On Gandhi Jayanti, President pitches for women-led development

Citing Mahatma Gandhi’s pro bono work for indentured labourers in South Africa on his 152th birth anniversary on Saturday, President Ram Nath Kovind urged senior advocates to follow the Father of the Nation and spare some time to offer legal services to the poor.

Speaking at the launch of a sixweek-long ‘Pan India Legal Awareness and Outreach Campaign’ of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) here, President Kovind also said the country should aim to move from “women development” to “women-led” development. “As a country our goal should be to graduate from women development to women-led development. Therefore, increasing the number of women in legal services institutions is as important as reaching out to the largest possible number of women beneficiaries,” Kovind said. Kovind said there are about 11,000 women lawyers among over 47,000 panel advocates at the district level and about 17,000 women paralegal volunteers out of the total number of nearly 44,000.

The President said he has been told that NALSA is making efforts to be more inclusive in the engagement of advocates and paralegal volunteers.

Kovind made a reference to Mahatma Gandhi in his address and said he did a lot of pro bono work to help the poor, and that indentured labourers in South Africa looked up to him for taking up with the authorities and in the courts their cause without charging any fees.

Kovind urged senior advocates to follow the Father of the Nation whose birth anniversary was chosen by the NALSA to launch its sixweek-long legal awareness campaign organised as part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ to commemorate 75 years of India’s Independence. He said senior lawyers should earmark some time for rendering pro bono legal services to the people from the weaker sections.

Increasing number of women in National Legal Services Institutions is as important as reaching out to the largest possible number of women beneficiaries, Kovind claimed