This Women’s day .i.e. 8th Mar 2016, Archana Shaktawat & Saroj Patel had organized an Open forum Discussion – “Pursuit of Equality” at Swami Vivekanand Garden Fateh Sagar. The organizers (Archana & Saroj) run a Voluntary Mission of educating and creating awareness among women about Sexual Offences.

They conduct free sessions in various schools and colleges on Sexual Offences, laws related to it and precautionary measures that can be taken. Their motto is to make sure that every woman is aware about her rights so that she can raise her voice against any discrimination. They have been working towards this cause for 18 months and their vision is to make Udaipur a women Friendly and Safe city.

On this event, renowned and successful women of the city were invited to this event to share their success stories with the audience which included students from Faculty of

Management Studies (FMS), Law College, MLSU, Geetanjali Medical College (GMC), and Commerce College MLSU and from different professional backgrounds.

The guest speakers were:

 Preeta Bhargava, Superintendent of Jail spoke about her achievements. She hails from a small city Dhaulpur and after 12th standard her father told her to discontinue her education. But, she refused to accept this and completed her graduation and post graduation through distance learning. After which, she volunteered to join Jail Services and now she is at this post. She encouraged girls not to give their dreams and work hard towards it. She also mentioned that she tries to motivate all prisoners to let go of their past and start life afresh.

Ragini Sharma, Renowned Lawyer – she imparted a lot of Law related information on domestic violence, Dowry and Family Disputes. She also spoke the amendments in Sexual Offences Laws post Nirbhaya Case. She addressed the youth in the audience that they are the strength of the nation and if they want they change anything and everything. She motivated people to support women in all circumstances. She also mentioned that women need to get out of their cocoon, break barriers and succeed like how she and others guest speakers have done.

Dr. Madhulika Singh – She shared her story about her struggle to reach where she is now. She experienced hardship in terms of traditional restrictions of the Royal Rajput Family but yet set a benchmark for her. She completed her medical studies from the USA post marriage and became a successful doctor. It always perturbed her that she was known as somebody’s wife, mother or daughter. It was this compassion to have her own identity that made her excel in her field. She inspired women to have their own identity and encouraged girls to explore their strengths and outshine in that.

Nanda Chopra, Manager, SSBJ Bank, Udaipur – She’s proud mother of three daughters and mentioned they are her strengths. She addressed the issue of Finance and how important it is for women to be financially independent. She imparted knowledge on why women need to have bank accounts and how they should invest their money.

Jyoti Chauhan – runs an NGO which creates awareness among women on Breast and Cervical Cancer. She spoke on lack of awareness among women about cancer. She mentioned that even women in their 20s need to know about this and should know how to self examine themselves. She spoke about how breast and cervical cancer are leading cause of death among women and the reason is late detection, lack of awareness and it is taboo. She said there is a cure for cancer provided women go for the cure. She motivated the youth to stop shunning these topics and start creating awareness about it.

People from the audience gave speech on Women Related Issues like Emotional Manipulation, Gender discrimination, Gender Equality, Measures for Women’s Safety and Feminism. Various thought provoking ideas and suggestions were put forward like:

 Increasing Education among women will put an end to a lot of problems.

• Creating awareness among women about their rights and laws and also about their well being and health.
• Women need to be financially independent.
• There’s a need for women to be emotionally strong and not to get manipulated by anybody.
• Women must get out of their cocoon and break the barriers and only then can they succeed.
• The Police should implement stringent ways of punishing the offender.
• The Legislative system must penalize the offender in a rigorous manner so that other are scared before committing any crime like this.

Students from various colleges got an opportunity to question the guest speakers. There were a few students who narrated poems on Feminism and sang songs on issue of Female Infanticides. We also had a Nukkad Natak on Honor Killing done by students of FMS.