 This is also electronic and that's also electronic. So I have sent you the link if you can send it also. That link has to be there if you would see that the link is not forthcoming as the way it should come for the Amazon. I will create it on my own and then I will share it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's all. Okay. So we are about to go like good evening everyone. Good evening. Happy Shiv Rathri and happy women's day. As they say that the day of Shiv as well as women, they are every day it's only that we just connote one particular day on that. And to give semblance with these two mega events I will say, which we all celebrate with such rejoice etc. There couldn't be a better way to celebrate, understand the gender today and tomorrow. Just as Roshan Dalvi, a former judge from Bombay High Court. Just as Manju Goyal, a former judge from Delhi High Court and just a similar from Bombay High Court. And it's not for the first time that we are connecting on this platform of Beyond Law CLC as well as on different platforms we have connected. And those who have been watching them or following them, you would always find that knowledge is not restricted only to the respectives of gender, but beyond that. I would say that it has more semblance with our topic of Beyond Law, what we call as the YouTube channel. And once they are three big stalwarts who can take things forward. I will just straight away ask Roshan Dalvi who has also written so many books. And today she will be taking cue from her book of Trials and Tramps, which is readily available on the Amazon link. We will share it on our YouTube link as well as on the WhatsApp group. I will just ask Roshan Dalvi to take the battle and we are just waiting for having the insights from such good speakers and persons who are respected in the society at large. Good evening friends. It's a happy day. But it's also a day for introspection. Friends, women have reached the top in all professions in all careers and in all walks of life at many, many places. But these are lacks of women that have reached the top and there are millions who have not been able to. It is for them that we should have the women's day. It is okay to celebrate our successes. But it is also good to think and appreciate of the trials that women have gone through to achieve that and that others are still going through and who have not achieved that. Now friends, there have been various instances and I have enumerated about 100 of them in my book where women have succeeded, achieved and triumphed. In COVID we found that the largest exponent of what women are and what they go through came out. It was that even in Columbia University women were adversely affected by COVID. They had their children to care for and they could not even in the research section give as many articles and papers as they did before and as the men were given. In COVID we saw that in so many countries, led by women, COVID was better organized and managed. People derided it when it happened, when it so happened in countries like Finland, Iceland, etc. that they are small countries and therefore it was fine. But Germany is a large country and Merkel did exceptionally well. And if you know, even the reports said that Bangladesh did better than India and it was led by women, a woman, a woman who is still in power. So this is so much for the politics but throughout the length and breadth of India, so we've had this at the CH and Glacier, a woman leads a man's battalion. And in ISRO there were so many women scientists that we saw and the idea of the mass taking off and succeeding when it had failed before was the idea of a woman. A woman of how she made puris, that is what we saw in that film and that is what we always understand about the heat that should be transmitted, not really with masculine strength but with feminine agility. So friends, when we talk about this day and just merely wish everyone a happy women's day, it's not enough. And it is not right that we don't think of others. So we do vote today. Thank you. I am really glad that you have set the tone for the meeting today. That's a wonderful way to start this meeting on such a positive note. In fact, today two things that came to my mind and I was reading the newspaper was the way women were coming out and making a mark for themselves. Like you rightly said, there were hundreds of successes but there are a number of unsung little people who are making a market difference to this movement that we are trying to do. Today in the paper I read about two very interesting women. The border roads officer, the lady, laying the most roads and the most critically difficult landscape in the Syahachan Glacier. 42-year-old young engineer would make the difference. Then in the district that I live in, there are a lot of tribal areas and people do not have access to roads. This young mother who had to walk, see the hills, donated all the money that she had to start a home. And that would make a difference for all the little women that you said who are not really achieving the success. It is these women, these unsung heroes who we should celebrate today. We may have a Sudha Murthy today, but we also have, like you rightly said, the other side of the coin. A lieutenant, Serena John, 1979 Muttama was fighting a case where she was almost disqualified from the IFF. Almost 40 years later, a lieutenant, Serena Jones, had to be a taxi-latch combination. Because she was dismissed from service nearly because she was married. Like you rightly said, today is the day we should all get together and do something about this wonderful day. I fully agree with both of you. Now that we have received equality, we have obtained equality in the rule books and in the law. And everybody accepts the need for equality and everybody is willing to do their bit in giving equality to women. Now the ball is in the court of the women. Now they have to make the best of it and they have to avail of the opportunities and show that they are worth the equality that has been given to them. So what they have to do is to select an application, select a way of life which they want to live and they have to groom themselves to reach the excellence. One factor that cannot be ignored is that marriage is the most biggest influencing factor in a woman's life. And when the woman is seeking marriage what we find is that what counts most is not her merit but her beauty. Because if you open the newspapers you see the