Outraged women's groups had publicly condemned GIC when it came out with the Rajrajeswari Mahila Kalyan Bima Yojna, which outlined insurance policies for women for disabilities arising out of natural calamities like floods, earthquakes, terrorist activities and from rape, surgical operations, child birth etc.

The Yojna, which was announced with great fanfare, no less than Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee himself had inaugurated it, invited contempt rather than bouquets as the news sunk in. Horrified women's groups lashed out at the insensitivity of the policy, berating the Government for promoting it. Demanding immediate withdrawal of the scheme, they protested that the scheme was a cynical manipulation of the growing fearamong women of sexual crimes against them.

Uma Bharati, who is back in office after seven months of self-imposed isolation, says she went to the Finance Minister two days ago and asked him to delete the offensive word. ``It is shameful. How can you fix a price for a woman's izzat (honour)? However, I must say, rape is only one labz (word) in the whole policy. I discovered this after I read the 20-odd page policy. It has been clubbed together with various other disabilities and injuries as you can see. But I still forced the Finance Minister to change `rape' into `physical assault' so it can include injuries coming from eve-teasing, acid throwing etc.''

A triumphant Uma Bharati may have removed the word `rape' but the original problem still remains. The Government is still to tackle the terrifying problem for women in a fitting way -- instead of protecting women against violence, they now offer insurance policies for them.