Dr.Charu WaliKhanna, Member, was Special Guest at the function to celebrate ‘Vijay Diwas’ on 16.12.2013. The programme was organised by War Widows Association at Shaheed Bhawan, New Delhi.

Programme began with the welcome song by Ms. Niharika Naidu D/o Late Lt. Col. Brahmanad Awasthy, a 1962 martyr of the Indo-China War, with the welcome address by Ms. J Gurmit Singh, President, WWA, and followed by address of Dr. Mohini Giri.

Member Dr. Charu WaliKhanna congratulated the organizers for highlighting the condition of widows on this momentous day. She said that there is a myth that widowhood is experienced only by elderly women. While in fact it also affects younger women, many of whom are sitting among the audience i.e. war widows.

Member deplored the insensitivity of the statement made by a Bihar Minister ‘SENA MEIN LOG MARNE HI JAATE HAIN’ in response to a media question why no minister reached Patna airport to pay their last respects to the four martyred soldiers from Bihar. She stressed the need to protect the widows of these brave men who had sacrificed their lives for the nation and to give them special facilities including making them aware of their rights and schemes of Govt. of India. She further offered that NCW would be happy to conduct Legal Awareness Programme to make the widows aware of their rights specially since widows confront patriarchal customary and religious discrimination, including abuse and exploitation at the hands of family members in order to deprive her of her property / inheritance; and also help to prepare a National Policy for the welfare of widows.

She ended by saying that today it has been one year since the struggle of Nirbhaya and her death has not gone in vain since women have started breaking the veil of silence and urged war widows to come forward and resist injustice.

Commando Surender Singh, the recently elected local MLA from cantonment area extolled the virtues of armed forces -men who valiantly fight to protect the country- and it is the duty of the nation to respect and protect their wives / widows.

In the programme two minor girls on whose life attempt to murder was made by their own grandmother after the death of their mother, narrated their experience and how they were able to rise above their circumstances when their uncle -a rickshaw puller brought them in contact with the army and subsequently to the War Widows Association.

A representative from the Mahila Bank, Nehru Place, also participated in the programme and said that the schemes of the bank were still being formulated.

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