Eighty films in fourth International Women film festival    NEW DELHI, December 15, 2008: A total of around 80 feature and short films from over 40 countries are to be screened at the 4th India International Women Film Festival which has commenced in Delhi. The eight-day festival which concludes on 21 December will relate to women empowerment, where women are being showcased not just as objects of visual pleasure but behind the camera.     The Festival was inaugurated by renowned Kuchipudi dancer and social activist Shalu Jindal in the presence of Sevgi Boz who is the Cultural Attache in the Turkish Embassy, Amit Dev of Time Broadband Services Limited, and Sandeep Marwah of the Asian Academy of Film and Television which is an associate partner of the Festival.

Women offer mass prayer to lord Ganesha in Pune   Pune, September 4, 2008 (ANI): On the second day of the ten-day long Ganesh Chaturthi festival, that marks the birthday of Lord Ganesha (श्री गणेश), hundreds of women devotees gathered here to pray together. Dressed in traditional attire, they performed the ”Maha Arti” or the main prayer early in the morning. The women sat on the road in front of the Dagdusheth temple and offered mass prayers, a tradition that is decades old.   The festival is very popular in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Lord Ganesha, the lord of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is worshipped by Hindus at the beginning of every auspicious occasion. (ANI)

Hindu priest shortage spurs women to take up profession    July 11, 2008: Amid the noise and bustle of downtown Chicago, the groom rode a white horse, shaking to Indian drumbeats in procession to the Palmer House Hilton hotel. Inside, the bride and groom took seats under thered mandap, or wedding canopy, and the priest began chanting in a high, melodic voice. For some, the chants heard at the service last month sounded like a break from Hindu custom. Priests are traditionally men, but the presiding priest at this wedding was Shashi Tandon, a respected female elder in the Hindu community and the groom's grandmother.   Since emigrating from New Delhi in 1982, Tandon has presided over countless religious ceremonies for Hindu families in Chicago, Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere, filling a void that has emerged because of a shortage of Hindu priests.    As more Hindu men enter more lucrative, secular professions, Tandon and a handful of Hindu women in America have begun performing priestly duties as a way of passing their faith to the next generation. There is nothing in Hindu scripture that bars women from becoming priests, also known as pandits. Source: Chicago Tribune   NGO Works to Change Lives of India's 'Untouchables'   July 03, 2008: In India, half a million women work as scavengers removing human waste from the streets with only bowls and brooms. Born into the lowest caste in society, these women face discrimination, but one non-governmental organization is helping them to create better lives while solving the problem of poor sanitation.  With the help of Bindeshwar Pathak, the founder of the Sulabh International Social Service Organization, one of India's largest NGOs, women no longer do this work. Sulabh retrains the women so they can find other work doing embroidery or making noodles and pickles.   A lack of infrastructure forces many people, particularly in rural areas, to defecate in public. This continues the need for women to clean up. But Pathak has developed affordable and environmentally friendly toilets, distributing more than a million of them across India and freeing many women from scavenging. Source: VOA News   India baby girl deaths 'increase'    June 21,2008: There is a cultural preference for male children in India. The number of girls born and surviving in India has hit an all time low compared to boys, ActionAid says.  A report by the UK charity says increasing numbers of female foetuses were being aborted and baby girls deliberately neglected and left to die.  In one site in the Punjab state, there are just 300 girls to every 1,000 boys among higher caste families, it says.  ActionAid says India faces a "bleak" future if it does not end its practice of cultural preference for boys.    ActionAid teamed up with Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to produce the Disappearing Daughters report. More than 6,000 households in sites across five states in north-western India were interviewed and statistical comparisons were made with national census date. Under "normal" circumstances, there should be about 950 girls for every 1,000 boys, the charity said. But it said that in three of the five sites, that number was below 800.  Source: BBC    Women's Self-help Groups Shore Up Farm Communities   Mumbai, June 12, 2008: A Mumbai-based trust is helping out a sizeable number of farm families through women's self-help groups (SHGs).The SHGs, being funded by the Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, have instilled confidence in thousands of poor farm families by forging a tie-up with Big Bazar, one of India's biggest retail outlets for supply of homemade products.    Supriya Sule, a Rajya Sabha MP from Maharashtra who was instrumental in getting the order from Big Bazar, told IANS, 'This is a movement on the lines of what Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus did in Bangladesh.'  The SHGs train small women's groups known as 'bachat gats', which have 10 or 11 members doing business financed out of household savings. The cottage industry products made by these groups comprise papads, pickles, spices and other savouries besides hair oils and soaps.   