Upping the ante on women empowerment, the Kerala State Youth Commission, which aims at empowering youth and protecting their rights, is offering free self-defence training for young women. The aim of the programme was to prepare every woman in the southern state for self-defence against physical assault, Commission officials here said. Those women, aged between18 and 40 years who have registered with the Community Volunteer Force of the state government can apply for the free martial arts training, the officials said. Commission officials stated that the mission of such an initiative was to prepare every woman in the southern state for self-defence against physical assault. And we believe it was a rather befitting initiative to undertake, one that other states must draw inspiration from and follow suit. Meanwhile, Chintha Jerome, Chairperson of the Youth Commission, said the training programme would start in Thiruvananthapuram district in the first phase and would later be seen extending to other parts of the southern state in the later phases of the programme. Of course, the argument that men be taught to not commit the crime still holds true but we will take what we get at this point. We are hopeful that with such efforts being made to make women self-sufficient and prepare them to safeguard their own selves without feeling the need to depend on anyone, would offer them a fighting chance in the face of the crime, and help in controlling the increasing crime rate. Kerala PSU produces 83K Liters of sanitizer to distribute in schools Kerala: Cinema Theatres to reopen on January 5 Drug case: Kannada actor Shweta Kumari detained by NCB