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Dear Reader,
The paucity of women’s representation in our elected bodies is an issue that has been hanging fire for decades now. A full thirteen years have gone by since the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, which set aside 33 per cent of seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies. It has since been on the back burner.
Data for 150 assembly seats, between 1998 and 2023, analysed by ThePrint, paint a dismal picture. The average number of women elected to assemblies in these 25 years is an abysmal 7 to 9 per cent of the total members. While a shade better in the Lok Sabha – increasing from 43 in 1998 to 78 now (14.4 per cent) – it is nowhere near the 33 per cent envisaged in the Women’s Bill and far from the ideal 50 per cent, considering the near parity in percentage of population.
For women in India, the lack of privacy, access to pain management and sanitary pads make the menstruation period a real challenge. This challenge is even more acute for women in India’s prisons. Mojo Story analyses a study by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative(CHRI), in 11 women’s prisons in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, to tell us the struggle and the need for urgent action.
In the effort to empower women, especially in rural areas, access to formal banking is an important facility. While there have been significant increases in bank accounts by women, especially since the pandemic, they remain largely confined to accessing government benefits. India Development Review argues that rural women have to be mentored to upgrade to building savings and accessing financial products through the banking network.
And, the Kaziranga National Park, the bastion of the one-horned rhinoceros, is India’s ‘first conservation success’ – with about 2,660 of the 4,000 surviving rhinos in residence. Significantly, the success came not just because of centralised schemes but was largely accomplished through accommodating the rights of rural communities, nudging local political entities to back the conservation effort and successfully enshrining the rhino as a cultural icon of Assam. The India Forum brings you the effort.
For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.
Warmly,
Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF
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