The University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute is delighted to be hosting a special International Women's Day 2022 event, entitled 'Gender+ and elections in India's most populous state', on Friday 18th March, 12-1.30pm (UK/GMT) / 5.30-7pm (IST). This will be held on MS Teams.
To attend, please register for your free place using the event's Registration Form.
This webinar will explore challenges for women's political participation in India. India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 200 million people, has just concluded its state election in February - March 2022 to elect its state government. It is a politically dynamic state with several major parties. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party, also the ruling party of national government, has governed the state from 2017-2022. The election is also noteworthy for the implementation of a 40% gender quota for candidates from one of the parties in the contest, the Indian National Congress party. Results will be declared on 10 March. All three webinar speakers have spent time on the ground during the election campaign and have been closely involved with understanding the challenges faced by diverse women candidates in this election. We look forward to hearing their insights both in terms of the campaign, the results, and broader reflections on the status of women's political participation in India.
We are grateful to the University of Nottingham's International Women's Day programme for co-funding this event, along with UoN's Asia Research Institute.
Inviting:
- Gilles Verniers (Ashoka University)
- Tara Krishnaswamy (Political Shakti)
- Kanksshi Agarwal (NETRI)
Chaired by UoNARI Director, Dr Carole Spary (Nottingham)
Speaker Profiles
Tara Krishnaswamy is the co-ordinator of non-partisan collective Political Shakti which advocates in favour of women’s political representation in India. A software engineer by profession and based in Bengaluru, she has organised numerous campaigns to persuade political parties to nominate more women candidates, and to encourage MPs to advocate for women’s reservation. She has also produced a TED talk and commissioned a survey and a short film to understand public attitudes toward and raise awareness about women’s political participation. She has also contributed towards media commentary and analysis of women in politics in India. Outside of Political Shakti, she is the co-founder of Citizens for Bengaluru organising local civic campaigns on citizens’ issues.
Kanksshi Agarwal is the founder of NETRI, an organisation aiming to achieve womxn’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making across political, economic, social and public life in India. She has formerly held roles as a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Research at the Technology and Society Initiative, and a Research Associate working with the All India Congress Committee Research Department to co-draft the 2019 Congress’ General Election Manifesto. A fellow of LAMP, Citizens for Public Leadership, Lead like a Girl - Shenomics and She Creates Change, as well as a winner of the Karmaveer Chakra silver and bronze awards, Kanksshi has spoken at conferences and forums hosted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the National University of Taiwan, MIT-School of Government, Pune - Symbiosis School of Arts and Law and RohilKhand University - Bareilly. Her work can also be found in Forbes India, The Wire (India), The Print (India), Feminism in India (FII) and the South Asia Journal.
Gilles Verniers is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashoka University, India, and there he is Co-Director of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data. He completed his Ph.D. in Political Science from Sciences Po, Paris, and has been a visiting scholar at the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He has co-co-ordinated global collaborative projects on the sociology of elected representatives in India and is the co-editor of a forthcoming book on this topic, with Prof. Christophe Jaffrelot and Dr. Sanjay Kumar, CSDS. He is the co-editor of a special issue of the journal Contemporary South Asia on the topic of India’s 2019 general election, and regularly contributes analysis and commentary in Indian national media on electoral politics, including on women’s representation in Indian politics.
Chair – Carole Spary, is Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations and Director of the Asia Research Institute, at the University of Nottingham. She is the co-author (with Shirin M. Rai) of Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament (OUP) and the author of Gender, Development, and the State in India (Routledge).