They are courageous, creative and inspiring: The Bobs 2013 jury winners came to Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum to receive their awards, two of them for projects focused on women’s rights.

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Sheetal Prasad is a lady who apparently has it all- beauty, brains, money and education. But when this modern Indian woman surrenders love for honour and marries into one of India’s wealthy families, life takes a different turn. Women Talk Online blogger Debarati Mukherjee reviews the book, “Duty and desire,” by author Anju Gattani.

Deutsche Welle’s Best of Blogs Awards 2013, better known as the Bobs, has come to a close and the winners have been announced. The nominees for this year’s prize included several multimedia projects, such as the blog “Morsi Meter” from Egypt which measures whether President Morsi is fulfilling his electoral promises or not.  Women Talk Online spoke to Ute Schaeffer, Deutsche Welle’s chief editor and asked her how women’s blogs fared in the Bobs this year.

This blog is part of a series on women and elections in Pakistan. The project is a joint effort by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) Pakistan and the UKS research center.

Women make up almost half of the almost 200 million people inhabiting Pakistan. That is indeed a huge number, but come election time, and the percentages we see the statisticians throwing at us present a pretty dismal picture.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is set for his third term as the country’s prime minister. The economy is crippled, the people unhappy and a huge energy deficit reigns in the country. Islamic extremism has tarnished the image of the country in the world. Will Sharif be able to overcome the daunting tasks that lay in front of him? Will he able to do justice to the expectations of the women in the Pakistani society? Will he able to really bring about a change in Pakistan? WTO reporter Roma Rajpal asked five Pakistani women from varied backgrounds about their expectations.

The sentence,  “Siyasut main barabri mera haq” means, equality in politics is my right. In Pakistan, when it comes to women, politics and voting, the picture looks bleak. For instance according to this report by FAFEN (Fair and Free Election Network), a gender analysis was conducted, revealing startling results. Out of a total number of 4,671 candidates contesting for National Assembly seats in the 2013 elections in Pakistan, there are only 161 women contesting for the elections – or just 3.5% of the candidates are female! An alarmingly low number.