New Delhi (NVI): International Women’s Day is marked on March 8 every year to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women from all walks of life, while highlighting the day-to-day problems they face in the professional environment.
The purpose behind celebrating this day is to promote peace with women’s rights.
Women’s Day stems from a workers’ movement. It first emerged at the turn of the twentieth century in North America and across Europe, when in the year 1908, 15,000 women marched in New York City demanding fewer hours in the job. Apart from this, they demanded that they should be given a better salary and also be given the right to vote.
A year later, the Socialist Party of America declared this day as the first National Women’s Day at the Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen.
However, it was only in 1977, United Nations recognised the day and declared March 8 as International Women’s Day across the globe.
Throughout the years, many changes and new objectives are brought to further engrave the meaning of this day and in 2015, countries adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In it, Goal 5 is “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
In many countries like Cuba, Armenia, Mongolia, Russia, Uganda, and Ukraine, International Women’s Day is an official holiday.
The day is celebrated with a different theme annually. The theme for this year is “Choose To Challenge”. A challenged world is an alert world. And from challenge comes change. “So let’s all #ChooseToChallenge,” read an official statement.
This year’s theme is to highlight the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The day is also significant to make people aware of women’s rights, safety, and gender equality. Also, there are colours for this day– purple, green and white. Purple signifies justice and dignity, green symbolizes hope and white represents purity.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted women and said India takes pride in their many accomplishments.
He said it was his government’s honour to work towards furthering women’s empowerment in the country across a wide range of sectors.
Saluting our indomitable #NariShakti on International Women's Day! India takes pride in the many accomplishments of the women of our nation. It is our Government’s honour to be getting the opportunity to work towards furthering women empowerment across a wide range of sectors.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 8, 2021
“Saluting our indomitable #NariShakti on International Women’s Day! India takes pride in the many accomplishments of the women of our nation. It is our Government’s honour to be getting the opportunity to work towards furthering women empowerment across a wide range of sectors,” PM Modi tweeted.
-CHK