There are close to 250,000 bachat gats in Maharashtra with a total of 2.5 million women under it supplying homemade products to hundreds of grocery shops and department stores in the state. They are doing their bit in the rural parts of a state where over 3,000 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in the last three years.   Says Supriya Sule, 'On an average, a bachat gat with 10 to 15 women is able to earn Rs.8,000-9,000 a month. We provide a platform and the women are enterprising enough to run it themselves.'  Under the new tie-up, the bachat gats of quake-prone Latur district will be supplying jaggery and soybean products to Big Bazar.   Women in her group say Mohite has hardly studied till Class 4 but is now adept at keeping accounts. She has applied for a loan from the Bank of Baroda and does organic farming too. The most challenging part of the bachat gats is marketing their own products. It is here that SHGs play a vital role. - IANS   Indian-origin mathematician honoured   SYDNEY, May 28, 2008 (IANS): Nalini Joshi, an Australian of Indian origin, has become only the third woman in mathematics to be elected to the prestigious Australian Academy of Sciences (AAS), founded in 1954 by Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London.  Joshi, head of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sydney, was made a fellow of AAS in recognition of her life-long achievements in the field of mathematics.    Her mathematical research has helped to describe delicate and precise transitions that occur in many non- linear models of the real world. For example, how a bar of metal that is heated to very high temperatures becomes magnetic, or how solitary waves in deep oceans move far away from their central crests, or how herds of bisons may change from being clumped together in bands to being spread out over a landscape of grassy  plains.  Born in Myanmar to Indian origin grandparents hailing from Gujarat and Punjab, Joshi migrated to Australia in 1971 immediately after the White Australia Policy ended.    Indian-born woman to get Asian Woman Achievement Award LONDON, May 20, 2008: An Indian-born woman is among the chosen few to be selected for the 2008 Asian Women of Achievement award. Asha Khemka, the principal of the West Nottinghamshire College, will join a wealth of inspiring and extraordinary women, including, DJ Neev, the voice of Kiss Radio and Pally Pagliuca entrepreneur and founder of Benito Brow Bar in this year's shortlist of awardees. This year's awards will be presented this evening at the London Hilton Park Lane.    Married off at 15 in a remote village in India, Asha came to Britain as a shy mother with three children and no knowledge of English. Today, she is the principal and chief executive of one of the largest colleges in England, serving 20,000 students and has launched a charity to help the most disadvantaged in society. But it isn't Asian youngsters she thinks need help - but the indigenous white population. That's why Asha has launched Inspire  and Achieve Foundation, designed to help the most disadvantaged in society.    New Marriage law for Muslim women in India   New Delhi, March 17, 2008: The All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board has released the "Shariat Nikahnama" that they claim would give equal rights to both Muslim men and women. If the board has its way, a Muslim woman would be entitled to seek divorce if her husband was found having illicit relationship with another woman.    The board has also rejected any divorce done through SMS, e-mail, phone as video conferencing, besides rejecting divorce done on provocation. A Muslim woman can seek divorce if she is forced by her husband to indulge in unnatural sex. She can also seek divorce if her husband contracts AIDS.    "We have framed the new nikahnama strictly in accordance with the tenets of Islam, which clearly prohibit any kind of harassment or oppression of a married woman by her husband," said AIMWPLB president Shaista Amber. Shaista Amber added that at the shariat also entitles a woman to take separation even when the husband refuses to grant a divorce.    "Besides extra-marital relationship, these include absence of physical relationship between the husband and wife for more than a year, abandonment of the wife for more than four years, failure of the husband to look after the wife and family or any kind of ill-treatment or torture," said the model nikahnama. The new nikahnama has 17-point guidelines for marriage under the Shariat for bride and groom, while eight points on the divorce process.  Source: The Economic Times    Crime against women on trains rising  NEW DELHI, March 6, 2008: Despite various measures to check crime in running trains by the Indian railways under Mr Lalu Prasad, women passengers continue to be the most vulnerable lots. This was admitted by the minister of state for railways, Mr R Velu, in the Lok Sabha last week. Replying to a question by Mr Subhash Maharia and Mr K C Singh “Baba” on the incidents of women facing harassment in trains, Mr Velu said, “There is a marginal increase in the number of incidents of harassment of women passengers during the year 2007 compared with the previous year 2006”.    According to the figures given by the minister there had been 174 incidents of harassment of women passengers in running trains in 2006 against 199 in 2007. While incidents of looting and rail accidents registered a decline, the graph on crime against women passengers showed a steady increase. The minister pointed to difficulties in crime prevention measures. He said maintenance of law and order was a state subject and the Government Railway Police (GRP) under its control could only take up registration and detection of crime under IPC “as such, the ministry of railways has to depend largely on them (state police and GRP) for control of crime in railways”.    