International Women’s Day

This year budget by our hon’ble Finance Minister has been portrayed as “a budget for women” but when, if and how this will empower or reach women I am not sure, in theory it sounds nice though. Ask any well educated woman, I am sure she will agree she has faced gender based discrimination whether at work or in her family life. In developed countries I think it is probably not so much but in our country patriarchal mindset is too deep rooted. This is partly due to lack of Laws and legislation in favor of women or non-implementation of existing legislation, but mostly a result of the inadequacy of these laws, which covers working conditions, health and safety, basic amenities like toilets, working hours, creches and much else. I being an astrologer prompted a poor woman (she lives in jhuggi (slum) area) wanting to share her grief with me, I am sure she wanted no future predictions as she seems resigned to her fate but probably she sees so many people consulting me she too wanted to share the grief of losing a family member, she has a woman relative in village who recently died while giving birth to a child. This made me think, if we women, who are educated, have to face so many odds how would it be for women who are poor and uneducated? In developed nations, where childbirth is tended to medically, the mortality rate of mother and the child is very low as most often the woman is medically treated, but in underdeveloped nations, like ours, where medical intervention is not the norm for poor women. No single person, NGO’s can help unless government itself makes not only some provision in its budget but executes the allocated budget. I think, maybe I am wrong, one of the reason for increase in crime rate could be frustration of poor and uneducated people. It is very difficult to decode the psychology of criminal but recent crimes against women make it imperative that we should……