Women’s Empowerment in India’s Parliament and Government in March 2011

Parliamentary democracies like India that practice one person one vote should ideally have people’s representatives in elected bodies such that the Parliament and the government reflect the gender composition of the population which is roughly 50-50. The International Women’s Day being celebrated on March 8 each year has prompted me to look into the facts which reveal that India has a big gap between the ideal and the reality on March 8, 2011. India’s Parliament has two houses: the Lower House (Lok Sabha) and the Upper House (Rajya Sabha).

Lok Sabha consists of 552 members of which 60 (almost 11 percent) are women; 59 represent 16 of the 28 states and 1 represents 1 of the 7 Union territories.

The state-wise distribution of the 60 seats is as follows:
State/Territory Seats Percentage
Uttar Pradesh 12 (20 percent)
West Bengal 7 (12 percent)
Madhya Pradesh 6 (10 percent)
Andhra 5 (8 percent)
Bihar 5 (8 percent)
Gujarat 4 (7 percent)
Punjab 4 (7 percent)
Chhattisgarh 3 (5 percent)
Maharashtra 3 (5 percent)
Rajasthan 3 (5 percent)
Assam 2 (3 percent)
Haryana 2 (3 percent)
Delhi 1 (2 percent)
Karnataka 1 (2 percent))
Meghalaya 1 (2 percent)
Tamil Nadu 1 (2 percent)
Total 60 (100 percent)

Political party affiliation of the 60 women parliamentarians in Lok Sabha is as follows:
Political Party Seats Percentage
Indian National Congress 24 (40 percent)
Bharatiya Janata Party 13 (22 percent)
All IndiaTrinamool Congress 4 (7 percent)
Bahujan Samaj Party 4 (7 percent)
Samajwadi Party 3 (5 percent)
Janata Dal (United) 2 (3 percent)
Nationalist Congress Party 2 (3 percent)
Shiromani Akali Dal 2 (3 percent)
Communist Party of India (Marxist) 1 (2 percent)
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam 1 (2 percent)
Independent 1 (2 percent)
Rastriya Lok Dal 1 (2 percent)
Shiv Sena 1 (2 percent)
Telangana Rashtra Samithi 1 (2 percent)
Total 60 (100percent)

The state-wise representation by a total of 26 women from 15 of the 35 states and union territories in the Rajya Sabha is as follows:
State/Territory Seats Percentage
Madhya Pradesh 3 (12 percent)
Tamil Nadu 3 (12 percent)
Andhra Pradesh 2 (8 percent)
Himachal Pradesh 2 (8 percent)
Orissa 2 (8 percent)
Assam 1 (4 percent)
Chhattisgarh 1 (4 percent)
Gujarat 1 (4 percent)
Jharkhand 1 (4 percent)
Kerala 1 (4 percent)
Punjab 1 (4 percent)
Rajasthan 1 (4 percent)
Tripura 1 (4 percent)
Uttar Pradesh 1 (4 percent)
West Bengal 1 (4 percent)
Nominated 4 (15 percent)
Total 26 (100)

Political party affiliation of 26 women members of Rajya Sabha is as follows:
Political Party Seats Percentage
Indian National Congress 11 (42 percent)
Bharatiya Janata Party 5 (19 percent)
Communist Party of India (Marxist) 3 (12 percent)
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam 2 (8 percent)
Biju Janata Dal 1 (4 percent)
Telugu Desam Party 1 (4 percent)
Nominated by the President of India 3 (12 percent)
Total 26 (100 percent)

States and territories of (1) Andaman and Nicobar Islands, (2) Arunachal Pradesh, (3) Chandigarh, (4) Dadra and Nagar Haveli, (5) Daman and Diu, (6) Goa, (7) Jammu and Kashmir, (8) Lakshadweep, (9) Manipur, (10) Mizoram, (11) Nagaland, (12) Puducherry, (13) Sikkim, (14) Uttarakhand do not have any women member in India’ Parliament.

It is estimated that some 11 percent of all corporate chiefs India are women.

Clearly women’s representation at the top of the governing structures is low with 10 percent of seats compared with 90 percent representation made by men. Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party dominate women parliamentarians compared with other parties. The states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal stand out among the states with more women members of Parliament.

