Women poorly represented in DD, AIR

Expressing their disappointment over the poor representation of women in Prasar Bharati, particularly in its Board, the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women, which tabled its 22nd report on ‘the Working Condition of Women in Prasar Bharati’ in Parliament on 18 February has noted that among the 15 members’ board of Prasar Bharati, there is only one women representative as the part time member.
The committee has pointed out that the post of director general in All India Radio (AIR) as well as in Doordarshan are lying vacant for more than one and half years.
The report says against the total strength of 40,000 employees in Prasar Bharati, 11962 posts (around 30 per cent) have been vacant for years at all levels.
Doordarshan with 21,708 sanctioned posts has a shortfall of 4,629 while AIR has 7,333 vacancies against its capacity of 29,629.
The committee noted that 1,353 women (around 8 per cent) work in various categories among the present 17,079 employees in Doordarshan while among the present 22,296 employees in all categories, only 1854 women work in AIR from Group ‘A’ to ‘C’.
The committee also found that 105 posts in Doordarshan and 289 in AIR under SC and ST categories are still vacant. This is a matter of serious concern and anxiety, the committee observed.
According to the report, the percentage of women in Group A and B is 25 and 19 per cent respectively in Doordarshan while it is 14 and 15 per cent respectively in these groups in AIR.
Though the committee is comparatively satisfied with the representation of women in higher posts in both organisations, they are unhappy at the dwindling numbers of women in lower categories.
“With regard to the promotion in AIR and Doordarshan, some categories of employees, especially the UPSC recruited programme executives, have been languishing in the same post without a single promotion for over 20 years,” the committee noted.
It felt women employees are discriminated against in promotions. The committee recommended that their claims should be adequately addressed at the time of finalising promotions. The committee also recommended that two members of the board should be from SC/ ST.

SC directive
An accused can be convicted for outraging the modesty of a woman on the basis of mere knowledge of an accused that his action would outrage the modesty of a woman, the Supreme Court has held.
Section 354 IPC provides a maximum of two-year sentence for an accused convicted for outraging the modesty of a woman.

source:http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=2&theme=&usrsess=1&id=244995