UK parliament Speaker praises Modi on women issues

The speaker of the House of Lords of the UK parliament, Baroness D'Souza CMG today praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his initiatives in empowering women.

"I know that your Prime Minister Mr Modi is extremely interested in empowering women for very very good reasons. It is good for Mr Modi, wonderful," Baroness D'Souza CMG, Speaker of upper house of the UK parliament, said.

D'Souza, who is leading a 10-member delegation of British parliamentarians, said that they were "extremely supportive" of Modi's agenda on women empowerment.

"It probably will show very tangible results in a very short time," she said at a session on striving for gender equality in politics.

D'Souza was, however, critical of allowing reservation to women in parliament.
"In a way what you are doing is actually designating a certain percentage of seats for women regardless of whether there are women who are the right sort of people to fill it. You run the danger of being biased towards women which is not the natural selection," she said.

The British parliamentarian said the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association has been trying for the last three years to strengthen a network of women parliamentarians in South Asia.

She said that the network was growing and last year they held a workshop with women parliamentarians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

D'Souza said education is the key to women empowerment. "If you educate girls you get development," she said adding that there is growing evidence to show that profits of a company will increase if women members are in the board.