International Women's day - Fight for the right

8th March is being celebrated as International Women,s day worldwide and the work of women are recognised from different fields namely politics, business, government activities and networking events through to local women's craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and many more.

History of Women's day celebration

International Women,s day has been in existence since the start the 20th century. There were many women in the history who actively participated in different fields and came up with a fame establishing the existence of women, identity.

Upto 1918 there was a great revolution for establishing the equal right for women. In 1908 the main revolution started when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. The first National Woman's Day (NWD) was celeberated in United States on 28 February. After that Women continued to celebrate National women,s day on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

Russia started to celebrate National women,s day from 1913 on the last Sunday of February. After that the International Women's day was converted to 8th March of every year and it became global.

Gradually the International women's day started in several countries and women's strength was recognized even by United Nations and conferences were held on every International women's day.

In 1975 United Nation declared that year to be 'International Women's Year'. The honour for women started growing and now a days women are almost equal in every field and running side by side with men in terms of acheivements in every field.

International Women's day in different Countries

International women's day is declared as an official holiday in many countries like Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The women are honoured by men on their acheivement and even in a family the wife, mother, grand mother, girl friend and daughters are honoured. In some countries the International Women,s day have equal status with Mother's day.

Status of Women in new millenium

In 21st century the status of women has been drastically improved and the attitude of men has been shifted and the newer generation had gladly accepted both men and women as a complementary to each other and the feeling of equality has been boomed. Women have been showing their efficiency in every field and there has been women Prime Ministers, Presidents, astronauts, fashion, glamour and in business with equal efficiency.

Still at some places there is scope of improvement for example in many fields in spite of equal contribution, women are not paid equally. International women's day is a benchmark and it is the integrity which is to be developed among women to fight for the right.

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LTTE is shrinking in Sri Lanka

A month back I came through a news in which Sri Lanka claimed that it is close to finishing the 25 year old bloody civil war in the island nation. The military offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continued throughout the month of January driving the Tamil tigers rebel from their stronghold dens into a shrinking patch of jungle.

They captured the northern Sri Lankan town of Kilinochchi in a blietzkrieg that stunned the world ten years before, finally Tamil Tigers on January 2 lost it to a military determined this time to shrink them into negligible. The fall of rebels' de facto capital after months of fighting was a huge blow to the LTTE. Four days later the Cabinet redisignated Tigers as a terrorist group stating that they are not allowing civilians to leave war zone.

On January 9th the final assault came when the ground troops backed by armour, artllery and aerial bombardment from various directions towards Elephant pass and finally captured the rebel's former army base and Gateway to Jaffna Peninsula. It was for the first time in 23 years when the tigers were cleared from A-9 road linking Jaffna to Kandy.

Five days later on 14th january there was total control of government over the rebel held places in Jaffna, giving another blow to Tamil rebels.

On 25th January Mullaitivu was another blow to rebels which had held this costal town for 13 years since 1996.Army chief Lt. Gen Sarath Fonseka on national television declared that 95% of war was over and victory was iminent. On 29th January army secured Visnamadu town, which was considered as nerve ceter of LTTE,s artillery power and captured a submarine craft and other vessels after which President Mahinda Rajpaksa issued ultimatum to the LTTE to release civilians in the war zone within 48 hours to ensure their safety and security. Reacting to this the weakened LLTE mooted agreed for an internationally mooted ceasefire.

Now the Sri Lankan Government claims that LTTE is fallen to the ground but LTTE supremo is still untraceable. The hunt is on. The rebel is fighting for an independent state for minority Tamils, who had suffered marginalization at the hands of government controlled by Sinhallese, in the northern and eastern part of the country. Now the million dollar question arises had the fight ended, will Prabhakaran remain underground, or this is just a pause to regain their strength?

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