Unicef study says women make better netas

RESERVATION FOR women in panchayats has helped in bringing all-round development to the villages, particularly for children, according to a UNICEF report released on Tuesday. The report comes at a time when a political consensus continues to elude a bill to reserve 33 per cent seats for women in Parliament.

Published on: Dec 13, 2006, 02:33:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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RESERVATION FOR women in panchayats has helped in bringing all-round development to the villages, particularly for children, according to a UNICEF report released on Tuesday. The report comes at a time when a political consensus continues to elude a bill to reserve 33 per cent seats for women in Parliament.

Lauding India’s efforts in investing in women’s leadership, the report – ‘The State of the World’s Children 2007’ -- quotes a study in 165 villages of West Bengal, which showed that participation of women in village councils had a positive impact.

In these villages, investment in drinking water doubled, visits by government health workers became more frequent, more girl children started going to school, and the roads showed 20 per cent improvement.

A survey of 100 villages in Rajasthan found that a village having a woman pradhan had more children immunised, saw higher participation of girl child in schools and better health facilities for women.

The UNICEF report, pitching for more women legislators, gives examples from across the world. It says higher women participation in legislatures has improved the welfare of children and women. In Argentina, where 15 per cent of the legislators are women, 78 per cent of the bills related to women issues were initiated by women parliamentarians.

“Issues of importance to women and children may not reach parliamentary agendas without the backing of women legislators,” the report says.

It recommends increased participation of women in politics, although it adds that the majority of people consider men as better politicians.

On India, the report says that the number of women in the Lok Sabha rose to 8.3 per cent in 2004 from 7.3 per cent in 1996 -- but still it is a lot lower than that of neighbours China (20.3 per cent), Pakistan (21.3 per cent) and Bangladesh (14.8 per cent).
cchauhan@hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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