While a large number of women voters were struck off the rolls, the R.G. Kar rape case and the teachers’ recruitment scam created an outpouring of public opinion against Mamata Banerjee
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BJP
This Was Never About Women
The Women’s Reservation Bill was already passed unanimously in Parliament in 2023. The Women’s Reservation Act came into force on 16 April 2026. What was defeated on 17 April was the Delimitation Bill, which attempted to link women’s reservation to delimitation (redrawing of the boundaries of electoral constituencies) based on data from a 15-year-old Census (2011). The question isn’t whether women deserve more equal representation in electoral politics. It’s who benefits from how it’s being done.
The NWMI Stands in Solidarity with Banu Mushtaq
The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) condemns the controversy generated over the invitation extended to renowned Kannada writer and International Booker Prize awardee Banu Mushtaq to inaugurate the 2025 Mysuru Dasara, Karnataka’s Naada Habba (state festival).
Delimitation is also about reservation of seats for women
By Shikha Mukerjee Some habits die hard. Politics, especially big ticket fights, continues to be conducted between men. On the issue of delimitation of electoral constituencies for elections to the Lok Sabha and state Vidhana Sabha/Soudha (aka Saasana Sabha), the...
‘Sisters’ aid a landslide victory but remain outside the House
By Hepzi Anthony The Mahayuti alliance won on the back of women who voted in large numbers to show their appreciation for women-focussed schemes—but the number of women in the state assembly has dropped. The Mahayuti alliance’s landslide victory in the recent 2024...
Coalition khichdi- impact on policy, politics and people
By Editors On October 9, 2024, experts discussed the intricacies of coalition politics in a state that is witnessing significant political shifts ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections. The fractured political landscape in Maharashtra is affecting governance. The...
Of the three women MPs from Rajasthan, the star is Sanjna Jatav, a 26-year-old Dalit leader
By Rakhee Roytalukdar Desperately seeking women politicians at all levels of the polity in Rajasthan to make the Women’s Reservation Bill a reality Rajasthan has always been known as the land of Rajas and Maharajas, who were acknowledged for their valour and courage....
Two women from the Northeast make it to the 18th Lok Sabha, one less than in the 17th
By Durba Ghosh Only two women, both from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have made it to the 18th Lok Sabha (LS), one less than in the outgoing house. This time there was a total of 23 female candidates across the eight North Eastern states, which together have 25...
A price on her head – How men value women in West Bengal
By Shikha Mukerjee Between hype and reality, the status of women is an expanse of hypocrisy in West Bengal. Abhijit Gangopadhyay, the newly hatched politician who is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate from Tamluk in East Medinipur, was asked by the Election...
A close look at women standing for election in Chhattisgarh
By Malini Subramaniam Twenty of the 90 seats in Chhattisgarh will go to the polls in the first phase of the state Assembly election on 7 November. The second phase, for the remaining 70 seats, will be held on 17 November. For now, we will focus on the first phase. Of...
Will Mizoram elect women legislators this time?
By Ninglun Hanghal Mizoram will go to the polls on 7 November. Of the174 candidates contesting the state elections to secure seats in the 40-member Legislative Assembly, 16 are women – making up just 9 per cent of the total. Like most north-eastern states, Mizoram has...
NWMI condemns K Annamalai’s conduct towards journalist
The Network of Women in Media, India is shocked at the disparaging remarks made by the Tamil Nadu President of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr K Annamalai, to a woman journalist in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, during a press meet on October 1. Responding to her question on...
UP: A haven for women?
By Geeta Pandey The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, recently said he was confident that women in Uttar Pradesh would vote for the BJP because, under his party’s rule, the state had become a place that was “safe and full of opportunities for women”. But how real is that...
The young and the restless: New age election campaigns
By Uttara Gangopadhyay Do you remember the jingles, ‘Surobhito Antiseptic Cream Boroline’ or ‘Washing Powder Nirma’? Jingles that went viral (in the days when the term was used for medical purpose only) and resulted in the coin box jingling for their manufacturers?...
Why The Media Needs To Go Beyond Tamil Nadu’s ‘Freebies’ Narrative
By Editors Tamil Nadu’s ‘freebie’ culture has often come under criticism, especially from those who view it from outside the state. Elections in Tamil Nadu have also come to be defined by ‘freebies’. From colour television sets to gas stoves, the offer of ‘freebies’...
Bengali protest songs, past and present
By Shrabonti Bagchi Growing up in a Bengali household in the 1980s, cassette tapes were as essential a part of ‘learning about culture’ as bound volumes of Tagore’s works and novels by Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay and Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay – many of them wedding...
Regarding the Pain of Women
By Shikha Mukerjee “Indecent, politically irrelevant and gender illiterate,” is the succinct assessment of a distinguished feminist scholar in Kolkata about the reaction of the political opposition and the media to the injury suffered by Trinamool Congress founder and...
Mamata Banerjee and the battle for Bengal
By Manjira Majumdar Every five years, the Assembly elections in West Bengal (WB) turn very critical. This year it is all the more so due to the fact that communal politics, which Bengal has never seen nor accepted – despite the experience of Partition based on...
A Women’s Manifesto in Assam
By Durba Ghosh Women in Assam comprise nearly 50 per cent of the total electorate. Political parties have definitely taken this into consideration during the ongoing election season, wooing them in order to win votes in the forthcoming Legislative Assembly polls in...
Women in Kerala Politics: The Bald Truth
By Sarita Mohanan Bhama Political parties are in a never-before tailspin in Kerala, flurrying to re-tailor the “women component” in their lists of candidates for the 2021 Assembly elections. The trigger? The State Mahila Congress President, Lathika Subhash, had...