National Commission for Women

The National Commission for Women (NCW) is a statutory body for women, set up in 1992, by Government of India, under specific provisions, National Commission for Women Act, 1990 (Act No. 20 of 1990 of Govt.of India.), of the Indian Constitution. The present head of the Commission is Girija Vyas.

Activities
The objective of the NCW is to represent the rights of women in India and to provide a voice for their issues and concerns. They have actively published about and campaigned regarding several issues with women in India, such as dowry, equal representation for women in jobs, politics, religion and the exploitation of women for labor.They have also talked about police abuses against women The commission regularly brings out a monthly newsletter, "Rashtra Mahila" in Hindi and English.

Positions
Recently, in December 2006 & Jan. 2007, it found itself at the center of a minor controversy over its insistence that the law not be changed to make adulterous wives equally prosecutable by their husbands. But the grounds on which Ms Vyas resists the logic of making this a criminal offence — particularly for women, as often recommended — are not as encouraging. She is averse to holding the adulterous woman equally culpable as the adulterous man because women, she believes, are never offenders. They are always the victims.''

There is, however, no denying the value of the commission’s efforts to guarantee women security even in less conventional relationships.

The NCW also has demanded that women should not be punished for adultery as she is "the victim and not an offender" in such cases. They have also advocated for the amendment of Section 198 of CrPC to allow women to file complaints against unfaithful husbands and prosecute them for their promiscuous behaviour.This was in response to loopholes in the Indian Penal code that allowed men to file adultery charges against other men who have engaged in illicit relations but does not allow women to file charges against their husbands.

Pub attack controversy
The NCW came under sharp criticism for their response to the an attack by forty right-wing Sri Ram Sena Hindu men on eight women in a bar in Mangalore in late January 2009. Video from the attack shows the women were punched, pulled by their hair, and thrown out of the pub for acting "immorally." NCW member Smt Nirmala Venkatesh was sent to assess the situation, and said in an interview that the pub did not have adequate security and that the women should have protected themselves. "If the girls feel they were not doing anything wrong why are they afraid to come forward and give a statement?" Venkatesh said. On 6 February, the NCW said they decided not to accept Venkatesh's report but will not be sending a new team to Mangalore. On 27 February, The Prime Minister’s Office approved the removal of Nirmala Venkatesh on disciplinary grounds.