Women activists welcome Maneka Gandhi's call for amending passports rules

The women activists on Sunday hailed Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi's request to the Ministry of External Affairs to amend rules for issuing passports and not make father's name a mandatory requirement as a very positive initiative.

Women activist Kavita Shrivastav told ANI it is a great move and must be implemented as soon as possible.

"It is a very positive initiative. Why is this rule still followed when Mother is the natural guardian, I fail to understand. It is a great move and it should be accepted by Sushma Swaraj ji as soon as possible," she added.

Echoing similar sentiments, former NCW chief Mamata Sharma said whatever Maneka Gandhi has said is totally correct.

"Women who had a divorce or have separated, they should be given this right that they can make a passport or Aadhaar Card without the name of their husbands. It is not important to bring Husband's name to move forward in life," she said to ANI.

Moved by the plight of a single mother, Gandhi has urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to amend passport rules that make listing the father's name a mandatory requirement.

Priyanka Gupta, a single mother from Delhi, had started a petition on change.org after the passport office reportedly insisted on having her husband's name in her daughter's passport, despite the fact that the husband abandoned them.

In her petition, Priyanka said, "The judiciary has given progressive judgments that say that the father's name is not required. We tried to convince the passport officer, wrote letters, met senior officers but our request was denied. In the end we were forced to include his name. Every time my daughter looks at her Passport, she sees the name of a person who hurt her, who abandoned her."

Over 45,000 people supported Priyanka in her demand over the past two weeks and more support continues to pour in.

Priyanka's daughter Garima also posted an appeal with the petition, "I need my passport, it's a necessity but I don't want it with the name of the man who abandoned us because of me being a girl!..So honestly I hate this guy and seeing his name on my passport sucks.