A controversial quota appears in India - Building Gender Balanced Business

• The bill seeks to amend the Indian Constitution so as to reserve one-third of all seats in both national and state legislatures for women.

• Though it has passed through the Parliament’s upper house, it still has a long way to go before changing the Constitution.

• There are three more necessary steps: the bill must first pass the lower house of Parliament, then it must win the approval from at least half of India’s state legislatures and finally, India’s president must sign it.

• The amendment has been trying to pass since the 1990’s but has continually failed because of various issues over who will benefit most from laws to reduce inequality.

• Gender is just one dimension of the rampant inequalities in India that also concern religion, ethnicity and castes.

• This is where the problem with the bill stems from: the bill’s opponents proclaim that it will favor wealthy upper-caste women to the detriment of the lower castes and Muslims.

The New York Times