Nasheman News : Following an adverse report about a national capital-based shelter home by the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday directed the District Magistrate to immediately take over the shelter home and asked DCW chief Swati Maliwal to conduct an inquiry into the matter and submit a report within 15 days.

According to the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), Sisodia has also directed to ensure that the present staff members of the home are replaced with a new set of staff, and that the girls are kept together and not separated.

During an inspection of the private shelter home located in Dwarka here last week, the DCW had found that the home staff used to apply chilli powder in the private parts of girl inmates as a form of punishment.

“Other forms of punishment included beating with measuring scales for not keeping the rooms clean and for not listening to the staff. The girls were also forced to perform domestic chores of the home. This abuse had been going on for several months,” DCW said in a statement.

A police case has been registered in the matter and Maliwal had tweeted that four of the accused staff members were arrested as well. 

The Commission had requested the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) concerned to ensure removal of the present staff of the home. 

However, the Commission has learnt that the two girls who were subjected to extreme physical abuse were singled out and shifted out of the home while other girls remain in the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) shelter home. 

“In our view, this shall create further stress on the girls who may continue to feel as though punishment is being meted out to them for speaking up as they were separated from their friends and taken to an unknown place,” it said.

Nasheman News : The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) on Wednesday called upon the government and the opposition parties to pass the law on Muslim triple talaq bill through “consensus, without political point-scoring”.

On Thursday, the Parliament is scheduled to discuss the proposed The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, after the government issued an Ordinance on it earlier this year.

The Ordinance was brought after the government failed to push it through the Rajya Sabha during the monsoon session of Parliament owing to lack of unanimity among various political parties, said BMMA Co-Founder Zakia Soman.

The Ordinance makes instant triple talaq a punishable offence with a three-year jail term, and Soman urged that it would be ideal if both Houses of Parliament pass the Bill unanimously, especially since some important amendments have been made to the original Bill.

For the much-anticipated legislation, she said that today women across the country are protesting, writing to women’s commissions and observing token fasts for legal protection.

“We urge all political parties to recognise, acknowledge and extend their support to the demands of Muslim women. For too long have they (Muslim women) been discriminated against the faced insecurity, fears for life, threats of instant divorce, polygamy, juvenile marriage and deprivation of inheritance rights,” said Soman.

However, now the Muslim women have organised themselves, armed with the knowledge of both their constitutional rights and rights as per the Quran, which need to be acknowledged and realised by all political parties, she pointed out.

“The tide is turning. This law, if it becomes a reality, will be important and the BMMA will continue to fight for comprehensive codification of Muslim family law where gender-just provisions pertaining to age of marriage, mehr, consent, polygamy, halala, muta, maintenance and inheritance are also legislated upon,” Soman added.

The BMMA has published its version of a comprehensive Muslim family law and demanded that the government consider the same for further discussions to work towards a comprehensive law which has been hanging for long, she said.

Shakti –  “Political Power to Women” is announcing a “Call your MP” campaign on 27th December 2018, 7 pm – 9.30 pm.

This India-wide unique campaign is for women and men to reach out to their elected Members of Parliament to table and pass the Women’s Reservation Bill. 

70 years after a democractic republic, there are still about 10% women only in State Assemblies & Parliament,  making woen the largest demographic that is least represented. Since this winter session is the final Parliament session in this term, it is crucial for all citizens to put pressure on all parties to get this bill passed at least now, nearly 30 years after it was first mooted. 

Shakti is please to announce that groups from across the country, from 18 states have joined this campaign. Civil society groups, students, women’s groups, farmers, domestic wokers, corporate sector women and numerous others from across Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry & Kerala have joined this campaign.

Tara Krishnaswamy of Shakti said, “We call upon all men and women that believe in fair representation in politics ad who want to transform India to join this campaign.”

Campaign website: bit.ly/ShaktiCall

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. 

New Delhi, A “National Women’s Party” was launched here on Tuesday with the aim of ensuring 50 per cent representation for women in Parliament and other places.

Announcing the launch, the party’s national President Swetha Shetty said: “In a male-dominated political system, an all women’s party is important. Women and their issues are only raised during the mother’s day, the women’s day or during the election time. NWP will be a platform for women to raise their voices.” 

