"Widow Protection Bill" -widows want to meet PM

Thousands of widows living in Vrindavan expressed their desire to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give a push to the "Widow Protection Bill" in the Budget session of the Parliament beginning next month.

On the eve of "World Widow Day", 90-year-old Manu Ghosh from West Bengal, who is living in this temple town for the last several decades, hoped that Mr. Modi will pay attention towards the widows."We will approach Modiji and our new MP from Mathura Ms Hema Malini to take measures for the welfare of widows who are living in Vrindavan and Varanasi," she said.

Vrindavan is home to thousands of old widows from West Bengal and their condition used to be pitiable till the Supreme Court intervened and noted NGO Sulabh International took up the challenge to ameliorate their plight.Sulabh International takes care of all such widows living in six government run ashrams and pays Rs 2,000 to each of the widows besides organising series of welfare measures in the past two years.

Founder of Sulabh International Dr Bindeshwar Pathak hoped that the new prime minister will pay attention towards the widows. Along with widows from Vrindavan, Dr Pathak plans to meet Mr Modi to push the draft bill for introduction in the coming budget session of the Parliament.To highlight the inequalities involved, International Widows' Day (June 23) was officially recognised at a New York-based conference at the UN in 2011.

Some 40 million of the world's widows live in India and life for these women is particularly hard. Not only have they lost their husband, but then society turns on them, stamping them out as worthless, undesirable and a burden.While eight per cent of women in India are widows, only 2.5 per cent of men are widowers, due to the fact that men usually remarry.