Mr Velu informed the House that the railways was “supplementing the efforts of the state police and GRP in controlling crime by deploying RPF (Railway Protection Force) staff to escort trains for the security of passengers”. He referred to the eight-point action plan for the security of women passengers currently in place in all railways. These measures include deployment of women TTEs and RPF in ‘vulnerable suburban sections’, RPF drive against males traveling in ladies compartments, providing for GRP mobile pickets in mail and express trains near ladies compartments during night journeys and placing ladies and general coaches nearer to the guard’s brake van in trains “so that in the hour of need, the train guard can immediately extend help to lady passengers”.    Source: Statesman News Service    Indian Government  to pay families cash to protect girls   NEW DELHI , Mar 3, 2008 (Reuters) - The government is offering to pay poor families nearly $3,000 to bring up their girl children, and discourage the widespread practice of aborting the female foetus which has led to a skewed gender balance in parts of the country. Many families prefer boys, as future breadwinners, to girls, on whom dowries have to be spent to find husbands.   According to a study published in the British medical journal, the Lancet, about 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India over the last 20 years -- after illegal sex determination tests. The government hopes a cash incentive will change that. "We will pay the money in stages and monitor how they are brought up," Women and  Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury told a news conference.   The government will pay 15,500 rupees ($385) to poor families in phases, with a lump sum of 100,000 rupees when the girl reaches the age of 18, provided she meets criteria including education, immunisation and nutrition, and she is not married. "We will start the project shortly," Chowdhury said, adding that it would be rolled out in seven states where girls face the most acute discrimination. "We think this will force the families to look upon the girl as an asset rather than a liability and will certainly help us save the girl child."  India has already implemented a number of schemes for women to encourage the social and economic empowerment of women, but Chowdhury said she was confident that the new cash-driven policy would work better.  Source: Reuters  Women and child schemes in the Union Budget New Delhi, February 29, 2008: The budget 2008-09 allocated Rs 16,202 crore for 100% women specific schemes and Rs 16,202 crore for 30% women specific scheme. Further, the Finance Minister allocated Rs 7,200 crore in 2008-09 to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, representing an increase of 24% over the allocation in 2007-08. Marking a new deal for women by providing them life and health cover the FM announced to contribute Rs 500 crore with the assurance that annual contributions will be made as the scheme is scaled up to credit-linked SHGs.    This is a part of the Janashree Bima Yojana, the scheme run by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC)  offers life and permanent disability cover to people in 44 categories. The Self Help Groups falls under this category, but only 35,000 SHGs have been covered so far.   14 Arrested in India for Harassing Women MUMBAI, January 04, 2007:  Police arrested 14 men  for allegedly harassing two women outside a five-star hotel in Mumbai during New Year's celebrations, a case that drew widespread criticism after police initially refused to pursue it. The case made headlines earlier this week when Indian newspapers and television news channels ran photographs of a crowd of nearly 50 men at the upscale Juhu beach area of Mumbai pinching, groping and grabbing the clothes of two women who sobbed and fell to the ground as their male companions tried to shield them. The incident was captured by Hindustan Times photographers, who also alerted police.   The husband of one of the women said they live in California and had come to Mumbai to celebrate the New Year after getting married three days earlier in neighboring Gujarat state. The Maharashtra state home minister,  pledged to find the culprits.   Mumbai is India's financial and entertainment capital, but its tag as the safest Indian city for women has suffered in recent years with incidents of women being raped on trains and harassed in crowded buses and at railroad stations. Most Indian cities have an abysmal safety record, with women routinely being harassed in crowded public spaces. Government offers cash incentives to save girl child  New Delhi, December 26, 2007: With the new initiative taken by the government, couples who keep their girl child instead of aborting them, will be awarded a cash incentive. In the Latin American countries, the scheme called the conditional cash transfer scheme has been a successful experiment and it will be launched in India this New Year.   Under the conditional cash transfer scheme, Rs 5000 would be given to the girl child once the birth is registered and there is cash award at every stage from immunisation to matriculation. However, the parents will have to raise the girl child according to the prescribed norms, else the money would not be transferred.   