Women and the Indian elections

there has been various discussion of the role of women in the Indian elections.

India Ink blog from the New York Times states that most parties ignore women voters.

In the past women voters had a lower turnout. Statistics on this can be obtained from the Indian Election commission which compare rates over time by gender.
in 2007 Women Politicians, Gender Bias, and Policy-making in Rural India (published as a UNICEF state of the World's Children background paper)   found significant under representation. which was
in 2012 research  from Warwick University and the IMF found that Using state-level variation in the timing of political reforms an increase in female representation in local government induced a large and 
significant rise in documented crimes against women in India

However in an extract from a book. new book, 'An Undocumented Wonder: The Great Indian Election', former chief election commissioner SY Quraishi describes how the Indian Election Commission has been targetting women.

In 2014. 70 independent civil-society activists have launched the Womanifesto 2014 to get the major parties to address issues relating to women's rights.

A pdf version with list of signatories can be viewed on the AVAAZ website.

For further details of women's rights and political participation in India try these websites.

Council on Foreign Relations analysis from 2013.
Search the Iknow politics site for references. Such as this study on the challenges women in India face.
IPU has data on womens's political participation worldwide so you can cross compare with other nations.

UN Women in India has details on projects designed to increase women's political leadership. In 2013 Norad reviewed the effectiveness of some of these and suggested plans for future development.