New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) Low female literacy rate, gender gap, low life expectancy and a range of other women-centric issues which are facing India can only be addressed if more women enter politics, said an NGO here Monday.
Working thus towards the agenda of encouraging more women from the grassroots level to enter the political domain, the Centre for Social Research (CSR), an NGO, organised a workshop for aspiring women politicians in the capital.

Ranjana Kumari, chairperson of the NGO, said: “Major discrepancies in the sex ratio, literacy rate and life expectancy rate of women can only be addressed when there are more women in decision making bodies”.

“This workshop that we organised, therefore, brought together 60 aspiring women politicians, to know more about the Indian Constitution, political set up, governance, gender issues, women in politics and the issue of 33 percent reservation for women in parliament,” she added.

The workshop was a part of the CSR’s United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) project which aims at addressing the gender gap as well as the challenges faced by women in Indian politics.

“Under this project, the CSR is training nearly 1,000 women leaders to contest in state and national elections. At the end of the project, political parties will be made aware about this pool of trained women,” Kumari said.

“Key political parties shall be encouraged to ensure voluntary quotas within parties to ensure gender balance. They will also be sensitized and lobbied with to ensure a smooth passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill,” she added.

Among the women who had been trained in the CSR project was Maya, a village leader from Uttar Pradesh.

Thirty-five years of age, Maya had studied till class seven in her village in Uttar Pradesh before she was married off at a tender age of 12.

“Life was not easy for me. Even after becoming the panchayat leader, I had to face a lot of challenges. This training programme however made me aware of my rights and gave me the confidence to implement my duties,” she said.