The benefits of the scheme do not end here. If the girl remains unmarried and has also completed two years of her vocational training, Rs 1.25 lakh would be transferred to her account. With our country recording a crore female foeticide cases in the last two decades, this incentive is the first ever hope to keep the girl child alive. Unsafe abortions kill 68,000 women a year   Paris, December 05, 2007: Unsafe abortions in the developing world kill 68,000 women a year and lead to the hospitalisation of at least five million others for infection and other complications, a study published in this Saturday's Lancet says. The global estimate is made from an extrapolation of figures for 13 countries by Susheela Singh of the Guttmacher Institute in New York. Around 19 million unsafe abortions take place annually around the world, a tally that includes back-street pregnancy terminations as well as legal ones, according to Singh's paper.    Each year, the death toll from these risky operations is around 68,000 and more than five million women need hospital treatment afterwards, the paper says. The 13 countries examined in depth by Singh are Egypt, Nigeria and Uganda; Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines; and Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. Some data for Burkia Faso, Ghana, Kenya  and South Africa were also available. The lowest rate of hospitalisations was in Bangladesh, with 2.8 per 1,000 women; the highest was Uganda, with 16.4, followed by Egypt, with 15.3 in public hospitals. Singh noted it was hard and sometimes impossible to get accurate or recent figures about unsafe abortions -- India was singled out here -- but said the toll in mortality and ill health was clearly enormous.   A Study- Hindustan Times

India Inc are now to fill middle and senior management roles with women candidates .NEW DELHI, 28 November, 2007:  Some of India's  top companies are now giving specific mandates to head-hunting firms to fill middle and senior management roles with women candidates. Companies like Bharti Enterprises, American Express, Wal Mart, Shell, IBM and Microsoft are using a variety of policies to promote gender diversity.    Bharti Enterprises and American Express have mandated their recruitment agencies to have a certain percentage of women candidates at the interview stage. While American Express asks for at least one-third representation among those appearing for job interviews, it's 25-30% for Bharti. We are working consciously on increasing the number of women in the company. With our HR initiatives, we plan to stress on recruitment of women at the senior and middle level since there is a large talent pool at the entry level, says Bharti HR group director Inder Walia. Mr Walia added that soon Bharti group flagship Airtel will have a woman at a very senior  position, as part of its gender diversity programme. Currently, women comprise about 20% of the groups total  workforce.     Wal-Mart is learnt to have given a mandate to its headhunting firm to recruit women for certain positions in HR and finance which are reserved for the fairer sex. When contacted, a Wal-Mart India spokesperson said:  have a gender diversity policy globally. We will replicate the same in India. Technology major   IBM, whose employee base in India is 53,000, has 26% representation of women. IBM has a policy under which, we offer special incentives to recruitment consultants for getting qualified women professionals into the organisation. We also host all women recruitment camps, says IBM India diversity lead Prathima V Shetty. Microsoft has Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Development objectives for its business leaders to identify, promote and include women and minorities as candidates for senior positions in the company.      The much-touted talent crunch will also play its role in driving companies to adopt more women-friendly policies, feel consultants. Most diversity programmes originated in the  country as part of employer branding. Today, however, given the talent shortage, these programmes are being taken more seriously. It is estimated that 25% of the IT and ITeS segment's workforce is female and this figure is expected to grow significantly. With women having such a large representation in these industries, companies would need to build systems to attract and retain women, says Ernst & Young's HR Advisory global leader NS Rajan. In fact, Shell uses the diversity and inclusiveness parameter to measure corporate performance. One of the targets for this parameter is the gender indicator which measures promotions and talent acquisition relating to women in the organisation.     That a diverse workforce is a better business proposition has also been recognised. Cross-fertilisation of ideas at the workplace has acquired new significance with tremendous emphasis being placed on leveraging individual differences to business advantage.  Women form new line of self-defence JAMMU, November 22, 2007: OV 22: The Indian Army is now empowering women in the art of self-defence so they can also fight militants in the trouble-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir. Exploring this new dimension against the war on terror, the Dah Army division in Rajouri has been on the forefront of women empowerment. Its Dashmesh battalion recently organised a firing camp for the Women Village Defence Committee (VDC) at Jhangar in the Naushera tehsil.    Backed by the strong support of the village elders, 59 enthusiastic women attended the camp. They were taught how to handle small arms, keep vigil, observe suspicious movements, and pass information to the nearest Army units in the event of terror-related incidents. These trained women were given weapons by the civil administration under the category of village defence committees. “The Army strongly believes that it is a fundamental right to righteously defend one's home and hearth from undesirable elements and to this end the Army is forever striving to instill confidence in the womenfolk to defend their homes from terror,” Lt Colonel Sah  Dev Goswami said, adding that with the given training women can retaliate the militant action. He said the Army is giving women courage through the training to face initial shocks when the militants strike, adding these trained women and girls have a better opportunity to join Paramilitary forces. The Army is planning to organise such training camps in other villages too.   Source: The Statesman

