The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Act soon on quota for women, Karunanidhi tells UPA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 21, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Act soon on quota for women, Karunanidhi tells UPA

Special Correspondent

English version of his poetic rendition of Maxim Gorky's `Mother' in Tamil released English version of his poetic rendition of Maxim Gorky's `Mother' in Tamil released "Let the quota system come first. The nuances and modalities such as fixing sub-quota for backward and forward classes can be worked out later."

THE FIRST COPY: Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee handing over the first copy of the book "Kalaignar's Thai" to Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the presence of DMK president M. Karunanidhi in Chennai on Saturday. Justice Rathinavel Pandia n (extreme left) and Justice P. R. Gokulakrishnan (extreme right) look on. — Photo: Vino John

CHENNAI: Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president M. Karunanidhi on Saturday called upon the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government to act swiftly on vital issues such as according reservation to women in Parliament and State Assemblies.

He was responding to felicitations showered on him at a function here to release the English version of his poetic rendition of Maxim Gorky's classic, `Mother' in Tamil.

He made the appeal in the presence of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Minister for Communication and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran.

Mr. Karunanidhi said, "There has been some slackening at the Centre with reference to certain issues. I appeal to the Union Ministers and the Lok Sabha Speaker that necessary steps must be taken to ensure that it acts expeditiously."

Referring to demands for giving women their due place in legislature and governance, Mr. Karunanidhi said there had been talk about providing reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies.

Supporting the demand, the DMK chief said, "Let the quota system come first. The nuances and modalities such as fixing sub-quota for backward and forward classes can be worked out later."

He said no pre-conditions such as creation of linguistic States were made in the pre-Independence era. Linguistic States were formed only after the country became free, he pointed out.

On demands such as enhancing the number of Lok Sabha seats to facilitate passing of the Women's Reservation Bill, Mr. Karunanidhi said it should be considered as to how and where such a large number of members were going to be accommodated.

"Self-respect marriages"

Mr. Karunanidhi reiterated his demand for a legislation to provide legal sanctity to "self-respect marriages" at the national level.

Mr. Chatterjee, who released the book, paid glowing tributes to Mr. Karunanidhi for rendering the poetic version of Gorky's `Mother.' Mr. Karunanidhi had done yeomen service to Tamil language and literature, he said.

It called for an exceptional literary comprehension, acute sense of history and understanding of the forces and factors which contributed to the social transformation in Russia 100 years ago to take up the challenge of translating the classic, that too in poetic form, Mr. Chatterjee said.

Mr. Chidambaram, who received the first copy, said the novel had not lost its relevance even today.

It exposed the attempts of the then ruling class to push people belonging to different sections into perpetual enmity and antagonism. The poetic rendition of the novel should be translated into Russian, he said.

Former Judge of the Supreme Court S. Rathnavel Pandian, former Judge of the High Court P.R. Gokulakrishnan and the translator P.K. Palanisamy referred to the poetic rendition of the novel without deviating from the original. Mr. Karunanidhi's daughter, Kanimozhi, welcomed the gathering.

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