On the occasion of International Women’s week celebration, Chandraprabha Saikiani Centre for Women’s Studies, Tezpur University organized a debate competition on 11th march, 2024. At first Dr. Mousumi Mahanta Asst.Prof. addressed the programme by defining the topic of the debate competition: “ Menstruation leave policy”. The debate competition started with ten participants amongst which five were for the motion and other five were against the motion. In the first round, Prayasi stood out for the motion by explaining menstruation and its symptoms and whether the stigma should probably be justified or not. Next came Priyanshu from against the motion where he talked about Smt.

Smriti Irani’s statement where she made a stand against it and the gender roles needs to be challenged. In the second round Anushmita from for the motion beautifully put her arguments about why we need the menstruation leave policy because now we focused on equity and not equality . She also talked about how developed countries like Japan, China, and South Korea had already introduced this policy. Next from against the motion Udit Gogoi and Bichitra Bishwa Bora stood up and challenged the statement of Anushmita by saying that when Japan introduced the policy there is a degradation of Japan in gender chart from 121 to 125. So it is not helping in reducing the gender gap but promoting gender equality also talks about privatization how it will affect the economy.

From for the motion Bishal addressed that India already in Bihar and Kerala have accepted the policy and also private companies like Nike adopted it. For the concluding part Susanskrita from for the motion concludes by saying that 3 days leave is necessary and it needs to be implemented also that we should promote menstruation education. And Krishna Smita Kalita from against the motion they concluded by saying that if it is implemented there will be low women participants and it will impact the society negatively. After the debate competition, Dr. Mousumi Mahanta gave her remarks and praised the students for their enthusiastic nature and participation.