The empowered Indian women

I wonder how to define empowered women in India...who has no legislative shield against sexual harassment at workplace or the one when killed for dowry is not even treated at par with a person who is murdered, and punished under sec 302 of IPC with death,life imprisonment for life.But is treated under a separate sec 304B for which the punishment is 7 years of imprisonment, which may be extended to life imprisonment (special concession offer to the murderers with free gift of dowry).
The other day I was watching a television debate for introducing an anti sexual harassment at workplace bill in the parliament(the draft bill is loitering for past 2 years without being tabled)the hon. parliamentarian was of the view that amendment and insertion of new clause in IPC is sufficient, for the reason that, a new bill may be misused by some women, interestingly the host of the show was airing his similar fears.The women lawyer was trying to drive the point, that the implementation of law needs to be stringent and all laws are susceptible to misuse, but, that does not mean that the society should not have laws.I can't help, but think, how the male mentality in India cannot hide its bias against women even at such forums. And how could they justify the existing exploitation and plight of the working women on the mere presumption, that in some exceptional cases the provisions may be misused.

Woman's Day

Recently we have celebrated "The Woman's Day" and felicitated some women achievers.While watching one of such program on the television where they felicitated many actresses and businesswomen, ad mist many glamorous dance sequences by various females. I believe it is the most effective way of brushing aside the prime gender issues by, portraying the best women can do : dance and entertain!!!This is painful in the country where the Sex ratio(female per 1000 males) is as low as 933 and sex ratio for age group 0-6 even lower,927.Crime against women is all time high. The number of crimes against women in India in 2002 was 1,47,678 and the rate of crime per 1,00,000 population was 14.1. Percentage variation of Crimes against Women in 2002 over 2001 was 2.7, and Percentage variation of sexual harassment, rape and indecent representation of women in 2002 over 2001 were as high as 4.2, 1.8 and 138.4 respectively.Dowry demand has grown with time. Dowry deaths in 2001 were as high as 6851.I am sure all the actresses and others present at such gathering were not only, not aware of the basic facts, but in all probability were not interested either.