Thaindian News

New Delhi, March 8 (IANS) India joined in the celebrations of International Women’s Day with the rest of the world Tuesday with much gaiety and fanfare. However, the shocking incident of a young college girl being shot dead in broad daylight in the naional capital once again raised serious questions about the safety of women.

Radhika Tanwar, a second year student, was shot near her college in south Delhi at around 9.30 a.m. She succumbed to her injuries at the Safdarjung hospital.

Reacting to the incident, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said: “It is a matter of shame for each one of us to think that the capital city of India is considered the most unsafe. It is not just the police, the society should also take some moral responsibility”.

The Northeast Support Centre and Helpline launched a report, which highlighted that women, especially from the northeast, were unsafe in the national capital with the rising number of crimes everyday.

However, there was much to cheer as well as lawmakers - men and women, ruling and opposition - pitched strongly for one-third representation for women in parliament and state legislatures.

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar even recited a couplet on a bird who is unable to fly despite its wings and a beckoning sky. “Pankh bhi hai, akaash bhi hai, phir yeh na ud pane ki majboori kyon (Wings are there as also the sky, then why the helplessness that we can’t fly),” the speaker said.

The women and child development ministry saluted the spirit of ordinary women doing extraordinary work in fighting odds by giving away the Stree Shakti Puraskar 2010 in the capital to celebrate the day.

Pottabathini Padmavathi, one of the winners from Andhra Pradesh, was awarded for not allowing her disability to become a hindrance and instead learning music passionately and becoming an artiste.

Brightening up the day for their women colleagues, male staffers in a number of offices in the city also threw impromptu parties. “It was nothing major, just chips and coke, but as they say, it’s the thought that counts! The impromptu party was definitely a high point of the day,” Sharmila Sharma, an office goer said.

In Andhra Pradesh, the celebrations took the form of cutting of a cake by women ministers and legislators in the assembly complex in the presence of Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and other leaders.

The day was of special significance for 46 year-old Surekha Yadav, who manned the Mumbai-Pune intercity train - the Deccan Queen - for the first time in Maharashtra, bringing the train from Pune to Mumbai Tuesday morning.

Yadav, who has many firsts to her credit and beccame Asia’s first motorwoman in 2000, said: “I am proud of my achievements.”

Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan reiterated the state government’s plans to introduce 50 percent reservation for women in the local government bodies.

“We will introduce the bill of giving 50 percent reservation to women in local government bodies in the ensuing budget session of the state legislature,” he said while speaking to women journalists.

In Karnataka, the state government held a function and honoured several women for their achievement in various fields.

The Delhi government also launched ‘Aawaz Uthao’, a grassroots level women’s collective which will devise strategies to address the safety concerns of women.

In Meghalaya, which is a matrilineal society, the Directorate of Social Welfare in collaboration with the Meghalaya State Women Commission held a function where it was stressed that while it was a good thing that equal rights were given to men and women, rising cases of crime against women in the recent past were becoming a cause of concern.

In Kerala, hundreds of women got together at the Martyr’s Column in the state capital in memory of Soumya, a 23-year-old woman, who was thrown out of a moving train near Thrissur and later hit by a stone on her head and raped by a proclaimed thief last month.

Hundreds of women dressed in black got together and plays were staged. The day-long programme was titled “Soumyanjali”.

Voicing their angst against discrimination of Dalit and tribal women, hundreds of women came together in a rally in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.

In Goa, a leading women’s group voiced their concern over the growing number of casinos in the state, saying that they promote a lifestyle which “promotes alcohol and denigration of women”.