NFIW demand the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill. NEW DELHI, November 16, 2007: The Delhi unit of the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) on Thursday organised a demonstration to demand the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill. Led by general secretary Annie Raja, the protesters condemned the failure of the United Progressive Alliance government to get it passed by Parliament.    She said the Bill, ensuring women’s participation in the decision-making process, had been in the public domain for more than a decade, but in the name of creating a “comprehensive consensus” even the UPA Government had not taken any step to place it before Parliament.   NRIs to be urged to invest in rural sector and women  NEW DELH, November 7, 2007: In an attempt to pull in India's 25-million strong diaspora to assist in rural development, the sixth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) will focus on education, healthcare, empowerment of rural women and knowledge economy. According to Overseas Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi, the annual conference of non-resident Indians, to be held here Jan 7-9, will urge the overseas Indians to be a party to the country's socio-economic development.     "The focus will be on social areas and issues with special emphasis on women including rural women," Ravi told a press conference here. He said the focus of the last five PBDs had been to attract investment from the overseas Indians rather than their ideas and skills. The ministry has mooted the idea for establishing 'India  Development Foundation' (IDF), which would be act like a "single window clearance system" to channel the investments, both small and large, ideas, skills and technology for around 6,000 rural blocks across the country. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the conference and the concluding function will be addressed by President Pratibha Patil. To check AIDS among young women in India  November 3, 2007: AIDS is spreading most rapidly in India among young women, according to the World Health Organization, and 2.5 million people there carry the virus. Kavita Gupta, a female doctoral student from India at the University of Utah, has developed a "molecular condom." The condom is really a microbicide gel that kills HIV and is designed to allow women more control in preventing AIDS because their partners do not need to be involved in its application. The university is partnering with a contraceptive marketer to sell the products in India, where AIDS in increasingly being seen as a feminized disease.   Encourage women to reach out to rural markets  HYDERABAD, October 30, 2007: Marketing opportunity in rural India, especially the lower income groups, is very huge and new strategies like involving women in businesses can enable the companies strike it rich, according to Douglas Baillie, Chief Executive Officer of Hindustan Unilever Ltd. Mr. Baillie delivered the key-note address on ‘Beyond rich India – lower income segments – a marketing opportunity’ at Iksha (looking ahead) organised by the Marketing Club of Indian School of Business (ISB) here on Saturday. He wanted companies to not only satisfy customers with their products, but address their concerns as citizens. Deep dialogue to understand the problems of the lower income groups in rural India, encouraging women to become partners by enhancing their capacity to handle businesses would help companies to reach out to the rural market space.     An average sale of Rs. 10,000 would fetch Rs. 800 a month. Depending on the volumes, the earning could increase. Involving women in business by explaining to them such details through micro-credit system would be the new mantra to success, he said.  In fact, Hindustan Unilever was proposing to enhance the number of women selling its products in rural areas from the present 42,000 to one lakh by 2010.

Karva Chauth on Monday, the 29th October, 2007 October 29, 2007: Karva Chauth is being observed on Monday, the 29th October, 2007 in India by Hindu, Sikh and Kashmiri Muslim married women (suhagini) for ensuring wedded bliss and wishing long life for their husbands and children.

Women from Rajasthan villages collecting desert weed, akda to create fashion articles.   Eighty women from four villages in Rajasthan spend two hours a day working on the desert weed, akda. They peel the bark of the weed, dry and then dye it in natural colours to create fashion and household accessories. They come in vibrant colours such as turquoise blue, indigo, orange, yellow – all the colours under the sun. The thread that is used to wrap round the bangle is recycled thread and it is also used to make table mats, coasters, rugs, baskets, etc.   The women enjoy the feeling of being able to earn. As the village does not have electricity, they have to work during the day. They weave dreams into their material, but they themselves lead very practical lives. They are there to provide for their family, not to indulge themselves. The project is expected to work wonders in the international market and people associated with it feel that it will do even better than Khadi.  Bibi Russell, who runs the project, hopes that the women will one day be earning Rs. 100 a day because that is the kind of effort they are putting in.

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