At a time when the world has seen never-the-before violence in terms of terrorist attacks on innocent victims, State aggression, high incidence of poverty and increasing inequality, it was essential for a decision like this. From the perspective of development and empowering more women at the grassroot level, it was a path-breaking move on the part of the government to approve a proposal increasing reservation for women in panchayats to 50 per cent.

Battle of Gender:

Gender Equality in India will remain a pipe dream without woman's participation in politics. A  change can be brought about by allowing women to have control over their lives and the extent to which they have access to the decision making process. I believe that although progress has been made towards achieving this goal, Gender Equality in India will remain a distant dream if women continue to be grossly underrepresented in the political process.

The women of India have shown time and again that they can take up leadership roles and win elections. However, our political parties have always found it difficult to field sufficient number of women candidates. Most of the elected women are very well connected politically and acquire the skills from their family members. Thus, it was time to change and make more space for those other women who want to serve the people, irrespective of their political/social background.

Why do we need more women in politics?

If we take a look at the gender stats comparing it to the world, women are still struggling in areas like female life expectancy, female labour force, primary school enrolment, and most of all female population is much lower than world and developing countries levels.

The above mentioned discrepancies can only be addressed if there are more women in decision making. The Governmet has taken the right decision by increasing women reservation in panchayats to 50 per cent. This will enable women to become active and valuable participants in grassroot level decision making structures.