Burying the bias.

The world celebrates two days in October to promote awareness against the bias and discrimination experienced by girls and women in many parts of the world. It is rather more appalling and rampant in the developing world and in regressive religious countries and cultures. The protests presently seen across Iran and Afghanistan are a stark reminder of this phenomenon. The ordeals and sufferings of the rural women in Pakistan similarly became a lot more apparent as the heart-rending havocs of the rains and floods were flashed around the world. Being a girl child is evidently a prelude to being a woman and the care, concern and equality of education and training imparted to her inherently determine the persona and competence of the woman evolved.

A call to stimulate the struggle for changing the course of girls' lives by transforming their education, interestingly was also the theme of this year's Girl Child Day. It has been observed since 2012 and is meant to further the goals of equality, dignity and development for women all over world. The day, each year, is also marked by a manifest theme to emphasise some of the most crucial and pathetic forms of discrimination and galvanise the most concerted and effective efforts for their elimination. 'Ending child marriage' for instance, was adopted for 2012, 'innovating for girls' education' for 2013, 'empowering adolescent girls' for 2014 and 'ending the cycle of violence against them' in 2015.

The day to end poverty, violence and discrimination in inheritance, ownership of land, property and the arduous rigour and hardships endured by the rural women similarly is also observed each year on October 15. Its theme this year highlighted women's role in cultivation, making and managing food as well as the problems and the crisis of living confronted by them. Proper education is most paramount to garner their talent, skills, potential and the efflorescence of their persona to live their lives and serve their families and societies.

These annual themes, viewed in their real perspectives, actually serve as the strands of a broader strategy strung to accomplish the UNO vision 2030 for women, culminating into their equality and realisation of the fundamental rights to groom and garner their full potential, pursue the profession of their choice, live without any patriarchic, misogynic and kindred cultural constraints, encumbrances and stigmas entailed by them. The bias and discrimination against them have...