Ranchi, June 23: The Jharkhand unit of the All-India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) is gearing up to ensure mass participation in the programme organised by its central unit on July 25 in front of the Parliament to mount pressure on the Centre to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill.

Unit president Guni Oraon said: “We have decided to select 1,000 women from different parts of the state who would lay a siege to the Parliament on July 25. A few parliamentarians have been opposing the proposed bill. We have started our selection process and are making women aware of their fundamental rights.”

“The state committee is also meeting on July 7 at Bokaro to discuss the issues for which we will agitate in front of the Parliament. The meeting will be followed by district, block, panchayat and village-level meetings in different parts of the state. At the meetings we will discuss how the Union government has failed to fulfil its promise to provide 33 per cent reservation to women,” she added.

Unit secretary Kumari Meena said: “A nine-point charter of demands has been prepared and it would be distributed among the women who would be selected to participate in the agitation programme. All the demands that have been included will help the farmers and labourers of the country.”

“Our demands include making right to employment a fundamental right, ensuring job guarantee, providing unemployment allowance to unemployed people and part-time employees, formulation of a clear policy for working women, providing job security to women workers, immediate ban on the privatisation of education and medical services, provision for loan on lower interest to women, provision for women reservation in different representative bodies and immediate implementation of the Supreme Court order given for the security of women,” she added.

Unit deputy secretary Singi Khalkho said the success in ensuring mass participation in the programme scheduled to be organised at New Delhi will decide the fate of the women’s movement in the state.

“Our success in the Delhi agitation will help give a boost to our programme of introducing 50,000 women labourers in the organisation,” she said.

Hope for prisoners: The Sakchi jail authorities have decided to send a recommendation to the inspector-general of prisons for the remission of the term of punishment to three prisoners who have secured good marks in this year’s National Institute of Open School (NIOS) examination, reports our Jamshedpur correspondent.