Rwanda superseded Sweden at the number one in the world in terms of women's parliamentary representation--48.8 per cent women against Sweden's 45.3 per cent

INDIA

44 of 543 MPs in Lok Sabha (8.1 per cent) are women

26 of 242 members in Rajya Sabha (10.7 %) are women

While there is no constitutional quota or election law quota at the national level, 33 per cent of seats in all local bodies (panchayats and municipalities) are reserved for women according to the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments. This includes the provision that 33 per cent of the reserved seats shall be women.

In 1996, the 81st Amendment proposed to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies for women under a constituency-rotation system. The women's reservation bill was introduced in Parliament by the United Front Government in 1996 after major political parties supported it in their election manifestos. Another proposal from 2003 suggested converting 181 of the lower house seats into double-member constituencies to elect one man and one woman so that the present male members wouldn't have to vacate their seats. This proposal has not been passed either.

United States Is among the few countries that have no quota for women representatives. 87 women serve in the US Congress (merely 16.3 per cent of the 535 seats) and 16 of 100 seats (16 per cent) in the Senate, and 71 of 435 seats (16.3 per cent) in the House. The number of women in statewide elective executive posts is 74, while the proportion of women in state legislatures is at 23.7 per cent. But the US has a woman speaker in Nancy Pelosi.

UK 128 of 646 members (19.8 per cent) in the Lower House and 142 of 744 members (19 per cent) in the House of Lords are women.

The country has no constitutional or election law quota for the national Parliament. But the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party have party quotas for women candidates. The Scottish Parliament elected 33.3 per cent in the 2007 election. The National Assembly of Wales has 48.3 per cent elected women representatives.

China 604 of 2,980 elected members (20.3 per cent) are women.

In March 2007, the 10th National People's Congress, NPC, decided that for the 11th NPC to be elected in 2008, "the proportion of women deputies....should be no less than 22 per cent." Until now the electoral law of China has stated, that the NPC and local people's congresses all should have women deputies and that the percentages of women should be increased gradually.

France 107 of 577 members in the Lower House (18.5 per cent) and 56 of 332 members in the Upper House (16.9 per cent) are women.

In 2000, a new election law mandated that 50 per cent seats would be reserved for municipal elections for towns with more than 3,500 inhabitants; senatorial elections; regional elections; elections to the Assembly of Corsica; European Parliament elections and council of Paris elections.

Sri Lanka Has among the lowest number of women members: 11 of 225 (4.9 per cent)

A proposal for a 25 per cent quota for women in local bodies was dropped in the draft constitution presented to parliament and withdrawn in 2000. Tamil and Muslim party leaders opposed the quota because of the difficulties in finding women candidates.

HISTORY

The idea of introducing gender quotas in legislatures has usually travelled between countries in the same region. In Latin American, for example, Argentina was the forerunner with its introduction of candidate quotas in 1991. Since then, this type of quotas has spread all over the Latin-American region. In Africa, South Africa has inspired other countries in the region to adopt voluntary party quotas, while Uganda has led concerning reserved seats. In South Asia, gender quotas at the local level have been introduced in recent years in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.