India

Congress president Sonia Gandhi sought to lure voters at a rally in Mizoram's Lunglei town on Monday with the prospect of joint sharing on a 50-50 basis the profits from oil and natural gas proceeds from the state.

Indigenous rights groups and opposition parties had been protesting against previous sharing agreements in which Mizoram was set to receive only 10-12 percent of profits.

The Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi has only seven women candidates out of 62. AAP is struggling to find women candidates willing to join politics. CNN-IBN spoke to some of the women candidates, including Rakhi Birla, who is contesting from the Mangolpuri constituency, a seat reserved for Dalits. "I am happy to get this opportunity and will serve the people," she said. All of 26 years and a journalist till a few months ago, Rakhi Birla is the AAP's candidate for the Mangolpuri assembly constituency and seems undeterred by what she is up against.

India had a woman Prime Minister long before the West elected one, but there have been very few women Cabinet ministers to date. Preneet Kaur of the erstwhile royal family of Patiala has been one of the few lady Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs.

There have been quite a few woman sarpanches — elected heads villages — in India. But, arguably there have been few like Chhavi Rajawat, the current sarpanch of Soda village in Rajasthan, who left a corporate job to help her ancestral village develop. Ms. Rajawat, who has a management degree, quit her post at Airtel, one of the country’s biggest telecom providers, to bring safe water, power, toilets and education to the village in the western Indian state where she spent part of her childhood.

Change in the mind set of people, especially among the minorities, is necessary to address various issues related to the backwardness of women on various fronts, National Commission for Women chairperson Mamta Sharma said.

Inaugurating the first of the NCW’s regional conferences christened “Voice of the Voiceless”, on the topic Muslim Women: Challenges and Solutions, in Hyderabad on Sunday, Sharma said ignorance of rights has been the undoing of women not only among Muslims but in every community.

The Congress party is revamping its frontal organisation, Women Congress, in a bid to empower grassroots level women party workers politically, socially and economically.

All India Women Congress (AIWC) has been directed to form self-help groups of women members to make them self reliant.

Politically, their credentials will be screened at different levels before their appointment on responsible posts within the organisation.

Against the backdrop of rising crimes against women, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said making laws for their empowerment is not enough as they will have to be implemented properly on ground.

“We realise that by just making laws and announcing policies would not be enough to empower women. Along with it, policies and laws will have to be implemented properly on ground,” she said while addressing a gathering at the launch of the Ahimsa Messenger scheme, under which volunteers will be created to spread awareness on women’s issues.