women are advertising to say that I am beautiful and men are saying I want a beautiful wife. So men are actually not looking for meritorious women and women are not projecting themselves as meritorious. Now therefore looking good is high on the agenda of women. While she is busy making herself beautiful her male counterparts are taking those greatly forward to go ahead in their career. So with this traditional difference between the outlook for men and women I agree with Justice Roshan Dalvi. Yes but whilst the women are doing that and this is correct for an average family in our country what is success of a woman is what we must understand. How do you define success? There are several women who have not made it to the top and then names are not known. But they have done some things in their lives which have affected many careers many lives etc. Of course a woman at home also is a woman who works. I would not say that if a woman is a homemaker she does not work and I would not say that because she does not have money or earn money she is not worth the money. But when we are talking about success stories of today we come across so many women who have kind of made so much of impression on our minds. One such woman was from Andhra Pradesh who is now called the queen of transmission towers. She used to climb up on transmission towers because she was an engineer and she would repair or make amends with whatever went wrong with the transmission towers. People were jeering at her and now they call her the queen of transmission towers. Similarly there was an engineer who actually made certain instruments in Kerala to go with her father during Covid on coconut trees. And she made it easier for her father who was a coconut puller to pull the coconuts from the trees. Now there are so many such cases. There is a case of rise, cultivation and revolution and there are cases where women have out shone during the most adversarial times. These are the real heroes of today. I will take that forward from where you left off. To me today is an important day because you also have Siddharth Murthy nominated as a member of parliament because of the outstanding achievements in that period. But at the same time like you rightly said ma'am there are people who are unnoticed but who have touched thousands of life. And my favourite example of a very very strong woman is Banwari Devi. Now this is a very very tragic case. Banwari Devi was a social worker who was preventing a child marriage. One year old child was about to be given a marriage when she stepped in and stopped it. And for that crime she was raped by five uppercast men. These men were acquitted in a shocking judgment. I had to write up the Supreme Court. Banwari Devi did not get count down. She was not afraid. Despite all the pressure that was mounted on her she is still fought for her rights and I think she is still fighting for her rights. The option of this is the Vishakha case. This is where sexual harassment at workplace was defined by the honour of the Supreme Court. Rules were laid down and now the act has also come into force. Although the judgment was pronounced in 1997 and the act came in 2013. The fine remains that out of this lady's effort to stop the child marriage in Rajasthan millions of working women are today benefited because the law has been laid down by the Supreme Court and it has also become an act. The POSH of the Bosch Act has been called one of these remarkable women. This is Banwari Devi whom we should salute on this day. Well, success, I agree with Justice Roshan is not reaching the top. Now in today's context, in the context of today's topic I think success means reaching the full height of the potential that a woman has and expressing all her capabilities undeterred by all the obstacles that the society presents. Whether as an artist or as a player or even as an industrialist if one is able to go to the position that she is capable of I will call it a success. Not necessarily the winner in the traditional sense but that something that gives her satisfaction and something that we acknowledge as success. Sudha Murthy is coming up again and again so I also thought of Sudha Murthy But it's okay. Sudha Murthy may not have made it like her husband but it is Sudha Murthy which made it for her husband to reach the position that he has and look at the satisfaction writ large on her face. She is happy and she is proud of her husband and all that she did for her husband to reach the top. Now here I have to mention that women have a special price to pay for this success which the Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin said is the price of childbirth. As a woman gives birth to a child and cares for the child for a couple of years she is left out of the race while the others are overtaking her and if this repeats repeatedly she falls behind while others take a march over her. No wonder then that we don't see equal number of women at top although at the bottom we have all the women almost equal like even in our legal profession as the new year begins after the LLB reserves are declared you find large number of women and men have joined the power but as the race passed by the number of women dwindled and accordingly fewer senior advocates fewer principals of colleges fewer CEOs when I see women around me as so successful I think they deserve a special applause because it is their indomitable spirits that despite all these prices that she had to pay she has still made it to the top. And that said friends we must understand where men and women excel they are in different modes and in different styles they excel in the same careers but in different styles a woman for example would be very good in leadership in mentoring in taking forward along with her her juniors or her subordinates or her staff a man would think mainly of profit he would be a very good task master and a very great boss perhaps not a great leader but there are of course many great leaders Khandiji and Nelson Mandela were the greatest leaders of our times and Nelson Mandela had said that we must leap from the back and let the others think that they are in the front so this is how a woman would lead I knew about a story where I mean it's not really a story an incident that happened when a judge in our court who was an administrative judge said that everyone must leave office premises exactly at 5.30 we must have the discipline so you can't say that anybody can leave before but I didn't