New Delhi: While Rwanda, a small East African
nation, tops the list of nations across the world for having
the maximum representation of women in Parliament, India ranks
a poor 100th and falls below many conservative Islamic
countries.
Placed 100th in the order, India, which boasts of being
the largest democracy in the world, has only 10.8 per cent
representation of women in the Lok Sabha with 59 out of 545
members as women. In the Rajya Sabha, India has only nine per
cent women with only 21 women out of a total of 233 members.
The Women`s Reservation Bill is pending in Parliament for
over a year and a half now. The Bill was first drafted in
1996.
The Rajya Sabha has already passed it on March 9, 2010,
but the Lok Sabha is yet to take it up. The Bill envisages
reservation of 33 per cent for women in Parliament.
As per the list of World and Regional Averages of Women in
Parliament, available at the Regional Seminar on Asian
Parliaments, India`s ranking on this front falls even below
its neighbours like Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and
troubled Iraq and Afghanistan.
While Nepal with 33.2 per cent women representation is
ranked 17th in the list of World and regional averages of
women in Parliament, strife-torn Afghanistan and Iraq are also
ranked higher than India at 32nd and 38th rank, having 27.3
per cent and 25.5 per cent women representation in their lower
houses.
PTI
