Nasheman News : Three women, all sisters, were burnt alive in a fire in their house in the walled city area here on Wednesday evening, police said.

Police is investigating the cause of the mysterious fire that charred the three sisters to death in Gali Mochian area near Hakima gate of the congested old city.

The victims were identified as Indu, 45, and her younger sisters Vandna and Preeti.

While Indu was married and living in Amritsar, her sisters were unmarried and had shifted with her recently from Delhi.

Amritsar’s Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police J.S. Walia told media that the incident was being investigated for all three angles – accident, suicide or murder.

Forensic experts were called to collect samples from the spot.

Foul play has also not been ruled out. The house was found locked from inside.

Local residents said that that the fire brigade and police took time to reach the spot and the fire had spread by that time.

Four ‘rebel’ Congress legislators, who defied the party whip to absent themselves from the budget session since February 6, came to the assembly on Wednesday and were seen sitting on the treasury benches.

“All our four legislators — Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav, B Nagendra and Mahesh Kumatalli – returned to Bengaluru on Tuesday night and attended the session today (Wednesday), sitting along with our party members,” a Congress leader told media.

Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah had on Monday petitioned Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar to disqualify the four under the anti-defection law for skipping the session for five days since February 6 in defiance of the whip and two notices served on January 18 and February 8.

“The legislators’ return is timely, as the assembly is set to debate the budget (presented on February 8) and vote for passing it,” said the Congress leader.

Denying that they were in touch with BJP to join the party, the legislators said they would not resign from the assembly or the party.

“As I had written to Siddaramaiah in response to his February 8 notice. I could not attend the session since February 6 as I was indisposed and in hospital,” said Kumatalli.

Chincholi legislator Jadav told reporters outside the assembly building that he could not come to Bengaluru for the session till Tuesday as he was pre-occupied with constituency work.

Though the rebels responded to the notice Siddaramaiah served on them for skipping the session till Tuesday, the latter earlier said the unanimous opinion of the CLP was for legal action against them under the anti-detection law, as sufficient opportunity was given to them to fall in line.

In the 225-member Assembly, including one nominated from the Anglo-India community, the Congress has 80, including the Speaker, the Janata Dal-Secular 37, the BJP 104 and remaining are an Independent and one each from the Bahujan Samaj Party and regional outfit KPJP.

Nasheman News : Priyanka Gandhi, Congress General Secretary, who is close to achieve two lakh followers on Twitter in two days, has been targeted through body shaming on the Facebook by proclaimed BJP supporters. She logged in to Twitter on Monday.

K. S. Bedi, ex-President of advertising agency Rediffusion DY&R, just one of them, has posted in the past 24 hours several pictures of Priyanka Gandhi with captions that highlight her body weight.

Sample this: Three cheers! One for each chin. Prosperity shrieks.

Many users liked the post and made remarks on similar lines.

“Will someone please tell Indira Gandhi (read Priyanka Gandhi) that not all the unaccounted money needs to be spent on food and drink,” reads another of his posts. 

One user called her “P. (Pee) Gandhi Vadera”.

Bedi even justified his fat-shamming posts when some users objected to his way of fighting the Congress, ahead of the general election.

“Have yet to encounter anyone who has either not poked fun at the obesity of Amit Shah and Irani (Smriti Irani) or liked a post doing that,” reads another post.

“What happens to genteel India when someone makes similar comments on the three chins of the current Indira Gandhi! Han han wohi who pays 31K as rent for a government bunglow worth a rental of 5 lacs. Yes, yes, the one whose husband is one of India’s richest landlords,” it added.

Women Politicians Across Party Lines Say Electoral Tokenism Must End; Women Must Unite To Vote Women To Lok Sabha

Shakti –  “Political Power to Women” launched nationally in Delhi on February 12th at the Constitution Club of India. Over a 100 invitees attended the event including aspiring politicians, students, women’s groups, civil services aspirants, lawyers and others. Members of Parliament, party spokeswomen, leaders, political commentators and voter data analysts weighed in on how to maximise the number of women elected to the 17th Lok Sabha.
Nisha Agrawal of Team Shakti and ex-CEO of Oxfam India, in her welcome note emphasised that, “We are all aware about how much has changed with women in India in every other sphere from education to health, except in political representation. Shakti’s first goal is to better than the 16th Lok Sabha, and pressure parties to give more tickets to women, and enable more women to be elected this General Election.”

