Declining Child Sex Ratio and Preventing Sex Selection
	Indian Association of Women's Studies
	FORCES Network
	Beyond the Circle of Rights
	Are Other Worlds Possible?
	Other Linkages and Networks
	Awareness Raising for Birth Registration among Vulnerable Groups - Street and Working Children of Delhi
	Evaluations

Declining Child Sex Ratio and Preventing Sex Selection

Major initiatives undertaken by the Centre both by its own faculty and through collaborations in launching campaigns against the declining child sex ratio and sex selective abortions have been brought to a successful conclusion for the time being. Going by press coverage, responses by different state governments and the number of organizations now actively involved in campaigns against the declining sex ratio and sex selective abortions, a considerable level of public awareness has been achieved. One of the faculty is a member of the task force set up by UNIFEM and the Delhi State Commission for monitoring the situation in Delhi.

An ongoing study on the declining child sex ratio takes this concern forward by focusing on a relatively neglected dimension of the problem – the dynamic within families in terms of their “choice” of the number and sex of their children, and the factors structuring such choices.  Preliminary findings of this study were recently presented at the 51^st Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations in March 2007, whose special theme is the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl-child.  The conclusions of the study will be further disseminated among state functionaries and activists in the states where the study was conducted.





Indian Association of Women's Studies [ http://www.iaws.org ]

The Centre is currently housing the Secretariat of the IAWS (for the period 2005-08), which has had an extremely active year. Three meetings of the Executive Committee were hosted, two in Delhi and one in Mumbai.  Four regional workshops were organized -- in the regions of the West (Archiving Women’s Lives: Perspectives and Techniques, in collaboration with the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai, East (Feminism and the Production of Knowledge, in collaboration with the Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, South (Feminist Perspectives and the Struggle to Transform the Disciplines in collaboration with the Women’s Studies Department of the United Theological College, Bangalore), and the Central Region (The concept of gender and Indian feminism, in collaboration with the Women Lecturer’s Association, Sant Gadgebaba Amravati Vidhyapeeth).  Further activities

included housing the IAWS Archives at the RCWS, SNDT University, Mumbai and setting up an IAWS Website.  Preparations have been initiated for the next national women’s studies conference to be hosted in collaboration with the Institute of Women’s Studies, University of Lucknow in February 2008 with the broad theme Feminism, Education, and the Transformation of Knowledges: Processes and Institutions.

FORCES network [ http://www.cwds.ac.in/forces.html ]

As a founding member of the FORCES network, CWDS has consistently been active in the network. FORCES has been focussing on issues of Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) and has organized workshops and seminars on ECCD with other partners like Plan International and OXFAM. The FORCES team participated in the discussion day on ECCD at the United Nations and also made presentations.  FORCES has also conducted studies on the status of the ICDS in some of the northern states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.  An enquiry team of FORCES went to Melghat, Maharashtra to investigate into the deaths due to malnutrition of tribal children.

Over the last year, i.e. from October 2006 onwards, there have been discussions about CWDS becoming the next convenor after the term of the YWCA expires in April 2007. The steering committee members and the convenor and coordinator of FORCES have had discussions with the senior faculty of CWDS regarding the prospect of the latter taking over the secretariat.

Beyond the Circle of Rights

This Network of which the previous director is the Convenor, concluded its activities in June 2006 after holding an Asian Level Training at Chiangmai, Thailand.  As mentioned earlier, the network has produced tow concept papers on the Right to Water and Right to Social Security, to be published in 2007-08. Besides these, individuals and organizations belonging to the network are regularly holding training programmes for grassroots workers on economic, social and cultural rights in different parts of the country.





Are Other Worlds Possible?
Coordinator: CACIM - Critical Action: Centre in Movement

The second phase of the project was carried forward during 2006-07.  This project involved activities as a follow up to the series of seminars organized in Delhi in 2005 on the theme “Are Other Worlds Possible?: The World Social Forum and Cultures of Politics.”

