Jaipur:
Congress president Sonia Gandhi today paid tribute to the 23-year-old medical student who was gang-raped and murdered in Delhi last month and said that a "shaken government" that her party leads would ensure that her death was not in vain.
"The barbaric gang-rape of a young women in Delhi has shaken the government and the country. She embodied the spirit of an aspirational India. We will ensure her death will not go in vain." Mrs Gandhi said in her address to the All India Congress Committee, a gathering of over 1500 people, as she handed her party the blue-print of its strategy for the general elections scheduled for 2014. She made it clear that the protection and empowerment of women would be a key element of the Congress' agenda.
People, Mrs Gandhi said, "are demanding and rightly so answers from the government...Gender, justice and equality was discussed in the past two days...Our government has taken new steps to ensure welfare and protection of women." Gender issues were a separate discussion in a sub-group at the Congress' Chintan Shivir on Friday and Saturday.
Mrs Gandhi said every woman had the fundamental right to feel safe and secure and slammed the many politicians who have made grossly inappropriate and sexist remarks while participating in public discourse on gender issues recently. "Public figures have made unacceptable remarks against women. We cannot tolerate mindsets that lead to crimes against women and children," Mrs Gandhi said.
She also promised to "continue to press for a law for 30 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and assemblies."
The Congress president had, in her speech on Friday, emphasised an urgent need to address an alienation from the urban middle class, especially the youth, seen most starkly when thousands of students protested for weeks against the gang-rape of Amanat (NOT her real name) on a moving bus in Delhi. Demonstrations demanded justice for the victim and better security for women. The Congress' reaction was clumsy and inadequate and there was huge anger at the failure of senior ministers to reach out to the protesters.
"The barbaric gang-rape of a young women in Delhi has shaken the government and the country. She embodied the spirit of an aspirational India. We will ensure her death will not go in vain." Mrs Gandhi said in her address to the All India Congress Committee, a gathering of over 1500 people, as she handed her party the blue-print of its strategy for the general elections scheduled for 2014. She made it clear that the protection and empowerment of women would be a key element of the Congress' agenda.
People, Mrs Gandhi said, "are demanding and rightly so answers from the government...Gender, justice and equality was discussed in the past two days...Our government has taken new steps to ensure welfare and protection of women." Gender issues were a separate discussion in a sub-group at the Congress' Chintan Shivir on Friday and Saturday.
Mrs Gandhi said every woman had the fundamental right to feel safe and secure and slammed the many politicians who have made grossly inappropriate and sexist remarks while participating in public discourse on gender issues recently. "Public figures have made unacceptable remarks against women. We cannot tolerate mindsets that lead to crimes against women and children," Mrs Gandhi said.
She also promised to "continue to press for a law for 30 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and assemblies."
The Congress president had, in her speech on Friday, emphasised an urgent need to address an alienation from the urban middle class, especially the youth, seen most starkly when thousands of students protested for weeks against the gang-rape of Amanat (NOT her real name) on a moving bus in Delhi. Demonstrations demanded justice for the victim and better security for women. The Congress' reaction was clumsy and inadequate and there was huge anger at the failure of senior ministers to reach out to the protesters.
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