 The women's reservation bill has been hanging for the last almost 20-25 years and every government that comes to power and including the BJP Modi government has said that they will pass the bill. It is extremely necessary because even after 72 years of independence, we are finding that women representation in the assembly and in the parliament is very less. It's never reached more than 10-11%. Now that is impacting on raising women's issues which are very vital issues. Women have an equal right to become representatives of the people in the country and because of a bias against women, because of the feudal patriarchal society that we live in, women are not given a chance. You are finding now in the local body elections, 50% reservations are there and women are doing excellent work in the Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samithi, Zilla Parishad, municipal corporations. So wherever they are given a chance, they come ahead and not only just come ahead, they see to it that a lot of other activities, development activities, issues which are confronted by women are raised on these forums and that is why it is very necessary. And without the reservation bill, the numbers are never going to increase and that is why it is very important that they pass the bill. Just as many other bills the BJP government has pushed through without any consensus. They should place this bill before the parliament and fulfill its promise of reservation. See in this last five years, women in the country have faced the worst situation. In every sphere, you see the first thing is their slogan of beti bachao beti padhao. Now in the educational sphere, if you see the ideology which the BJP RSS professes, the ideology of Manu Smruti, a regressive ideology that is impacting in the schools and colleges. It has changed textbooks where patriarchy should be reinforced, where minority should be attacked and where women's, the status of women is looking after families, doing the cooking, doing the washing that is being propagated. So an entire atmosphere you are trying to strengthen right from schools that is against women. Secondly, raising of the educational fees that impacts very adversely on girl education and secondly, security within institutions. You saw what happened in the Banaras University, what's happening in JNU. It is the vice chancellor who is commenting that girls should not go out in the night when the students have the right to go to the libraries, library timings are being changed because they feel that the girls should not be out at so late in the night. So you are restricting opportunities for them and that is having a totally negative impact. Thirdly, if you see the whole education part is this. Secondly, on the right to work, they have promised jobs but even now the massive reduction in the work participation rate for women, it is the lowest since independence. Today women are not getting work, that is the reality. No vacancies are being filled up. In the entire organized sector, in the public sector, vacancies are not being filled and that is one sector where women have some kind of security but there also contractualization is being encouraged and so that those rights are also going. Many places in the private sector, even today, women are not being employed because it is being said that maternity leave will have to be given. So on one hand you are saying, bheeti bachao bheeti padhao but actually you are doing the reverse. Thirdly, because employment is not there, women are pushed into extreme insecure conditions and you have seen the struggles of the unorganized sector taking place. The domestic workers have increased at a massive rate because there is no other work available. On the manrega in this budget, they have decreased that budget by 1000 crores instead of increasing it. So in the village, in the rural areas also, no work is available. So there also women have to go out long places and they live in insecure conditions. They are victims of sexual exploitation. So this has increased in these last five years. Thirdly, the whole health issue. Today, the government hospitals are not providing anything and they are just doing these Jumle Baji of insurance in health, of Ayusha Maan Bharat but the realities at the ground level, you are not getting the facilities is because the availability of income certificates is not there and nobody is giving them income certificates. Another thing is with the food, the ration. Ration has been literally dismantled, linkage of Aadhar and the biometric. Today, the people who deserve ration are the people who are being excluded because none of their thumbs are matching. Have you seen the hands of a person who is working in the fields, the domestic workers' hands? They are not smooth hands, they are hands which are very rough and so their imprints do not come. And because the machine does not recognize their thumb imprint, they deny the grains. So, and that is impacting you are seeing a massive increase in the death rate, starvation of women and children. Who are the children who die? It's the poor of the Adivasis of the Dalits, no rich man dies. And so again, you are depriving those who deserve it the most. This is their policy. Their lease bothered that people are not getting food. So that is another part where women are suffering. The whole issue of violence today. Desiang talking of beti bachao, but the Nirbhaya Fund for Rehabilitation of rape victims, that's not being used, that is not being increased. Nowhere do you find any kind of rehabilitation activities going on for these women. Child rape has increased so much. The women's movement has been saying continuously that you please have fast track courts. These cases should be finished off within a six month period. The women should be given protection. The witnesses should be given protection. Nothing of that sort is happening, but the reverse is happening. We have never seen in our country people coming on the roads from the ruling party for protecting the rapists. That is what is happening now. Moral policing on honor killings. Even now we have been demanding a law against honor killings. Nothing has been done about it. The 498A, the law which is there, gives some kind of protection against violence. That has been weakened. No arrests anywhere in the country is being made under 498A. That's because the instructions from the government not to make arrests. So all the weakening of these laws has increased the insecure atmosphere for women today, for girl children today, in schools they are not protected, on the roads they are not protected, in homes they are not protected. So the overall situation is an extremely critical one for women and it has become worse in these last five years because the people ruling us today, in their speeches, in their programs, they reinforce this ideology that a woman's place is at home, she is not an equal citizen. She is a subordinate human being and she has to learn to live within her place. This is the speeches made by RSS leaders in their programs that if a woman does not live within her own space, then she will become victim of violence. So you are actually condoning the violence, being perpetuated on them, by telling them that they are themselves responsible because they are not living as subordinate human beings and they are asking for equal rights. So this is not acceptable, this is not what the Constitution of India says and so the women today all over the country are going to raise their voice to defeat the Manuwadi regressive RSS BJP government, not only in the centre, but in the different states also. In various parts in the country today, EIDWA is organising women, wherever there are, Russian is not available, women are being mobilised in thousands all over the country to demand that we do not recognise this biometric machine. We are rightful owners of this grain and they should be distributed to us. So wherever there have been struggles, women have got grains. We have raising the voice for work in rural areas. We are organising women, taking out rallies to the Tesla office and to collector office, demanding work. Wherever there has been pressure, there have been work started. We have raised our voice against the violence and we have seen to it that people have been arrested, where people were protected. So like in shelter homes, we saw recently in Bihar, in Delhi, in many other places where women were victims of violence and the owners or the people who ran the shelter homes were being protected. It was because of protests that they had to see to it that these people were arrested. So everywhere EIDWA is mobilising women, not just for their rights as women, but rights as citizens of this country, as equal citizens of this country. And I am sure that this will intensify in the days to come and we are going to take out massive rallies in the month of February to say that we will not tolerate the dismantling of the constitution of the country. People are coming not only for women's rights. EIDWA is not mobilising only for women's rights. We are mobilising where there are attacks on Dalits, where there are attacks on Muslims, where there are attacks on Tribals. So as a part and parcel of the larger movement in this country, we are participating in every single struggle to protect the democratic secular traditions of our nation.