India 103rd in women's parliament representation

Women have a poor 11% representation in India's Lok Sabha and 10.6% in the Rajya Sabha, making India 103th among 188 countries covered in the annual analysis on statistics of women members of parliament (MPs) conducted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
•    The global average of women in parliaments as of November 2013 stood at 21.3%, a slight increase over the numbers in the immediately preceding two years (20.3% and 19.5%). 
•    Countries are ranked by the IPU based on percentage of women in the lower house of parliament. The top three countries in the 2013 analysis were Rwanda, Andorra and Cuba.
•    India fared poorly even when compared with her immediate neighbours. Here, Nepal, ranked at 24, led the pack, followed by China (55) and Pakistan (66).
•    With elections around the corner in India, several women groups have come together under the umbrella of 'Time for 33% Coalition' and are seeking passage of the women's reservation bill during the winter session which will start shortly.
•    The bill proposes to reserve 33% seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies. Various similar bills, introduced since 1996, have lapsed.
•    According to statistics released periodically by the Election Commission, for the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, the number of elected women increased from 49 in 1999 to 59 in 2009, with 11% representation in the lower house. 
•    In 2009, the number of elected women over total seats was maximum in Punjab (30.8%), followed by Madhya Pradesh (20.7%) and Haryana (20.0%). Against this, the number of women voters in India has increased from 44.3% to 45.8%.