Impact of Gender Biased State Policies on Women Empowerment: Conflict Between Constitutional Mandate and Personal Laws in India

Impact of Gender Biased State Policies on Women Empowerment: Conflict Between Constitutional Mandate and Personal Laws in India.

MUSHTAQ AHMAD DAR*
JOURNAL: Journal of Human Development (JHD), Vol. 04, No. 1:  1-15

JHD , 4:(1 )(Jan–June 2012)

1-15

Published By: ISP

ISSN: 0975-8119

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Impact of Gender Biased State Policies on Women Empowerment:
Conflict Between Constitutional Mandate and Personal Laws in India
MUSHTAQ AHMAD DAR*

Abstract

Thus democratic decentralisation or local self-government or“Panchayati Raj” as it is popularly known in India aims at makingdemocracy real by bringing millions of people into the functioning of

their representative government at the lowest level. A democratic polity involves the decentralization of power in a way that the affairs of the local people are managed by means of their positive participation. It signifies marked devolution of power from the higher to the lower levels in a way that the units of local government exercise their authority with the participation of the people of that area with occasional control and supervision of the provincial and central governments. The rationale for the Constitution 73rd Amendment Bill was that even though the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) have been in existence for a long time, they have failed to acquire the status and dignity ofviable and responsive peoples’ bodies. Obstacles in this regard arose mainly because of non-mandatory nature of Article 40 (deals with organization of panchayats), absence of regular elections, insufficient devolution of powers, lack of financial resources, and inadequate representation to women and SCs/STs. These lacunae could not be rectified until appropriate constitutional support to the PRIs was provided to ensure certain basic essential features in the Indian Constitution itself to impart them a measure of certainty, continuity and strength.

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Abstracts

Distance Education for Socio-Economic-Development:Prospectus and Problems

Profile

Prof. Mushtaq Ahmad started his career as faculty member from the year 2000 in the Department of Law, University of Kashmir. Presently he is working as Associate Professor of Law  and  presently associated with Directorate of Distance Education, University of Kashmir ,coordinating  two Law Coursese viz., Cyber Law and LL.B(Academic) for in-service candidates. Besides his long teaching experience in the University of Kashmir, he also practiced as an Advocate at J & K High Court for 4 years. His teaching, research and bar experience is seen in his interest of publications. He finished his Masters in Law(LL.M) in 1998 and then he was awarded Doctorate Degree in Law in 2003.He has also qualified National Eligibility Test(NET) of University Grants Commission of India in 1998.  He is the author of two books ‘Law on Consumer Services’ and ‘ Panchayati Raj Institutions’. He has also worked on four research projects on ‘Distance Education’   sponsored by Distance Education Council,New Delhi and ‘ Legal Awareness among women in Kashmir’ sponsored by  SRCKU AND MHRD. He has published work of 30  articles /research papers  in various national and international journals on the issues of consumer protection, women empowerment, legal awareness, panchayati raj, NREGA, distance education, rural development and decentralization in India. He has presented papers and participated   in more than forty national and  international conferences, seminars and workshops on women empowerment, panchayati raj,rural development,consumer protection, commercial law, distance education, higher education, right to information , social obligations and law.