agree and I allowed my staff to leave before if they wanted and I said that that is not when they think that they should want it but if their work is over they can go home I may be busy but they may not be on that given day so it worked I understand very well in my court because women don't want money they don't want prizes and gifts they want their time they want that is their freedom and that should be the leadership that comes along and in this kind of a mold there are so many women who have achieved that way for example in 9-11 there are many stories of men being told but there is a book Women at Ground Zero and you will realize how many women have done such good heroic jobs on that day which the world has failed to register yes ma'am I agree the lines are getting blurred the boundaries are getting rewritten 9-11 is a classic example of women who went beyond the call of the duty in rescuing people and one story one incident that comes to mind is a beautiful movie called Hidden Figures I don't know how many of you have seen it two black women working in NASA in the 1950s and 60s and 70s there was a lot of racial discrimination and also gender discrimination despite these odds these three women who are actually sitting like Mr. Nelson Mandela said at the back eventually came up with the actual calculations that sent the lunar module out of the orbit and John Glendon asked for not to go around the world there are three times only because of these three women why hidden behind the back not noticed by anybody the most critical element of that mission because of these three women and while I agree with you partly ma'am they are good at you know reading men may be better at reading and men may be better at bosses but I think the lines are getting blurred today you see cases of women willing to fight on the front lines and asking for active duty on the border saying that we are as good as men and I don't think the day is very far off when disparity that we feel is there will not really exist they are good at nurturing they are better at counselling they are better at caring they are better at inspiring I agree but I think the lines are getting blurred and very soon the distinctions will be over I am an optimist so let's see well there are individual traits some people are good at something some people are good at something else there may be some generalization but I think such generalizations are not to be taken very seriously there are men who are kind the women who are rude so all those things are possible particularly if you talk about data and studies they all depend upon a particular sample chosen for the study but yet yet we have to accept that there are certain things in which the women are much better than men particularly when it comes to caring for the little baby who cannot even speak but the mother knows whether the child is hungry whether the child is cold whether the child needs a cover or whether the child needs the arm of the mother so this is something very special which only a woman knows and woman does and sometimes it may be very surprising even to see how does she know about so much about the child who is not communicating men on the other hand want to show that they are brave they are strong and accordingly they are out to show their masculinity whenever it is possible to express their masculinity and in the jobs in which masculinity covers or masculinity helps I just want to say one thing one telling comment that you made about men women being cruel from Yassil Roshan Dalvi's book itself said that women can be cruel and one wonderful comment that ma'am has made in the book about the you know Stowleson incident she said how is it that only the daughters in law get burnt mothers in law and sisters in law never get burnt very telling comment that only the daughters in law get burnt mothers in law and sisters in law never get burnt those are accidents supposedly but anyway while we are celebrating both men and women as gender we must see how we have progressed and what has happened in different aspects one very nice study was a study of group pink and that was in New York no other city in the last recession in America in 2007-2008 people realized actually the statistics realized that it was because the analysts and the people who played the market were only men and they played the market in a given way they did only that but then they realized that if there were women analysts also they would have invested more in insurance, education and healthcare and that kind of recession that struck America would have been milder and there are two books written on that and which I have written about and I have narrated and referred in my book one is Fools gold and one is women of the street the street is Wall Street of course the most telling job in the world they say and there she has mentioned very nicely she has mentioned that men don't have some special genetic code that makes them a better fit to play the market it is simply a matter of education and knowledge so this is how it happens once our mindset is set on the fact that yes we are humans and we have got the same traits because not many have some have and we recognize that then the battle is won because it is when we don't recognize that that you call it stereotyping I don't want to add anything more I will wait for it I will add to what Roshan says we all the time in the courts because I think my audience is also accustomed to the happenings in the courts we all the time think as to how women make a difference and we discussed it with other senior judges and we found that presence of a woman on the bench does make a difference particularly when it deals with matters of about which the women understand more particularly when it comes to family so in that area I think we must allow the woman the first option to decide in family matters because she understands definitely she understands more than the man does who spends much lesser time in the family than a woman does even when both the members of the family are working the general sense is that woman is spending more time with the family while the man is also spending time with the newspaper and the TV so with this we will take it back to Roshan for the deliberations we have talked a lot about celebrating the successes we should not forget what has been left out which are the areas which require concern and which require our actual introspection as well as appreciation of what trials the women