33 percent of seats for them in parliament and the legislatures will impact the country's political scenario, the patriarchal system and the caste struggle in rural India, experts say. Bibhu Mahapatra, consultant of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project on Legal Empowerment, said: 'The 73rd constitutional amendment, passed in 1992, gave constitutional recognition to local self governance and reserved 33...