 The All India Democratic Women's Association recently held its 13th national conference in the state of Kerala in India. Eidwa is India's largest women's organization with a membership of nearly 10 million women spread across almost all states of the country. The delegates representing this 10 million strong membership met to discuss the path ahead for women's movement in India. All of us have gathered here after very, very difficult times, 2020-2021 have been extremely testing times for the entire nation and for our movement. It is with great pride that we all can rightly say we put all our forces together to overcome the difficulties to keep the organization and movement alive, fighting, struggling and now in 2023, after completing nearly 40,000 unit conferences, more than 700 district conferences, nearly 26 states and union territories conferences and meetings, 850 delegates and observers, representing one crore membership has assembled here to decide about building a stronger women's movement in the country. It is also a very special occasion because we are celebrating 40 years of Eidwa and in these 40 years of struggle and sacrifice and victories and loss and gains and setbacks, this Eidwa, this organization, this flag has remained high and given inspiration to women all over the country. From 11 lakh members in 1981 you have heard from our general secretary that we are now almost one crore women members in India who hold up this Eidwa flag. The founding leaders of Eidwa, which brave struggles as part of India's fight for independence from British colonial rule, their presence in the Indian freedom movement and the struggles led by them, ensured greater equality and rights in the newly written constitution of the country. What is the difference? The difference is that this aggression of capitalism led by the current government in power, the BJP government is combined with a bigger agenda and it is that agenda led by the BJP and the RSS, which is driving politics, culture, economics, social relations in India today. So while these challenges have always existed before us, what we understand through our own experience is it is different because today you have in state power those forces who want to challenge the very existence, not a great existence but as I said a constitution and legal existence of India and women as we know it today. We are fighting not just against the political power of the BJP RSS, we are fighting against the forces of conservatism which are in our blood and which we must get rid of. The power of the women's work that was practically underestimated in the past, the reality of the revolution teaches us more and more the social and economic importance of the women's work. Our Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro said in 1965, women's labour force in the past was underestimated, was practically undervalued, the reality of the revolution teaches us more and more the social and economic importance of incorporating women in work. And this is a great truth, so that a work that grows and develops is essential to the active participation of women, because we not only defend our rights, our culture, our identity, but we fight with all our strength to guarantee all that to the fruit of our power. And this is a great truth that for a work, for a task to last grow and develop, the active participation of women is essential, because we not only defend our rights, our culture, our identity, but we fight with all our might to guarantee all this to the fruit of our womb. And that provides us with extraordinary strength for this fight. Adelante compañeras, hagamos juntas este mundo mejor para todas imprescindibles, luchemos por un mañana mucho mas luminoso, hasta la victoria siempre. Go ahead compañeros, advance, let's make this world a better place for all of us, let's fight for a brighter tomorrow, ever onward to victory, hasta la victoria siempre. Thank you. And this is what in our movement, in the women's movement, with that spirit of internationalism, we know how all our movements are interlinked. And therefore, today on your behalf, let us strongly condemn all those forces today which are forcing wars on humanity, NATO in Europe, and what it has resulted in, the most terrible war in Ukraine. Let us condemn those imperialist hegemonic moves which make the lives of women all over the world so much more difficult. Let us, my dear sisters, on this occasion express our solidarity, as you have done in your resolution, the people of Palestine, the women of Palestine, and what is happening in our neighborhood, what is happening in Afghanistan, where the Taliban government, which so many years had been patronized by U.S. imperialists, what is the state of women in Pakistan, our neighbors, where a young girl, a young woman cannot go to college, because of those fundamentalist forces functioning in the name of a most damaging interpretation of a religion. How can we tolerate the kind of fundamentalism that we are seeing in Iran, where women are being forced into a dress code, and what about the United States of America, where even the right to abortion, the right of a woman to her own body, in the so-called greatest democracy of the world is under challenge. So when we in India fight against all types of fundamentalism, when we fight for the women's right to choice, the right to autonomy, the right to decide who we are, what we are, who we love, we express solidarity because we know that women across the world, even at the time of the terrible COVID, when capitalism, brutal capitalism was looking at profit, not at what we were facing as mothers, as daughters, as women, as working women, no. So we express solidarity with them. Our goal in unity for equality, our goal is to protect the gains secured by our predecessors in the matter of the rights given to us by our constitution, and to move at the same time towards more of substantive equality through social change. In this struggle, unity among women and among all democratic-minded people is the strategy we have to follow. All of you who are listening to this are our companions at arms in this struggle.