The party, which started its ground work in 2012, was launched with the aim of getting 50 per cent reservation for women candidates in the Lok Sabha Election, she said adding they have applied for registration with the Election Commission. 

With no prominent names to mention, the party claimed it has the support of 1.45 lakh women members of Hyderabad-based Telangana Mahila Samiti, “and their numbers are persistently increasing across India”.

“Even in 2018, women rights are avoided. I invite all the women, who feel the party can be a platform to improve the condition of women in present time, to join it,” Shetty said.

A doctor by profession, 36-year-old Shetty also heads an NGO in Telangana where she realised “the acute need to be a part of the system to bring the change”.

“We won’t be quiet until we see that women are represented equally in the Parliament.

“My initial aim will be to ensure 50 per cent reservations inside the parliament and slowly in all walks of life,” she said.

She also said the party will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and will support and seek backing from like-minded parties.

She said that the party also welcomes political support from men, “if they agree with our ideology”.

Representatives from the BJP, INC, JD(S), and CPM come together to work towards common goal

BY : Husna Rizwan

In a day-long event at Hotel Chalukya, women politicians, political aspirants, mediapersons and political researchers came together to discuss the way forward for women in the 2019 General Elections.

Hosted by Shakti – a group of non-partisan women who have joined hands with the long-term goal of enabling more women to get elected as MLAs and MPs across parties, the event included a keynote speech, panel discussions, and interactions between women across political affiliations. Apart from speakers on the panels, the event was attended by guests like Irom Sharmila, anti-AFSPA activist and founder of the political party Peoples’ Resurgence and Justice Alliance, and Leeladevi R. Prasad, former MLA, Karnataka minister and Rajya Sabha MP with a political career spanning 60 years.

Leeladevi R. Prasad unveiled the logo for Shakti along with four women sarpanches from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu who were invited as speakers for a panel discussion.

Tara Krishnaswamy, convener of the Bengaluru event, welcomed the gathering and pointed out that this was the first non-partisan national convention of women interested in politics in India, making history. “We are here because we have only 9 percent women MLAs and 11 percent women MPs. We have plenty of evidence to show that women are interested in politics.Voters want women. The question is are we willing to give that to them?”

In her keynote speech, Srilatha Batliwala – author, activist and Director of Knowledge Building and Feminist Leadership at CREA – spoke about the myths that surround women in politics, including that they are not interested in politics, that they are not competent and need “capacity building”, and that women politicians are more corrupt and autocratic. She also talked about the political structures that keep women out, and suggest ways to break through them: Recognising the existing of hidden power dynamics; mobilising other women to confront these dynamics; collectively building parallel processes like nari gram sabhas, nari adalats, or groups like Shakti, and to resist playing by the rules set by men.

Panel 1: Why are there so few MPs and MLAs?

 Panelists: PA Devi, cultural activist from Telangana, C Motamma, Vice President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee Kavitha Reddy, Congress Spokesperson

Surabhi Hodigere, political entrepreneur and writer,Shahina KK journalist with OPEN Magazine

Vasanthi Hariprakash journalist (moderator)

 C Motamma: “Everybody knows we are in a male-dominated society. Even politically, women are denied their right to contesting elections. It is no secret that even deserving women are denied tickets. Before a party gives a ticket to a woman, they ask two main questions – the party asks is she financially sound, and who is the male who is backing her before they give her the ticket.”

Shahina KK: “Why is 50 percent reservation restricted to local bodies? Because it is considered as an extension of the family. It is not a body that makes law. Parliament is where we amend the Constitution, the Assembly is where we make laws.”

Kavitha Reddy: “Sometimes it does not matter if you get 50 or 500 votes. Contesting is important. How much more groundwork can you do so that the party cannot deny you a ticket the next time. It is not only about winning… women in politics have to keep fighting. Even if you lose, you participate as the opposition and continue to ask questions.”

 Panel 2: Party Structures – Are they Impeding Women?

