AIDTOA International Women’s Day greetings

Universally, 8th March is observed as International Women’s Day. On this historic day, All India DRDO Technical Officers Association(AIDTOA) conveys wishes and solidity support and congratulate all the women’s across the globe including working women’s and rural women’s who’s are mostly suffering even today for basic natural rights of equality , and facing discrimination of gender difference of patriarchal system and obscurantist ideologies. They are also pathetic by sexual abuse in general & working area. The Observance of the International Women’s Day should be utilised to enhance the social and trade union consciousness of the women employees in various spheres of society, all the while ensuring that the men colleagues are also part of it.

The whole idea should be to ensure women participation at grass root level as well as at leadership level, raising the level of consciousness to fight the social deprivation that women are subjected to. The women employees should be equipped through this process to fight the patriarchal system and obscurantist ideologies that would like to confine the women in the four walls of kitchen.

It pertinent to note here that today unorganized sector, scheme workers under various Govt Schemes of Govt sector like ICDS, ASHA, Bhojan Mata, construction workers, landless rural women workers, tea and plantation women workers are under severe exploitation and under attack on their labour in our country as they are not getting minimum wages and decent working condition, dignity of life and social security, health care facilities, etc, even when they are contributing high of their labour. It is not understandable that till now 33 percent women reservation bill has not yet been passed to ensure women participation in legislative of world biggest democracy known as “India”. Most of the women workers are not having proper shelter, Cloth and nutritional food correctly. Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement. But progress towards gender parity has slowed in many the mostly the globe.

International women’s Day honours working women and women’s struggle everywhere. The International Women's Day originated in honour of two all women strikes which took place in the U.S. First all women strike was on March 8, 1857 when the garment workers in New York City marched and picketed, demanding improved working conditions, a ten hour day, and equal rights for women. Their ranks were broken up by the police. The second all women strike was fifty-one years later, (again) on March 8 in 1908, when the women in the needle trades in New York marched again, honouring the 1857 march, demanding the vote, and an end to sweatshops and child labour. The police were present on this occasion too. The first National Woman's Day was observed in the United States on 28 February, 1909. The Socialist Party of America designated this day in honour of the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.

 
The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen in 1909, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's rights and to build support for achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was placed by German socialist Clara Zetkin which was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish Parliament. This Copenhagen initiative finally traversed to today’s International Women’s Day as given below.

1911 As a result of the Copenhagen initiative, International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded women's rights to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.

• 1913-1914 International Women's Day also became a mechanism for protesting World War I. As part of the peace movement, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with other activists.

• 1917  Against the backdrop of the war, women in Russia again chose to protest and strike for "Bread and Peace" on the last Sunday in February (which fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar). Four days later, the Czar abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.

• 1975  During International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March.

• 1995 The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a historic road map signed by 189 governments, focused on 12 critical areas of concern, and envisioned a world where each woman and girl can exercise her choices, such as participating in politics, getting an education, having an income, and living in societies free from violence and discrimination.

• 2014 The 58th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58) – the annual gathering of States to address critical issues related to gender equality and women’s rights — focused on “Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls”. UN entities and accredited NGOs from around the world took stock of progress and remaining challenges towards meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs have played an important role in galvanizing attention on and resources for gender equality and women’s empowerment.