Activities included the following:

	Manuscripts of books 2 and 3 Interrogating Empires and Imagining Alternatives are with a new publisher  OpenWord, New Delhi.
	The Hindi translations of these volumes are in their final stages of publication with Prakashan Sansthan.  These books have been specially prepared to make their contents more accessible to a younger non-initiated readership in the Hindi heartland.
	The film Opening Spaces made by Taran Khan has had many further screenings after its premier at the World Social Forum.
	All books in both English and Hindi will be made available on the website www.cacim.net.
	Drawing on this experience a List serve WSF discuss has been created as an open unmoderated forum for the exchange of information and views regarding the World Social Forum.

(This project has been hosted by the Centre with special support from HIVOS).

Other Linkages and Networks

The Centre has been an active member of the National Network of Women’s Organisations, composed of 9 member organizations, including two mass-based organizations. The recently held March 8 International Women’s day celebrations brought together about 300 women and girls for a public rally in the city of Delhi.  The network has been particularly involved in the ongoing campaign for one-third reservations for women at the state and national levels. A major rally was held last year, along with a series of meetings with the Prime Minister, leaders of significant political parties such as Lalu Prasad Yadav among others, and various MPs. 

The Centre participated in several meetings among women’s organisations and with the Planning Commission to discuss its Approach Paper, provide critiques of the 11^th Plan Proposals, and examine the budget proposals of the government. These include consultations with members of the Planning Commission, with NAWO and UNIFEM, and the national network of women’s organizations. The 11^th Plan has received widespread critical attention and there has been considerable consensus among different organizations and academics regarding the lack of attention, among other problems, to gender issues.

Faculty participated in discussions on the sexual assault bill, sexual harassment bill, and contributed to several discussions and evaluations of the implementation of the new domestic violence bill. Several members of the faculty are nominated members of the Sexual Harassment Committees of organizations and companies in the city.

Faculty members are also having active discussions and critiquing the new Micro Finance Bill pending in Parliament. 

Faculty members have been involved in issues of agriculture, food security, including a series of meetings and activities organized by Planning Commission, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Institute of Human Development, the World Food Programme and the National Commission on Farmers.

Faculty participated in the India Social Forum  and the World Social Forum.

Faculty have been actively involved in discussions relating to the social protection of workers in the unorganized sector, through meetings and in relation to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector.

Faculty participated in Sangharsh 2007 of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, especially in the sessions on Dalit and Minority Rights.

As Convenor of the Working Group on Gender for the ICSSR, the Director hosted a one day Workshop at the Centre in October 2006 with 10 experts in the field of women’s studies to help the ICSSR in its future policy on gender research. Feminist research methodology across disciplines (amongst other aspects) was identified as a crucial need in terms of training, and this will be addressed in the coming year through a special workshop.

Networking among women’s studies and gender and development centres in the Asian region was initiated during the last year through invitations to the Centre for Women’s Studies, Ewha women’s university, Seoul, Korea and the gender and development programme at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan.  Asian scholars from China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka were invited for the Gadnet conference.  A young Chinese scholar from the department of history at Dalian University in China, doing a comparative study of historiography in the women’s movements of China and India, has been affiliated to the Centre under the Asian Scholarship Programme for 7 months from February to September 2007.

Awareness Raising for Birth Registration among Vulnerable Groups - Street and Working Children of Delhi

This is a research cum campaign activity begun in March 2006 for a period of 15 months in Delhi.  The initiative is being supported by Plan India Society.  CWDS and four NGOs – Women’s Coalition Trust, Delhi Brotherhood Society, YWCA,  and Bal Sahyog, and the NGO forum for Street and Working Children, are jointly conducting the research and the campaign.

The NGOs, in their respective field areas, undertook a mapping exercise and selected 1065 street and working children, with or without families, belonging to the age group less than 1 year to 18 years for promoting a child friendly birth and civil registration. Except for a few children who are less than one year, the rest of the children had not been registered, even though, according to the Act of 1969, the registration of the birth of a child is compulsory.

The group is presently engaged in developing the most child friendly model of birth registration for this category of children.

Evaluations

The Centre has also been empanelled by the government for the assessment and evaluation of programmes relating to women.  During the year the Centre was approached by the Council for the Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART Regional Centre, Chandigarh) to evaluate the “Pre-funding Evaluation for Women’s empowerment through Skill Development”, a Haryana based programme in district Sonepat.  An evaluation report was submitted to the concerned agency after conducting the necessary field investigation.  Ms. Savitri Ray was the facilitator cum evaluator of this project.