Sushmita Dev Congress,Malavika Avinash, BJP spokesperson, Bader Sayeed, senior advocate and former AIADMK MLA

Ruth Manorama, JD(S) candidate for Lok Sabha,Dhanya Rajendran (moderator)

Ruth Manorama: “I have no fathers, uncles or boyfriends in the party. Party structures are not women-friendly, they are completely patriarchal. Major decisions are taken elsewhere, and the women just have to accept them. There are capable women, but party structures make no room for them.”

Malavika Avinash: “An event like this is a mirror to all political parties and leaders so I congratulate the team that has been here. I even suggested that you invite Dinesh Gundu Rao and BS Yeddyurappa to sit in the audience and listen. […] Why are we only limited to the women’s wing of political parties? We are all isolated from the main party. The fight for space within the party reduces you to two things – caste and cash. What then is the way forward? Reservation is the only way.”

Sushmita Dev: “Frontal organisations [like mahila wings of political parties] are an entry point for women. It depends on the vision and how you run that organisation. […] There has to be massive gender sensitization within parties and in workplaces. If you can support your daughter of your wife, then you can help somebody else’s daughter or wife win, can’t you? The Women’s Reservation Bill must happen. All have to work internally in our parties for it.”

Panel 3: 1 million Elected Women in Local Bodies – What Next?

Archana Jatkar, two-time sarpanch of Pokhari, Yavatmal, Varsha Nikam, former sarpanch, INC member

Krishnaveni, former president of Thalaiyuthu panchayat,Rajathi Salma Poet, former Panchayat President, MLA contestant

Bhanupriya Rao, researcher and RTI activist,TR Raghunandan, former Joint Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj (moderator)

 Archana Jatkar: “Winning once in a reserved seat has encouraged us and others to contest in open seats.”

 Krishnaveni: “I hope DMK under Stalin will further Karunanidhi’s policy of ensuring and strengthening women’s representation in politics”

 Salma: “The other real structural solution is reservation for women.”

 Bhanupriya: “We only ask and measure competence about women politicians, not the men. But the hopeful bit is that women have a great deal of political aspirations.”

Panel 4: Women’s Reservation Bill – the What, Why and How of Getting it Passed

Jyoti Raj, co founder of the Campaign for Electoral Reforms in India CERI,Kshama Nargund Banavathy, RSS Disha trustee

Shahina KK, journalist,Cynthia Stephen, independent researcher, journalist

Sowmya Reddy, Congress MLA, Karnataka,Nupur Basu, journalist (moderator)

 Sowmya: “Practically every speech I make, I talk about being part of the lonely 4% – the tiny number of women MLAs in Karnataka. The way forward is to have more men and more male politicians in this room.”

Nupur: “Across parties, male politicians responded to 33 percent reservation for women by saying let’s have an extra 33 percent for women, and turn Parliament into a 900-seater. Is hammam mein hum sab nange hain.”

Panel 5: Way Forward – Ideas to get political parties to give more tickets to women

Nisha Agrawal, Ruchi Gupta, Surabhi Hodigere, Vimala KS, Dhanya Rajendran (moderator)

 Ruchi Gupta: “If there was a quota for women, it would help women get leverage against entrenched power structures of men. […]The hypermuscular masculine rhythm and idiom of politics needs to change. I meet young men who want the get the attention of media so they will got to their location and take off their shirts. Women are unlikely to even be part of such an event.”

Nisha Agrawal: “If you are the one woman in the power, whether in a political group or a corporate boardroom, you are doomed to failure. […]We need quotas for women everywhere from politics to judiciary to police. That is the only way that transform politics.”

Surabhi Hodigere: “My friends call it a blunder and I do it at every event I go to, I say I want to be the first woman CM of Karnataka. I know it will inspire other young women.”

In her address to the gathering, Leeladevi R. Prasad said, “If we want justice, we need political power. I have been fighting for it for 60 years, that Bill is still pending in Parliament.” She suggested a march to Delhi to put pressure on the government and urged people to join her.

At the close of the day, all present repeated a pledge: “We, the women of India hereby commit to building a nationwide movement cutting across region, religion, language, caste and ideology to demand political power for women. All for one and one for all.”

A petition was launched on Change.org asking the presidents of five major political parties including the BJP and the Congress to assure that 50% of their party tickets would be given to women in the 2019 General Elections. The petition is live at change.org/PoliticalPowertoWomen

The following resolutions were passed:

– Build a non-partisan national movement to demand political power for women.

