The government of India, on February 21, announced its plans to set up specialized one stop crisis centers for women for offering all necessary services for women subjected to violence.

Women in distress in India often face more harassment in the process of seeking help. As a result many don’t even come forward to report violence against them. The idea behind one-stop crisis center is that women don’t have to directly deal with tens of different agencies, individuals, or institutions. They go to one place, one set of people who are specially trained to handle women issues.

The move follows a series of steps that government has already announced to curb violence against women or to help women in distress. Dedicated women helpline numbers are already active in cities such as Delhi, Bangalore, and Mumbai. Recently, Bangalore announced its plans to have women only police squads patrol vulnerable areas. However, these are just some preliminary and experimental steps. India has a long way to go in improving the state of women in the county. If implemented effectively, these one stop crisis centers could form a strong foundation to women help and care system in India.

As a starting point, Indian National Mission for Empowerment of Women will start such one stop crisis centers in public hospitals in 100 districts.

This is not the first time government of India has announced such a scheme. Back in September 2009, government had issued directives to various states and union territories to set up Rape Crisis Centers and Specialized Sexual Assault Treatment Units. But three years into the announcement, you only get yet another announcement. With parliament elections approaching fast, one can only hope that there will be some seriousness to these announcements.

Finally, the issue of women’s security in India is getting some attention from the authorities. The gangrape and murder of a 23 year old girl in the national capital Delhi is proving to be an eye opener – a grim reminder of how vulnerable females are in the country, and how public transport is misused to inflict sexual violence upon women.

A committee of secretaries was formed to review women’s security and to propose measures for improving it. The committee was headed by cabinet secretary and specifically focused on safety of women in public transport. In January, the committee made a series of recommendations to improve women’s safety. Apart from installing CCTV cameras and having a guard in the buses, committee also proposed exclusive buses for women in large cities.

Based upon committee’s recommendations Indian government issued a directive to state governments to start women-only buses in all million plus cities. It made it clear that the buses could be on any size depending upon the specific needs of a city and the route. But every million plus city must have some women only buses.

To ensure that the directive is not ignored by state governments, the Union Urban Ministry on Thursday instructed states to share their detailed action plan for starting these women only buses.

Many women’s groups had also made separate demands for women only buses in cities like Noida, Delhi, and Gurgaon. They complained of rampant sexual harassment in the buses.

[Read: An Open Letter to Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition]

Some cities in the country such as Delhi and Kanpur have already started female only buses. If the states listen to the center, many more cities will soon offer exclusive buses to women. And while exclusive buses alone won’t be sufficient to eradicate sexual violence against women, they will certainly help women feel safer in maddening cities.
While Delhi revived its women special buses in November, similar services were started in Kanpur. The North-Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation has also announced bus services for women and families between Hubli-Dharwad and Belgaum.

Image: wsj.com

The first all-women police squad takes to patrolling the streets of Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley.  And this is just the first step towards providing round-the-clock security service and a dedicated helpline for girls and women in the city.

While Delhi may be the rape capital of India, Bangalore has also been witnessing a worrisome rise in violence against women. Bangalore is a land of opportunities offering avenues both for higher studies as well as for better paying jobs.  The city also welcomes people to a pleasant weather throughout the year.  And that makes it an attractive destination for many aspiring Indians. Young men and women from all over India come to Bangalore to realize their dreams.

Bangalore used to get counted among safest cities for girls however the perception is changing fast. There have been many incidents of rape, kidnapping, and murder in the city prompting calls for tighter security. Those calls got intensified by the recent nationwide protests that followed the horrific gang rape and murder of a 23 year old paramedical student in Delhi. It was in response to those persistent demands for increased security that the Bangalore city police introduced all-women squad patrolling, on Thursday January 31, 2013, last week.

[Read: Brutal Gang Rape of 23 Year Old in Delhi]

A new women’s helpline number 1091 has been set up that women in distress can call for help. Depending upon the nature of the call, the police control room will dispatch an all-women squad to handle the situation.