Many questions come to mind foremost among them being why there is such a low percentage of seats held by women, how it can be improved and comparison of India with other countries in terms of percentage of women in top authority and decision making positions in society. These questions will be addressed in future blogs.

It is noteworthy that India’s President, Speaker of Lok Sabha, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and president of the Indian National Congress party are all women. There are 3 women in a Union Cabinet of 35 Ministers, 1 of 6 Ministers with Independent Charge, 3 of 37 Ministers of State in Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s government. There are no Supreme Court judges. There are 3 Governors/Lt. Governors/Administrators of 35 states and territories, and 2 Chief Ministers of 29 states and territories. Overall women occupy about 10 percent of all top political positions in India. It is a long march towards 50 percent.

The entire process has to be streamlined and strengthened with financial support and training to develop leaders. The present quota system at the local level based on gender, caste, etc. is largely abused by men.

School curriculum, colleges, and MLAs, MPs not connected to men leaders have to be developed through genuine education and skills with scholarships, training programs and centers of study, research, degrees like Bachelor and Master of Public Admin, Leadership, etc.

Institutions and programs are needed but men leaders like the PM also have to give a chance to women and put them on top! 10 percent is too low. It will take much longer to have up stream flow of women leaders from grassroots to the top. Even many of the present district level women leaders, MLAs and MPs are relatives of men leaders. It is much easier and faster to put shining examples in the cabinet, ministers, commission members, Vice Chancellors, some professors, civil leaders at district levels, etc.

There are only about 10 most popular women leaders today as examples to 600 million women in India- Pratibha Patil, Sonia Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, Girija Vyas, Jayalalithaa, Mayawati, Sushma Swaraj, Meira Kumar, Najma Heptulla, Kiran Bedi, Shabna Azmi, Hema Malini, and Brinda Karat, along with a handful of another 50 or so at the national level. Majority of these are there because of their father, husband or another relative.

It is a waste of potential national resource not to have more women leaders and a pipeline of future leaders in business, government, politics, and science. On this International Women’s Day, best wishes to women in the next year and all the years to follow.

Interactive Discussion of India's Budget for 2011-2012

Interactive Discussion on Union Budget 2011-12

Interactive Discussion on Union Budget 2011-12
The Consulate General of India, New York organised an interactive panel discussion on the Indian Union Budget on 28th February 2011, at the Consulate Ballroom. Representatives of financial institutions, academicians from various universities, company executives, media persons, and community members attended the lively interactive discussion.
Dr. A.M. Gondane, Deputy Consul General, welcoming the guests introduced broad outlines of the Budget and the Economic Survey. He stated that the Indian economy had come out of the sluggishness consequent to the global financial crisis in 2007 and was on the path of recovery with achievement of 8.6% growth during the current financial year and is projected to grow at slightly over 9% in the year 2011-12. He said that India’s GDP during the current year is estimated to be Rs.7877947 crore (US$ 1.75 trillion) at current market price. He stated that the Budget aimed at consolidation of the fiscal position of the Government bringing the deficit to 4.6% in 2011-12 and 3.5% in year 2013-14, encompassed inclusiveness with increased social spending on education, health and rural development, and would impart developmental orientation by way of increased spending on infrastructure, Bharat Nirman and the other vital sector of the economy.
Dr. Rajiv Sobti, MD, Chief Investment Officer, Nomura office at the World Trade Center, New York stated that the Budget was balanced with several vital sectors focused for growth. He stated that some explicit measures for developing the secondary market in derivatives would give a fillip to investments by financial institutions and funds from abroad. He appreciated the opening of investments in mutual fund by foreigners. He stated that bond and debt market opening was imperative for increased flow of funds from abroad to meet the gap between investments desired and domestic resources. He emphasized that real interest rates in India were low hence long term capital was not coming into India.
Prof. Surendra K. Kaushik, Professor of Finance, Lubin School of Business, Pace University stated that though the outlays on social sectors – health and education had been increased substantially, yet, the expenditure was not enough to meet the growing needs of the young demographics in India. Increased allocation amounting to 48.5% of total plan allocation for infrastructure was indicative of the focus of Government on development of infrastructure. He said that the taxation rate in India was rather low as compared to the United States and Indian tax collection was less than 10% of the GDP. He appreciated the exemption given to senior citizens over 60 years and another category of senior citizens over 80 years which was anticipating the future reality. Prof. Kaushik appreciated tax reforms underway including Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Direct Tax Code (DTC) which were under discussion with several stakeholders including the State Governments and the intention of the Finance Minister to bring a Constitutional Amendment Bill to facilitate this was a very welcome step.
Mr. Sarav Periasami, President and CEO of PERI Software Solutions Inc. emphasized the importance of education and the necessity to bring about clarity for inviting foreign investment in education sector in India. He appreciated the increased allocation of funds by 24% over last year. He said that financial resources were not the only constraints but clarity in regulation would create a favorable climate for developing this very vital sector. He said that increase in Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) by 0.5% will affect business sentiment. He also said that levying service tax on other services or bringing in more items under the excise would also be a dampener for business sentiments.
All panelists felt that though growth was an imperative for raising the level of living standards, control of inflation was also very important. Inflation was detrimental to fixed income and lower income groups and supply constraints should be progressively removed.
In the lively question-answer session, comments about current account deficit, declining FDI, comparison of growth in China and India, encouragement to innovation, contribution of non-resident or persons of Indian origin abroad, etc. were responded to by the panelists.
The lively interactive discussion was followed by dinner.
Event From Date : Feb-28,2011 Event To Date : Feb-28,2011

