India\u2019s parliament passed a landmark bill Thursday that will reserve a third of its seats in the lower house and state assemblies for women, in a major win for rights groups that have for decades campaigned for better gender representation in politics. <\/p>\n
A total of 215 lawmakers from the upper house voted in favor of the bill, which was introduced by prime minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government in a special parliamentary session on Tuesday. It was approved by the lower house on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cA historic moment in our country\u2019s democratic journey!\u201d Modi wrote on Twitter after its approval. \u201cWith the passing of this bill, the representation of women power will be strengthened and a new era of their empowerment will begin.\u201d <\/p>\n
Six attempts to pass the bill, first introduced in 1996, have failed, at times due to strong disapproval from some lawmakers. <\/p>\n
In India, the world\u2019s largest democracy of 1.4 billion people, women make up nearly half of the country\u2019s 950 million registered voters but only 15% of lawmakers in parliament and 10% in state assemblies. <\/p>\n
Despite being voted through, the implementation of the quota could take years as it depends on the redrawing of electoral constituencies, which will happen after the completion of India\u2019s once-in-a-decade census. <\/p>\n
That huge census project was meant to take place in 2021, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and has been stalled ever since. <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, the bill\u2019s passage in parliament will be seen as a further boost to Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of national elections next year. <\/p>\n
While India has made progress on women\u2019s issues in recent years, it remains a deeply patriarchal country and has some of poorest participation numbers for women in politics. <\/p>\n
It has, since its independence in 1947, had one female prime minister. India Gandhi served as the country\u2019s leader twice before her assassination in 1984. <\/p>\n
India\u2019s current President, Droupadi Murmu, who was appointed to the position last year became only the second woman to take the seat. <\/p>\n\n
India\u2019s parliament passed a landmark bill Thursday that will reserve a third of its seats in the lower house and state assemblies for women, in a major win for rights groups that have for decades campaigned for better gender representation in politics. A total of 215 lawmakers from the upper house voted in favor of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}