are going through these are essentially on the criminal side as we say offences against women and children rape and domestic violence at the highest level though all laws are abused and domestic violence law is also abused by quite a few women many women now today because when they come of age there is a tendency to abuse they have to be put in place but we must not forget that if we go to a municipal hospital for example in the burnt ward all the inmates are young married women and they are from different strata of the society so it is not that domestic violence is prevalent only in the lower strata or some such thing it happens everywhere across countries throughout universal in my book I have written that if we were to inhabit Antarctica it would be in Antarctica also but why we should take care of all these things is what matters and today we have got Poxo there is a complete legislation I would call it a complete code for that but yet the position has not improved last week there was a gang rape in Zartan which is a national shame it was of a tourist from Spain as you all know so when we were told that we were the national capital for rape we took a front when we were told that our GDP had gone down because women in our country were not given the same thing in the unorganized sector we refused those reports Sudha Murthy has said that when she attended a conference and she wanted to understand the position of a woman as per the statistics she thought that India would be somewhere in the middle which of course generally we are but she was appalled to find that India is amongst the least developed countries in the world so far as patriarchy and the women in unorganized sector is concerned so whereas the Scandinavian countries are at the top we are lower than the Sark nations and only higher than Pakistan that is our position so where men and women excel we see where areas which are untouched we have to understand see for example rape when it happens we have got our gots back to capacity with what I would call love affairs and we don't take up the matters of the real rapes I've called them the real rapes and the statutory rapes in my book it is the management of these offenses that will go a long way in rendering some sector to the women who have been most oppressed and these are the highest forms of human rights violations so I also have one disturbing thing to add to this line of thought less than a few days ago there was a case filed in the Kerala High Court in fact it was reported in 666952024 titled as A versus union of India a young bride a bride who was given a handbook or a written note telling her how and when to conceive a son how and when to conceive a son this was detailed this is I mean the case is still being heard I don't want to comment about it but the misuse of an act or the abuse of the PNDP act the prenatal diagnostic techniques act is what I would like to highlight that act was enacted in order to see that the fetuses do not have any deformities and to take corrective steps but it is being used to abort a female baby once they realize that the baby is a female they are taking steps to abort the baby this is the sad state of this is something that still needs to be addressed even that act when it actually came into force in 1994 still had to be filed seeking a direction from the Supreme Court to get this act to be implemented and it came to be disposed in 2003 for nine long years there was import storage till the Supreme Court gave a slight wrap on the knuckles and they were forced to enact the rules this is one area that I could rightly say ma'am an area that was neglected an area on which we should prevent the abuse of law and ensure that the act is really useful and inspires against the female baby should be removed at all costs you see so far as rape is concerned the government statistics say that 98.6% of the cases are within the known people that means the victim and the offender are known to each other they may not all be love affairs but there may be other cases where people who are trusted by the family have raped the girl and we all know reported cases are much less than the actual cases may be larger number of cases are not reported and then domestic violence huge numbers only the extreme cases come to the courts now these offenses happen within the four walls of the house the state has not much role to play in this so what is playing there is the patriarchal mindset so what we need to do is actually to remove this mindset and acknowledge the honour and position of a woman in the family in the right sense this we have to do by educating the children and the adolescents because that is the time when they learn after the impressionable age is over they are as good or as bad as any one of us and another thing we have to do simultaneously is to educate the girls because they must also understand that they are important they should have the ability to be on their own two feet now our statistics again show that 50% of our girls get married before attaining the age of 18 years that means they are either removed from the school before marriage or immediately on marriage that means even the school education is not completed and accordingly when they get into adversities they don't know the way out sometimes they are compelled to be here those adversities and 18 years is not the right days even for childbirth what to talk about leading a matrimonial life and we all know what marriage means in our society so it is very important to make the woman stand on her own feet and let us all understand the real equality allow me if I have time I will tell it one small story conceived by our Nobel laureate more than 100 years back about the equality of women do we have the time 2 minutes 3 minutes now this is the story based on Mahabharata's small part where Arjun comes to Manipur in exile there he meets Chitrangada the princess of that case the thing having no son had raised Chitrangada as a man she knows all the warfare she knows the state club eventually when she sees Arjuna she falls for her but till then she had no womanly feelings now she goes to God of Love and asks for beauty because now she wants to seduce Arjuna now God of Love says you will be beautiful by the night but in the daytime you will be the same so in the night she goes to Arjuna and Arjuna is charmed but in the morning when she leaves Arjuna goes to the people and he hears the stories of Chitrangada Chitrangada is brave