A study finds ambiguities in the law to protect women against domestic violence and lack of knowledge of the Act among relief providers. ON October 26, 2006, Parliament enacted the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, not only to recognise the hitherto unrecognised and latent forms of violence against women in domestic relationships (in and outside marriage), but also to provide a civil remedy to ameliorate the conditions of...

Several recent reports put India at the bottom when it comes to gender equality. It is time for a clearly-spelt new policy on women and development. SHAILAJA CHANDRA  “By and large the attitude of a man towards his wife is possibly worse than his attitude towards his buffalo.”--Colin Gonzalves, Human Rights Lawyer The World Economic Forum, in a report titled the Global Gender Gap 2009, has quantified the magnitude of gender-based...

Poverty is a multi-dimensional concept. Official statistics in India have always referred, arguably narrowly, to only income poverty (using the proxy measure of consumption expenditure from the NSSO surveys).The Suresh Tendulkar Committee report submitted to the Planning Commission is the latest input to the “Great Indian Poverty Debate”. While the increase in the number of poor households, as suggested by the Tendulkar Committee, may indeed help expand the coverage of...

Women will soon be able to avail themselves of a single window service for all programmes run by the government for them under a new national mission for empowerment of women. Minister of State for Women and Child Development Krishna Tirath said on Tuesday the mission would help make development programmes easily accessible to women from all sections of society. She was talking to journalists on the sidelines of the Dalit...

For the UNFPA Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity CHANDIGARH: “It is a sad reality that even today the girl child is unwanted and often murdered in the womb and the increased presence of science in our lives has fuelled this evil instead of decreasing it,” said UNFPA-Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity regional coordinator Minu Talwar at a press conference here. Inviting entries for the second UNFPA-Laadli Media Awards for...