By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: South Asian nations pledged here on Thursday to empower their people and civil society through transparency, accountability, and the right to information, which they hoped would lead to better governance.
At the second meeting of the Social Development Ministers of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), these nations, however, resisted India’s idea to copy its “landmark” Right to Information Act (RTI) for implementation in the region.

Only 11 per cent of the total 2,191 candidates who filed their nomination on Monday in 240 constituencies under the first-past-the-post election to constituent assembly were females.

Spokesman for the Election Commission Laxman Bhattarai said the contenders include 1,947 men (1,443 from parties and 464 independent) and a mere 244 female (215 from the political parties and 29 independent). The figure includes the nominations filed by fax, but the EC has not compiled a separate data for the same.

The SAARC Genderbase was lauched in New Delhi, India on 17 January 2008 by H.E. Chenkyab Dorji, the Secretary General of SAARC. The SAARC Gender database has been set up as a joint initiative of the seven member countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.