Tamil Nadu - Vellore   

50 % quota for women in Assembly, Parliament sought

Catholic Bishop of Vellore P. Soundararaju speaking at the International Women's Day centenary celebrations in Vellore on Thursday.

VELLORE: The Vellore District Women's Federation of Social Service Society has demanded 50 per cent reservation for women in Parliament, Legislative Assemblies and local bodies. A resolution was adopted at the International Women's Day centenary celebrations organised by the federation here on Thursday.

The federation requested the Union and State governments to take steps to facilitate women to take up leadership in society and politics. It urged the political leaders and officials to prevent the exploitation of women, discrimination in payment of wages and humiliation of women at work places. The federation requested advertisers and television channels to prevent cultural degradation manifested in the form of women being depicted in bad light in advertisements and posters.

The federation urged the Centre to extend to Dalit Christians all concessions available to Scheduled Castes. It requested the Tamil Nadu government to recommend to the Central government to extend the SC concessions to Dalit Christians.

While condemning the conversion of agricultural lands into house sites and all acts which damaged the environment, the federation urged the government to issue orders to conserve soil wealth by encouraging the use of organic manure, prevent plundering of sand and encourage planting of saplings.

Catholic Bishop of Vellore P. Soundararaju said women should fight for the cause of the downtrodden, enslaved and disadvantaged sections of women even while being in the family set-up. He said he has heard of women leaders, who took to the women's cause as a result of the frustration caused by a broken family.

“But, the real achievement is that of people like you who work for the welfare of women by living within your family set-up,” he said, addressing members of the Vellore District Women's Federation of the Social Service Society.

M. Joe Lourdusamy, Vicar-General of the Vellore Catholic Diocese, said women themselves should not be responsible for enslaving and inflicting violence on women. S. Lourdusamy, Director, Vellore Social Service Society, lauded the efforts of the Vellore District Women's Federation of Social Service Society in facilitating poor women get welfare assistance of the government to the tune of Rs.45 crore.

He said that one cannot become a leader without undergoing hard work, struggle and pain.

F. Arockiyaselvi, secretary, Vellore District Women's Federation of Social Service Society, who read the report, said the federation has a membership of 350 associations comprising 6,350 individual members. The activities of the federation have brought about greater participation of people in the member associations, resulting in their economic uplift and participation in politics.

The achievements of the federation include facilitating 189 estranged couples to live together through mediation, conduct of agitations to enable women workers get equal wages as men, bringing about increase in wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and procuring educational scholarships to the children of beedi workers through the Beedi Workers Welfare Board.

V. Mary Victor, president of the federation, welcomed the gathering. S. Arulappan, Financial Administrator of the Vellore Catholic Diocese, P. Amudha, National Service Scheme Programme Officer of Auxilium College, and Rani, secretary, Diocesan Women's Service Committee, spoke.

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