Activists urge PM to prioritise women's bill

Women's rights activists Wednesday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prioritise the Women's Reservation Bill and pass it in the monsoon session of parliament.

The bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in March 2010.

The Centre for Social Research (CSR) issued an online petition to the prime minister on the urgency of passing the bill during the monsoon session of parliament.

"The aim of the petition is to garner enough mass support so that a bill as vital as this can be passed in the Lok Sabha," it said in a release.

"With so few women in governance at this level, the environment in these institutions is unsupportive of women's growth and engagement and serves to perpetuate their exclusion from the higher levels of political process," Ranjana Kumari, director, CSR said.

The Women's Reservation Bill proposes to amend the constitution to reserve one-third seats in the Lok Sabha and in all state legislative assemblies for women.

This will result in a reservation of 181 seats out of a total of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha and 1,370 out of a total of 4,109 seats in all assemblies.