Equity in Education in India

Equity in Education in India
Equity is a simple sounding ideal in its meanings as evenhandedness, fairness, and impartiality at the hands of an individual, a family, a government, a society, a country or the whole world. But it is a very difficult concept to practice to achieve its intended goals and targets. So when Kapil Sibal, a lawyer by training, formulates India’s educational policy in his capacity as the Minister for Human Resources Development (HRD) most likely he has all those meanings of the concept in mind and perhaps even more as justice and justness of the education system of India. Since the minister did not elaborate on the meaning of equity let’s assume he means evenhandedness, fairness and impartiality.
Now comes the difficult task of practical use of the concept: Does equity mean spending education budget equally on education among all states; between primary, secondary and higher education; between arts, commerce and science; between third, second and first division and distinction students; between boys and girls; between poor, middle class and rich students; between IITS, IIMs, national and state universities; and between urban and rural universities and colleges? Is there a normative government policy on all these and other similar claimants including caste, religion, income and geography based variables to make the government spending on education equitable? Then there is the whole range of issues and criteria regarding the treatment of the private non-profit and profit sectors that are a significant part of the Indian education sector.
Since there are no criteria set out in policy to define equity, other than the admission quota systems and court ordered decisions, actual budget allocations for the expansion of the system envisaged by government gives some sense of what the policy implicitly considers evenhanded and fair education policy.
All one can hope for in the policy is that a large number of possible criteria mentioned above have been considered in arriving at a fair education policy for the ones for whom it is intended-namely, present and future students and the impact they will have on the future progress of the country and its prosperity across all segments.
Is creating a certain number of additional national universities, IITs and IIMs the best use of scarce but expanded budgetary resources for education from a national perspective or expanding and improving currently existing institutions a better policy choice for the country? Perhaps the education system can be expanded both in terms of new institutions and existing institutions taking into account the possible fairness criteria enumerated above.
As we have argued in the essay on access to education, expansion of the entire education system should be the most important policy goal as it directly addresses the equity issue as well by opening up opportunities for more students in each age group- primary, secondary and higher education, to be able to get education. So fairness or distributive justice in education is important to avoid extreme abundance of educational resources for a few and lack of adequate and reasonable educational facilities for most.
As we look for empirical evidence of successful knowledge-based societies, the ones that have done better and made more and faster progress generally have been built on a more equitable education system. Some of the examples are the United States, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, France, Japan, Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, South Korea and most recently Ireland. Great Britain followed an elitist policy and India inherited some of it even as it has expanded the education system since 1947. Britain opened up and expanded its education system from about the mid-1980s during the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and since then.
It is good that the government of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh educated at Punjab University as well as at Cambridge and Oxford in Britain and his education minister Kapil Sibal educated in Delhi University and Harvard University in America are not only putting more budgetary resources into education but thinking of doing it in an equitable way.
It is a sound approach for a sustainable education system and a sustainable economy and society while avoiding the extremes of haves and have-nots in education and therefore in the sharing of the GDP and incomes generally for an overall distributive justice and a just society.