Bengaluru: The so-called ‘fairer sex’ had looked forward to it, prepared for it and so naturally when the day came they celebrated it with gusto. Yes, we’re talking about the day set aside to felicitate and honour women.
From government to private agencies, everyone celebrated International Women's Day with a lot of enthusiasm. While restaurants and shops announced an array of discounts and offers, the spark spread even to city hospitals, which offered discounted treatments!
City hospitals and healthcare providers celebrated International Women's Day across the city by either holding events or offering free consultations on Tuesday.
Apollo Hospitals, Bannerghatta Road, organised a fun-filled event where participation for poster making and healthy recipe competitions were called for. The event was graced by the State's additional chief secretary, Infrastructure Development Department, Vandita Sharma, Kannada actor Priyanka Upendra and Dr Naresh Parmar, CEO, Apollo Hospitals of Karnataka Region.
The competition was themed upon ‘Pledge for Parity’ and aimed to remind women to pay attention to their eating habits and simple ways to incorporate healthy eating into daily routines and how they can make good health a habit. The event saw participation by about 150 women.
The KSRTC remembered the soldiers killed in the recent avalanche at the Siachen glacier and honoured Madevi Koppad, wife of the late Hanumanthappa Koppad and Asha , wife of the late Nagesh.
Noted women sportspersons Vijayakumari, athlete and Kumari Kanchana, weightlifter, were felicitated by BMTC in the presence of Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy.
National Karate Association Chairman Suresh Inspector Sadik Pasha gave tips to women employees on how to protect themselves during emergencies.
Meanwhile, FKCCI organised an event called ‘Pledge for Parity’ at 3.30 pm at the Hotel Lalit Ashok, in which the minister for women and children Umashree was present.
To generate awareness over the importance of early detection of cancer and glaucoma, Apollo Hospitals had organised a discussion where Dr PP Bapsy, Senior Consultant, Oncology and Dr Shalini Shetty, Senior Consultant, Ophthalmology emphasized the importance of periodic screenings as both Cancer and Glaucoma may prove to be silent killers due to their asymptomatic nature.
On the sidelines of this event, Apollo Hospitals also felicitated the nurses in the campus along with other female staff from across departments, including Technicians and Housekeeping staff for their notable and selfless service towards the hospital and its patients.
On this special occasion, Narayana Nethralaya announced issuing of an Annual award to hospitals which would collect the highest number of eyes donated for the year in the name of Harish, who died in a road accident in the middle of February, inspiring many people to donate/pledge their eyes.
Dr Bhujang Shetty also took this opportunity to felicitate driver Manjunath Yadav, ambulance driver of NHAI on Nelamangala road who did his best to save the accident victim Harish's life on that fatal day. Cloudnine Hospital and Practo entered into a collaboration to create awareness on women’s health issues, especially among working mothers.
Leading experts from Cloudnine Hospital will be answering questions on all health issues on Practo Consult- #WhatWomenWant for free.
Cops to assess gender sensitivity in department
It was 16 years ago that a gender sensitization programme was started for the state police and now the department intends to do an impact assessment to see whether it has actually changed police behaviour to women in distress.
Revealing this here on Tuesday, IG Alok Kumar,(training and recruitment), recalled that the state government had allocated Rs 41 lakh for the programme to make the police more gender sensitive and people- friendly .
“The project was initially funded by UNICEF, but later the state government took over , being the first state in the country to do so,” he noted, speaking at the ‘Ready to Report’ Programme organised by Amnesty International India in coordination with the Karnataka State Police to sensitise the police to issues concerning women and to encourage the latter to report cases of abuse to them.
The programme was attended by survivors of domestic abuse and women from diverse backgrounds, besides police officers and activists. Acknowledging that despite the 16- year- old sensitisation programme, there was still lack of trust in the police when it came to lodging complaints, especially among women, Mr Kumar said, “ We are lagging somewhere.
While continuous assessment and refresher training is done by the department across the 40 districts of the state every two months, the new assessment will be different as it will reach out to the complainants as well.”
He revealed that the department had also decided to give new women recruits additional training in various laws dealing with crimes against women. “ So far gender sensitisation has been aimed at male police officers, but crimes of a sexual nature are usually handled by women police officers. So now they will get special training in handling crimes against women and children and the various laws relating to them. The two to three week intensive training will look at laws on human trafficking, bonded labour, child labour, domestic violence, sexual harassment, POCSO and so on. More attention will be given to post trauma management and the soft skills of police officers, including counselling of survivors and their families," Mr Kumar added.
Ms Yamuna G, a member of the Nayandhalli garment workers union, said the police and the community needed to work together more closely to address the hidden pressures that prevented women from reporting violence. “It is important for us to look beyond the law,” she stressed.
