The National Tourism Advisory Council (NTAC), which serves as a think-tank for the tourism ministry, came up with an idea recently, wherein metal badges inscribed with "I respect women" would be distributed to professionals in the field and even to taxi drivers and porters. Besides Hindi and English, the badges will be in nine international languages, including Chinese, French, Korean, Japanese, Arabic and Russian.
Some 6.65 million foreign tourists visited India last year, of which, 40% were women. Some countries have been issuing travel advisories to women planning to travel to India. While, in the recent past, there has been some stringent action on the part of the judiciary in dealing with cases related to crimes against women, these crimes continue unabated. Union tourism minister K Chiranjeevi feels that badges will probably offer the solution.
The aim, tourism ministry officials say, is to show that majority of people here do not support crime against women. The initiative will be a voluntary one, with professionals taking a call on wearing them and states being the final authority in making them mandatory or not.
"It is a very good initiative. It is largely a confidence-building measure. Someone wearing a badge proclaiming his respect for women will inspire confidence among women travellers," Jagdish Patil, managing director, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), said.
» Read Complete News.....(You need to login first to read complete news). New User? Register for FREE!
» Back to Travel News