These female squads are called Abhaya which means fearless and their goal is to instill a sense of security among women. They will comprise of 3-4 specially trained policewomen. When not attending to any complaint, female police squads will patrol the city focusing on areas most frequented by women.

Currently, women make less than 1% of Bangalore’s police force – only 1000 policewomen among total 14,000. Considering that city police needs to recruit more women to make this new security measure effective. Otherwise, it will just stay as a symbolic gesture.

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Aung San Suu Kyi is an iconic world leader, an extraordinary living example of resilience and fearlessness. She was awarded Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent struggle for democracy in Burma (Myanmar). She features in Forbes world’s 100 most powerful women. Suu Kyi epitomizes strength, peace, and hope for people far beyond Myanmar.

She was only 2 years old when her father, the commander of modern Burmese Army, who negotiated Burma’s freedom from British Empire, was assassinated. Today, she’s the chairperson of National League for Democracy (NLD), a political party founded by her and that is widely speculated to come to power in 2015 elections.

Suu Kyi has lived a life of selflessness, sacrifice, and enduring fight – spending 15 of last 21 years under house arrest – away from her family. At 67, her spirit is strong as ever.

She says that politics was her destiny that she had to follow. She did her early schooling in Burma and then in 1960, at the age of 15, she moved to New Delhi along with her mother who was then Burmese ambassador to India. In Delhi, after studying in Convent of Jesus and Mary School, she pursued her degree in politics from Lady Shri Ram College. Then she moved to England for her B.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University. She worked in various capacities in US, Japan, India, and Burma.

In 1971, she married Michael Aris, a British scholar and had two children. Life was going fine for Aung San Suu Kyi until 1988 when she had to suddenly rush back to her roots in Burma to tend to her mother who had suffered a massive stroke. While in Burma, Suu found herself in the midst of a brewing pro-democracy movement. She took the center stage in what’s known as 8888 Uprising and has never looked back.

Suu Kyi chose Burmese people over her family and personal happiness. Her husband died in 1999 while she was in house arrest. He was terminally ill and even her farewell letter didn’t make to him on time. In an interview with NDTV, Suu said that it would not have made any difference even if her letter had reached him. She didn’t appear to have any ill feeling towards the military dictators who denied Michael an entry into Burma. She only met her husband 5 times during the period she was under house arrest. Even her children were not allowed to meet her. She couldn’t travel to receive her Nobel Peace Prize either. Military junta gave her an option to visit her family in England but she knew that that would be a one way pass and therefore decided to stay put and to continue doing her duty.

In 1990 general elections in Burma, her NLD party won 80% of the parliament seats however the military junta refused to hand over the power and nullified the results. But continuous breaches of promises by authorities, frequent house arrests, and restrictions on her freedom haven’t dented her spirit.

She says, “For me real freedom is freedom from fear and unless you can live free from fear you cannot live a dignified human life. It’s not possible if you’re always having to think what will somebody do to me if I say this, what will somebody do to my family if I do that, that’s not the sort of life I want to live and that was not the sort of life I want my people to live. So yes it’s the idea of real freedom which comes from inside and once you’re free inside and once you feel that I can accept whatever happens to me so long as I’m working for something that is right, then I think you are free.”

For those who believe that power corrupts people, Suu Kyi has an answer – “It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

For the past 25 years Suu Kyi has been fearlessly fighting for democracy in Burma. She has braved attacks on herself, brutal killing of her party members, multiple house arrests, and separation from family – just for one cause – democracy for her people.

It was only in November 2010 that Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Now she’s free to travel, meet her children, and hold meetings with foreign dignitaries.

Whether, or not, 2015 becomes the year of change in Myanmar, a peaceful and fearless fighter’s fight for democracy continues.

Learn all about Aung San Suu Kyi