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• Does Sachin Tendulkar deserve the Bharat Ratna?
  By Gulu Ezekiel  Trust our politicians to jump on the bandwagon and bask in reflected glory after Sachin Tendulkar’s latest world record feat. With both the ruling Congress party in Maharashtra and the Shiv Sena endorsing awarding the Bharat Ratna to Tendulkar, we will no doubt see many more politicians adding their support to this movement. Now [...] […]

News and Gossip from Bollywood and Hollywood

• Oscars 2010…
  The Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night was one enormous Hollywood event. It had not one but, two hosts- Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, 10 best pictures nominations instead of five and two tributes to dead film luminaries. Oscar has always been acclaimed for capturing the sentiments and imagination of the masses. The event opened with [...] […]

Media Bias towards Congress Shocking, Unhealthy | Times Now, NDTV

The Rajya Sabha passed the historic Women’s Reservation Bill today – and I was following the discussions on the same on two of India’s leading English language channels: Times Now and NDTV. It wasn’t that I noticed their bias towards the Congress (I) for the first time today, but the way they were ga-gaing the Congress party today, especially the Congress President Sonia Gandhi was more than a little shocking.

Thousands of unsuspecting viewers of Times Now were being cajoled by their newsreader-in-chief Arnab Goswami into believing that the Women’s Reservation Bill was a gift from Sonia Gandhi to India’s women. No, I am not doubting Mrs. Gandhi’s efforts in getting the bill passed, nor would I have taken offence to this ‘gift’ had I not found Arnab and the others in the media trying to convince me that it was Sonia Gandhi’s solo effort that helped see the Bill go through the Upper House of the Parliament.

What happened today was otherwise a fine example of the best traditions of parliametary democracy. India’s two main opposite parties – BJP and the Left, who otherwise are bitter rivals of Congress, voted en masse with the Congress to help the historic bill that will guarantee women 1/3rd reservation in the Lok Sabha, pass through. The BJP in fact passed a three line whip asking its members to vote for the bill.

Arnab Goswami and his counterparts in the other majore English channel, NDTV should have been heaping kudos on the BJP and the left for letting their differences with the government aside and helping the important document pass through. What we ended up seeing was Ravi Shankar Prasad and Arun Jaitley of the BJP being asked to congratulate Sonia Gandhi on her achievement!

The journos should have remembered the fact that the Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced long before Sonia Gandhi had even entered politics. The BJP had during his tenure introduced the same in the Lok Sabha but then the Congress had not supported it. Now suddenly, they are trying to portray the Congress as the messiah of India’s women.

Classes for tommorow’s MPs

Women bill slated to be passed in the parliment

India has some 33 crore registered women voters. The Women bill, which proposes 33% reservation for women in the parliament was first introduced by the H.D. Deve Gowda government in September 1996. Since then the bill has witnessed various twists and has still ended up being postponed forever. The bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 2008. The panel, reconstituted in May 2009 under the congress MP Jayanthi  Natarajan. The final report was submitted in December 2009, it was finally cleared by the Union Cabinet on February 25 this year.

With the women’s reservation bill slated to be passed in the parliament, The government of India and United Nation Development has come up with a ‘Democracy fund’. They have collaborated with the NGO Centre for Social Research (CSR). It is an umbrella group that works for women and advocates various gender friendly policies.

 In consideration with the upcoming reservation bill, MP and such organizations are organizing training workshops and online courses, to equip women, calling it a “ pipeline of leadership”. Working to create a base of women ready to fight election and “upscale the level of leadership”. Under the program 30 capacity- building workshops were held under the scheme from October 2009 to January 2010. They targeted women from the higher panchayat levels, ones who had tried to fight elections, and municipal officers. In all, a thousand women have been trained in states in states like Bihar, Chandigarh and Haryana. These courses are playing a vital role in training the women who will represent the 33 crore rest. And ensure that they just don’t land up becoming proxy political heads. They teach women the intricate functioning of the electoral system and impart the knowledge of our political functioning.Tomorrow’s women MP wont just have the right , but also the knowledge to represent her constituency.