"In a nation where girls are grateful that they are able to survive, their empowerment seems to be a distant dream,” said Smriti Zubin Irani, Member of Parliament and national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Mahila Morcha (women’s wing) and a television actress known for essaying powerhouse roles. She was delivering the fourth Jal P. Gimi Memorial Lecture at Nagpur’s J. N. Tata Convocation Hall on the premises of Nagpur University on the subject of "Women’s Empowerment in the 21st Century,” mentioned a report the following day in Nagpur’s leading newspaper, The Hitavada of January 19, 2013.
Elaborating on the theme Irani noted: "First, we have to form a comprehensive policy to stop female feticide. We have to go back to our glorious history and seek inspiration of respecting women and giving equal status to them. Then only we can talk about women’s empowerment.” The statistics she quoted were dismal: only 11 percent of parliamentarians are women; there are just two women among 26 judges of the Supreme Court; women hold only nine percent of government jobs, 4.6 percent in the defence and 14 percent in administrative services. In the Vedic age equal status was given to women. In his Arthashastra (administration) Chanakya has mentioned punishment for men who abuse women, yet today, thousands of years later we have to deal with the reality of rapes and "are struggling to pass ‘sexual abuse at workplace’ bill in Parliament,” she lamented, as reported in The Hitavada.
(Top row, from l): Shiraz Gimi, Kunda Vijaykar, Smriti Irani, Dr Sapkal, Dr Yenkie and Dr Gomashe; (below) invitees
The late Jal Gimi was vice chancellor of Nagpur University which he served with distinction for 42 years. He set up the University’s Department of Business Management and served as its first honorary director for many years. An engaging orator and leading light in academic circles, he was "a prominent public figure known to be immaculately attired, polite, pleasantly light-hearted yet very proper with an unshakable faith in goodness and justice,” mentions Sohrab Kanga in a write-up sent to Parsiana. Closely associated with notables like the late Justice Hidayatullah, late barrister S. K. Wankhede, former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani and many others, Gimi was vice president of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, director of the Nagpur Electric Light and Power Company, president of the Nagpur and Kamthi Parsi Zarthosti Anjuman and founder member and past president of the Rotary Club of Nagpur, Kanga lists.
Gimi’s son Shiraz, who also resides in Nagpur and is a trustee of the Anjuman initiated the lecture series in honor of his father some years ago. The first of three lectures was by Dr Jamshed Irani, former managing director of Tata Steel and currently director of Tata International, the second was by noted jurist Harish Salve, former solicitor general of India and the third by former Supreme Court judge V. S. Sirpurkar.