Safety of women is a sacred duty of society as a whole, says President Pranab Mukherjee

The rights of women to equal opportunities and a dignified life must be respected and the nation has a collective responsibility for creating the ecosystem to ensure their safety and dignity in society, President Pranab Mukherjee quoted in a message on the eve of International Women’s Day. He thanked women for their contributions over the years in the building of our nation.

“Women have always been given the highest level of respect in our country. Their protection and safety is a sacred duty of society as a whole. We must respect the right of women to equal opportunities and a dignified life. We have a collective responsibility to create an ecosystem that ensures the safety, security and dignity of women in society,” Mukherjee said.

On the eve of International Women’s Day, President Mukherjee vouched that , we should redouble our efforts for achieving gender equity and empowerment of women and as a Country we must strive to enable our women to realize their full potential and participate meaningfully in all aspects of our country’s development.

Adding to the empowering message of Mr. Mukherjee, PM Narendra Modi also said that Women should empower themselves technologically and become effective as people’s representatives as mere changes in the system would not suffice. But he however remained silent on the women’s reservation bill for which the President and the Vice President had made a strong pitch few days back.

“You will have to make yourself effective with issues, facts and figures. Mere changes in the system will not suffice. Some or the other change keep happening in the structure. In order to establish your leadership, one should have the knowledge of subjects and meanwhile develop an independent image as a public representative. One must make an attempt of building a image in a region. Once the image of your working style and your views is established among people, it will last for long. You will see people accepting your ideas once you are thus established,” Modi said at the National Conference of Women Legislators at New Delhi.

The Prime Minister also quoted that “we must think beyond women’s development” and move towards “women-led development.”

Inaugurating the conference yesterday, President Pranab Mukherjee pitched for 33 per cent reservation for women in elected bodies saying it was a “sad commentary” that so far the country has not been able to achieve over 12 per cent representation for women in Parliament’s total membership.