Tara Krishnaswamy, co-founder of Shakti in her opening presentation established the need for a women’s caucus in a democracy, “The natural progression of women into Parliament has gone from 24 women MPs in 1952 to 66 in 2014, amounting to not even one women MP added per year! We have no choice as citizens but to exert public pressure on political parties and exhort voters to vote for balance. Women candidates are more winnable in Lok Sabha elections, and in every single General Election since 1952,  as the Election Commission data shows (attached.)”
Shakti also announced the Shakti-Neta App survey from 15th January 2019 that was answered by 10 lakh registered voters across the rural, urban, women, men and youth demographic. The response to “Do you want more women MPs in Lok Sabha in 2019” was an emphatic 82.2% YES across 24 states. Attached are the states-wise results.
The first panel deliberated on “Promoting Women Candidates for the Lok Sabha Election,” moderated by Priya Sehgal, Editor NewsX. 
Divya Spandana, Social Media Chair of the INC, said that “She was the youngest in Parliament when elected in the 2013 by-poll and yet there were detractors that a woman was chosen to lead the Social Media Cell of the INC. I think the bill really needs to pass there is no other way. ” 
Divya Spandana made an open appeal to Shakti to “Create a mass movement for women across parties to come together. We, in Congress, we all will join you and march for the Women’s Reservation Bill to pass, no matter who comes to power.”

Shaina NC, BJP spokesperson from Maharashtra, was candid, “The numbers are appalling and until that is fixed, it is tokenism even if we have a Defence Minister or even a Prime Minister. Women must unite and really think about how we can build pressure within the parties. We don’t want charity. Politics is tough on the bladder for sure but women are now breaking all the stereotypes in politics by working late hours. Women must vote for women candidates.”
Kanimozhi, Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu revealed that, “To be taken seriously itself is a big achievement for a woman. She has to be at least twice as intelligent twice as hard working!  Party workers told my father not to put women candidates, as they won’t help them campaign – such perceptions exist. The political space is not used to accommodating women, and is completely woven around the male way of looking at processes and policies. It is not inclusive at all, and like every other field women will have to break the glass ceiling. We need women to work across ideology & party lines and support each other in Parliament to help this change.”

Radhika Ramaseshan, Sr Journalist commented that, “Despite numbers of women MPs across Indian states being abysmal, I’m really concerned about women politicians of the North. Dimple Yadav is the only new woman leader we have. I remember covering an election in TN and meeting a woman sarpanch, the sole breadwinner and with an alcoholic husband. She cut him off when he tried to interject in her governance.”
Smita Gupta of The Hindu Centre for Public Policy, called out the importance of the threshold, “Patriarchy exists in all parties whether they call themselves left, right or centre. If you have 181 women in Lok Sabha the whole power dynamic will change – you have to look at panchayats where there is critical mass – the first term they learn the ropes and then they can perform really well.”
The second panel, moderated by Neha Dixit, Independent Journalist, focused on what it would take to build a women’s vote bloc. 
Jagmati Sangwan, ex General Secretary of the AIDWA, who recently contested Mayoral elections in Rohtak, Haryana, pointed out the damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation for women leaders, “More women are agitating at ground level for wages, participation is there but representation is not there! In fighting for women’s rights and against oppression, the sexist campaign by men against me was that if you vote for Jagmati she will put eve teasers in jail!  Without Women’s Reservation Bill, it cannot be done in such a severely patriarchal society. There is still time; I appeal to BJP to realise their promise and pass the Bill.”

Lalitha Kumaramangalam, ex Chairperson of the National Commission of Women, and of the BJP,  suggested a formula for the women’s vote bloc: “More and more women, especially in rural areas, are becoming assertive in running their own lives and want economic independence. We have to talk to women voters as women, not as caste or any other identity. Women prefer women candidates but women in parties are not trained on how to aggressively demand the vote. Elections are won in last two weeks- how do you do it? Alcohol, violence against women, and jobs are the three most binding issues of women voters.”
Sushmita Dev, Member of Parliament, Silchar, Assam and President of the All India Mahila Congress reminded us that “Patriarchy begins at home. Less politicians begins at less women at colleges, and the emancipation of women starts with economic empowerment. The worst thing you can do to women empowerment is tokenism. For instance, when access to justice is the biggest challenge women are facing today, unless we address the actual delivery of justice, even passing laws is tokenism. Make  a man into the WCD Minister; that’s a start! Men in Parliament are asking why should we vacate our seats for women . If you increase seats in the Lok Sabha, they will have no issues with more women.”
The session concluded with Shakti committing to ramp up citizen pressure in the run up to the elections, pledging to promote and support women candidates, and optimistic that many more women will be contesting Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Shakti is a non partisan inclusive platform of women across who have joined hands, regardless of region, caste, creed, ideology and setting aside our differences with single minded objective to get more women elected as MLAs and MPs. Shakti calls upon all men and women that believe in fair representation in politics to join us on bit.ly/shakti-india