|
New Delhi: Describing what he called a "silent revolution" in India, Panchayati Raj Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer said on Wednesday that women held close to 40 per cent of local government seats, exceeding the 33 per cent minimum reserved for them.
Addressing the International Conference on Decentralisation, Local Power and Women's Rights in Mexico City, Aiyer said that over a million of the 3.2 million elected representatives to local governments in India were women. Another 200,000 women representatives are active in urban local bodies.
"In the state of Karnataka, it has been found that whereas the share of tribal women in seats reserved for tribals is 33 per cent, in actual fact close to double that figure - some 65 per cent - of the seats have been won by tribal women," Aiyer said in his speech, according to a release issued here.
"I am also happy to report that one state - Sikkim - has raised the share of reserved seats for women to 40 per cent, and in five other states, the state legislatures have in the course of the last year raised the share of women in our local bodies to an assured 50 per cent, which, considering that half of humanity comprises women, seems only fair.
"Yet, even in the two states that have since been to the polls, the share of women actually elected has been several per centage points above the reserved share - 55 per cent in Bihar and 53 per cent in Uttarakahand," he added.
Saying that most of these women came from "traditional" backgrounds, Aiyer claimed that there were more elected women in India than in the rest of the world put together.
|