she is motherly but she is also like a king she can fight the enemies can drive away the robbers and he is extremely eager to meet such a princess so in the night when Chitrangada comes he says can you take me to Chitrangada I hear so much about her I want to see her at least once then Chitrangada laments so what shame what shame I have asked for beauty so she asks the beauty to go and she then reveals herself and when Arjuna eventually Arjuna wants to marry her he says okay I have one condition I will be your equal I will be by your side whether in war or in peace if you agree only then I am yours so I think this is the way to express how merit overtakes beauty and what is equality now that our women are also willing to go to the front and asking for combat positions this 125 years back what they go road I think he would have been very happy and even here and see how women have made it now so friends to conclude what is it that we should do from today till the next year one is collective action of multiple stakeholders men as well as women it is for men to come out and say that we have heard violence and they will not accept it it is for them to actually speak and there is no need for only women to speak about all these causes we are speaking for the human cause okay now there is an association called MAVA men against violence and abuse in Bombay which is doing very good work they make films on gender equality and they show it to schools and colleges to actually impress young minds United Nations one small organization called HEFOSHI where also men have come forward and said that we should have equality not only on the civil side but on the criminal side that means as we talk in law that against offenses as well as in careers and that has been doing some very good work there is some magazine which is called KURUSH PANDANA which shows actual stories of how women have succeeded etc and how they should be on par but today increasing number of men are also taking the lead and as Sheryl Sandberg has said in Lean In it is a book which I have referred to in my book a truly equal world would be where women run half our countries and companies and men run half our homes so that friends would be diversity equity and inclusion in the corporate sector they talk of diversity and inclusion only and it is going at a great pace and that is good but being trained in law I would say it should be diversity equity and insurance because there should be a level playing field because what is it that there are numbers all the time people are talking about how many women are here and how many women are there that is not the only thing but that is not what is required because as if you are going to see merit it should be only on merit it should not be on quotas and those kind of things but merit must be recognized appreciated and encouraged and that we can do at home right from the beginning and in schools and colleges I think it is a case of social study just as we are now having yoga we should be having nutrition say that doctors similarly we should be having legal rights legal rights of all and legal right to equality so I would say Manju said that we should educate girls of course we are all educated and therefore we are equals but I would say because unless we treat and we actually educate our children to respect women from the beginning we are not going to happen and if that happens the entire generation would change and our women's day will not be a day only to say or happy women's day I hope next year we will say something else thank you friends I fully agree with what you say I think we should be the like Mahatma Gandhi said we should be the change that we want and like rightly said the change should begin from the home how to teach his young son how to respect the lady of the house how to respect even the maid of the house how to respect a lady who delivers the groceries or the milk he should open a door to a lady he should respect to a lady because a child would immediately inculcate the habit from his father any child it should therefore start from home and as you rightly said the marriages also should have a course on this the fact that women are coming out and fighting every time a woman raises a cry like a me too moment or anything I feel every said able-bodied man should support that cause every second thought you should actively stand up and support these women or try and go for justice start at home, teach your children the right manners and be there as an active supporter and as far as courts are concerned both of you are distinguished judges I think quick disposal of these cases is also absolutely necessary they are getting bogged down in these years and years they are being buried under the paper but something should be run to quickly although courts have been established the required speed and efficacy has not been achieved one other thing about the medication is also educating our prosecutors our police officers not to subject a woman who is a victim to another I don't want to say anything more thank you it was a pleasure thank you both my brother and my sister it has been an excellent evening for me and all that you have said will disown it with me for long it is true what I think is the same thing as you think and madam Rosyandal it is good that we all think that it is the education which eventually will help education will have to be perhaps redefined now that is being done perhaps that should include character building which Vivekanan said is not putting all the information in the brain and run riots there education should be man building character building nation building education I think this is what we need I was just thinking that there couldn't be a better way to get yourself educated from three persons who have created the mark within the society and it actually resonates what just Manjubal says that all those who watch the session would have brownie points to learn and they will have something with which they can actually inculcate things and after the session I feel that there are more like seedlings which actually will glow into plants and trees and we will have a better tomorrow and for us it will be as they say that why only celebrate women's day or one particular day once you inculcate better things it will continue to imbibe good values good teachings and a good society for tomorrow and thank you to all three speakers we have been interested thank you everyone stay safe, stay best thank you