The ruling party at the centre namely the Indian National Congress certainly takes the cake if not the entire bakery when it comes to tokenisms pertaining to the fairer sex, what makes it all the more interesting or coincidental is the fact that these tokenisms find a place in the annual budget and see the light of the day on Women's Day........
The Union finance minister Shri P.Chidambaram announced two supposedly women friendly initiatives or announcements in his budget speech a little over three hours ago and touted these as a measure of the esteemed status that the hapless womenfolk of this country enjoy in both his ans well as his legions of party men and women's eyes....
What are these tokenisms or measures?????one: the launching of a public sector bank that will be meant exclusively for women; the bank will become operational by October 2013 and will be manned by women alone, the finance minister even went to the extent of extending an invitation to all his fellow parliamentarians and inviting them to grace the opening of this women only bank........
Second: the union finance minister also announced the setting up of a new fund called the "Nirbhaya" fund; this proposed fund shall be exclusively meant for the initiation of safety and security related measures and is being touted as an earth shattering initiative that denotes the respect and esteem that women enjoy in the eyes of the ruling dispensation.........
The very same finance minister and his equally illustrious (?) counterpart, the union finance minister however woefully failed to make any noise whatsoever on the more relevant and necessary issues of police reforms, filling up of the vacant posts in the police forces both in the nation's capital as well as the numerous states and union territories, setting up of fast track courts exclusively meant to handle crimes against women and the recruitment of an adequate number of judges to man the same and so and so forth........
One really wonders whether these mere tokenisms will have any bearing whatsoever on the increasing tendency of committing the worst kind of crimes imaginable against the supposedly weaker sex and whether the same will play any role in ushering in a feeling of safety and security amongst their ranks...........
A concerted and conjoined effort involving all sections of the society, police, judiciary as well as political dispensation is the only way forward and such efforts are the need of the hour not mere tokenisms, platitudes, homilies and holier than thou pronouncements.........
Sadly, these tokenisms and futile gestures have over a period of time come to symbolise our ruling dispensation and democracy as we have come to know it, one has little or no choice other than accepting these tokenisms and empty rhetoric with a pinch of salt and getting on with the more serious issue of making this country a far more friendlier, safer and far more secure place for 50% of it's population...........
The Union finance minister Shri P.Chidambaram announced two supposedly women friendly initiatives or announcements in his budget speech a little over three hours ago and touted these as a measure of the esteemed status that the hapless womenfolk of this country enjoy in both his ans well as his legions of party men and women's eyes....
What are these tokenisms or measures?????one: the launching of a public sector bank that will be meant exclusively for women; the bank will become operational by October 2013 and will be manned by women alone, the finance minister even went to the extent of extending an invitation to all his fellow parliamentarians and inviting them to grace the opening of this women only bank........
Second: the union finance minister also announced the setting up of a new fund called the "Nirbhaya" fund; this proposed fund shall be exclusively meant for the initiation of safety and security related measures and is being touted as an earth shattering initiative that denotes the respect and esteem that women enjoy in the eyes of the ruling dispensation.........
The very same finance minister and his equally illustrious (?) counterpart, the union finance minister however woefully failed to make any noise whatsoever on the more relevant and necessary issues of police reforms, filling up of the vacant posts in the police forces both in the nation's capital as well as the numerous states and union territories, setting up of fast track courts exclusively meant to handle crimes against women and the recruitment of an adequate number of judges to man the same and so and so forth........
One really wonders whether these mere tokenisms will have any bearing whatsoever on the increasing tendency of committing the worst kind of crimes imaginable against the supposedly weaker sex and whether the same will play any role in ushering in a feeling of safety and security amongst their ranks...........
A concerted and conjoined effort involving all sections of the society, police, judiciary as well as political dispensation is the only way forward and such efforts are the need of the hour not mere tokenisms, platitudes, homilies and holier than thou pronouncements.........
Sadly, these tokenisms and futile gestures have over a period of time come to symbolise our ruling dispensation and democracy as we have come to know it, one has little or no choice other than accepting these tokenisms and empty rhetoric with a pinch of salt and getting on with the more serious issue of making this country a far more friendlier, safer and far more secure place for 50% of it's population...........
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