Chennai: No society can call itself civilised if it does not honour women, President Pranab Mukherjee said on Friday as he emphasised on providing reservation for women in Parliament. Inaugurating the centenary celebrations of Women’s Indian Association here, Pranab said the recognition of women in the country’s growth has not been taken into account while calculating the GDP, which reflects the attitude of discrimination of society.
Earlier, speaking after awarding the President’s ‘Standard’ to 125 Helicopter Squadron and ‘Colours’ to Mechanical Training Institute at Tambaram IAF base, he said strong deterrent is needed against those who want to adversely affect India’s progress and security in view of the ever changing geo-political situation in the region.
Meanwhile, at Women’s Indian Association celebrations, he said, “It’s really a dichotomy in our society where we call women as a source of power, embodiment of motherhood. We worship women as deities.
Our core civilisational values tell us to respect a woman. But unfortunately, we are really disturbed when day-in and day-out we are confronted by news of brutalising of women. Sometimes we wonder. Today we are called as civilised society. Can any society be described as civilised if it doesn’t honour its women?” the President asked. “The primary objective of civilisational values is to respect women but we still have to walk many miles to achieve it,” he said.
He said despite equal rights, the representation of women in Lok Sabha is just 11.3 per cent against the global average of 22.8 per cent. The President said reservations provide Constitutional guarantees and earmarking of constituencies to be represented by women.