 – Launch Shakti in Delhi in February 2019 and kick-start state caucuses.

 – Exert public pressure on political parties for 50% tickets to women for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

– Promote women candidates during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

– Demand passing a Women’s Representation Assurance policy in the winter session of the Lok Sabha (2018), derived from the Women’s Reservation Bill discussions.

The India Women’s Caucus (IWC) is a group of non-partisan women who have joined hands
with the long-term goal of enabling more women to get elected as MLAs and MPs across parties.
After a successful pilot event in Goa in October this year, the IWC is organising a day-long
meeting on Saturday, December 8, 2018, at Hotel Chalukya in Bengaluru. The IWC is being
convened by Rajasree Nagarsekar, a journalist in Goa and Tara Krishnaswamy, co-founder of
Citizens for Bengaluru, author and activist.
Addressing the media at the Bangalore Press Club, Tara Krishnaswamy said, “The meeting of
the India Women’s Caucus is part of a larger sustained campaign we intend to begin. It is
unfortunate that women who have had great success as corporators and panchayat leaders are
unable to grow as the parties deny tickets for them. We need to work with political parties and
women candidates too. A resolution on the next steps towards the General Election of 2019
will be formulated through the event and released to the media at the close of the day.”
Vasanthi Hariprakash, a well-known journalist, asked the media to support the initiative.
“Women are missing in action in Assembly and Parliament. We need to understand the root
causes and action plan by holding discussions with women leaders from political parties, elected
representatives, social scientists, grassroots activists, journalists and others. I’m excited that all
of us are coming together,” she said.
Cynthia Stephen, social policy researcher, said, “This platform is designed to be inclusive,
bringing together women of all walks of life, urban, rural, from different parts of the country,
who are interested in seeking political power to women.”
Speakers at the event will include women leaders from the INC, BJP, JD(S) and CPM, civil
society and political activists, scholars, academicians, journalists and senior editors.

 A former Indian American White House official has been recruited by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal as her Chief of Staff.

Gautam Raghavan used to be the White House liaison to the LGBTQ community as well as the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community during former President Barack Obama’s time.

He has also been the founding Executive Director of Indian American Impact Project and Fund that supports Indian Americans in politics. He has also served as the White House Liaison and Deputy White House Liaison in the Department of Defence.

The move was announced on Monday, the US media reported.

A first-generation immigrant, Raghavan was born in India, raised in Seattle area and graduated from Stanford University.

Under Obama, Raghavan also managed White House and inter-agency policy working groups and directed the administration’s roll out and implementation of landmark accomplishments including the executive order prohibiting LGBTQ discrimination in federal contracting and marriage equality among other things.

“It’s a whole new part of government, and I’m obviously excited to work with Congresswoman Jayapal. I’ve known her practically my whole life, being from Seattle, Washington,” Raghavan told News India Times, a community newspaper.

“I have watched her establish herself as a bold, national presence, right from 9/11. She is certainly a very visible presence. She is not afraid to speak up,” Raghavan said.

Jayapal is the first Indian-American woman in the US House of Representatives. She has been a longtime immigrationrights leader and founded Hate Free Zone — later renamed OneAmerica — dedicated to advocacy work including registering new immigrants to vote and lobbying for immigration reform.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, almost 80 per cent of men have become overly cautious in their interactions with women colleagues, according to a report.

The study by market research and analysis company Velocity MR, which had over 2500 respondents across Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Chennai, noted that eight out of 10 people said that formal workplace interactions have been highly impacted as a result of the movement.

It found that close to 80 per cent of the respondents said fear of losing their career, family reputation, social stigma, and scepticism could be some of the reasons for the victims not reporting the cases earlier. Also, around 70 per cent of the respondents agreed that even after reporting the cases, victims still face threats.

The study further observed that close to 50 per cent of the respondents disapproved of victims reporting the abuse later, while two in five males supported the victims saying they are right in reporting the abuse later.

About seven in every 10 respondents said that encouraging the affected women to be independent can possibly help them speak up about the abuse.

