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...

Machineries available for redressal of grievance underutilised, it says  Work of gendering institutions, workplaces yet to be undertaken The study was analysed at a day-long seminar organised by ILO Although great efforts have been made to ensure equality for women in the Indian society — viewed from a broad perspective — it is evident that the gender concerns are on the periphery, than woven into all agendas of both the employer organisations...

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...

YELLING dementedly, seven lawmakers mobbed the chairman of the Indian parliament’s upper house on March 8th and tore at the document, containing the women’s reservation bill, he was reading from. Yet the bill passed the next day, with the two-thirds majority needed to change India’s constitution. With broad political support, including from the Congress party that leads India’s coalition government and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the bill...