“Although the majority of cases coming up in #MeToo are from the media-bollywood industry, other industries are not considered safe by close to 77 per cent of the respondents,” it said.

The survey also revealed that 83 per cent of the respondents believe that there are cases of false allegations in the wake of #MeToo.

“In spite of respondents feeling that there are false allegations, four out of five are hopeful that this would bring about a good change,” it reiterated.

PTI

The #MeToo revelations by women against sexual harassment at the workplace hit the global conscience as a compelling case for strengthening women’s economic empowerment. But one crucial question that remains unanswered is what the macroeconomic policy makers of our country think about them. Can they be indifferent to the movement, dismissing it as one to be exclusively dealt with by the legislative fiat of the country?

The conspicuous absence of macro policy makers in the debate may be because social movements on women’s rights and gender justice are hardly ever recognised as an economic issue, when they are indeed a “compelling economic issue”. They encapsulate unhealthy power relations (there are many layers to analyse when a man in power demands sexual favours from his colleagues as his “right”) and associated economic costs. The harassment affects the productivity of a woman in multiple ways. If the fastest and smartest way to a country’s economic growth is by strengthening women’s labour force participation, dismissing the #MeToo revelations as “non-economic” or “private” can have adverse macroeconomic consequences.

Even researchers, both men and women, are divided on gender in economics. It is a tug of war between the hard-core qualitative world of “compelling story telling” and the rigorous quantitative measurement of gender inequalities. It has been a struggle for feminist economists to push the frontiers of empirical investigation from a marginalised treatment of gender in economics to “gender mainstreaming”.

Budgetary commitments

To put it upfront, even budgets are not gender neutral, for instance. What do the national and subnational budgets of a country consist of to address sexual harassment of women at work and violence against women? This is a crucial “human rights” question. The question of how a country effectively translates gender commitments into budgetary commitments is something we can no longer afford to postpone.

The empirical revelation that budgets are a powerful policy tool to tackle gender inequalities in a country was first made in the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy’s ground-breaking study on “gender diagnosis and budgeting” in 2000. Prior to that, media debates on gender in budget were broadly confined to whether the finance minister had announced “tax cuts in cosmetics” as something done specifically for women. Otherwise, the finance minister focused only on his “core” responsibility of managing deficits, “medium-term fiscal frameworks” and other “macro-fundamentals” that matter for “business as usual”.

Women’s economic empowerment

How much a country spends on the economic empowerment of women is a compelling question, now more than ever before. The genie was out of the bottle when the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy published that targeted public spending for women’s economic empowerment was less than 1% of the Union Budget. Researchers at the institute also flagged that this 1% came from as many as 40 programmes designed in various sectors specifically for women. Though gender budgeting allocations have since improved slightly, the situation of “too many programmes with too little money” demands the immediate attention of public financial management and calls for an urgent convergence of public spending to tackle gender inequalities, with significant budgetary provisions. As women in India’s organised sector are just a small part of the women’s labour force, ensuring macro policies to safeguard women in the informal sector is equally important for holistic women’s economic empowerment.

The United Nations secretary general has formed a high-level panel for women’s economic empowerment and identified gender budgeting as a powerful policy tool to bring about such empowerment. Given the increase in the reporting of sexual harassment of women at work, these policy tools should be used effectively to initiate “ex-ante policies”. What India needs is “ex-ante” policies to address the high rates of sexual harassment faced by women at work in the formal and informal, low-wage and high-wage sectors, and not “ad hoc” and “ex-post” interventions after the incidents have occurred.

By : Scroll

‘Nirbhaya’, a 32-member team of lady police personnel dressed in civil wear will take to the streets of Haveri district from today to tackle cases of eve-teasing.

The team, formed by Haveri district Superintendent of Police (SP) K Parshurama will not only be seen on-duty 24/7 but they will also undertake self-defence classes for the women.  Apart from the city limits, the team will also be patrolling the interior areas

Any woman, in distress, can call the Nirbhaya team and the team will immediately reach out for the rescue.

East Zone Superintendent of Police B. Dayanand will be inaugurating team Nirbhaya today (Friday) at around 4:30 pm at Shivashakthi palace of Haveri.