Thank you Maneka Ma'am for your response and for finally passing the bill on 9th March 2017! It was long due, but better late than never! When I started this petition on Change.org in October 2016 under a pseudonym, Neveah D, I didn’t know how Change.org worked, how many signatures would it take to get the decision makers to respond, how many signatures meant a victory etc. I wasn't even quite sure if raising this petition was the right thing to do. Neither did I know I would have to fight so hard for something that was rightly due to all the expectant working mothers in India. This bill was first spoken about in December 2015, it is sad to see that it got passed only in March 2017. It says a lot about how fast things move in India. But like I said, better late than never. And as far as I know, the effective dates haven't been announced by the lawmakers yet, but I hope that it has a retrospective aspect and it covers new mothers who are currently on Maternity Leave. The victory didn't come easy and fighting for the petition was no cakewalk. I had almost given up. My constant emails to Maneka Gandhi, Labour Ministry, Women and Child Development Ministry hardly yielded any fruit. Also, the petition wasn't making the right kinda noise and the signatures weren't catching up as fast as I had expected. That's when the petition got noticed by Soumya from the Change.org team. She sent in frequent updates and helped reach this petition to a larger crowd. She and her colleagues also met the officials from the Ministry for Women and Child Development asking them to pass this bill at the earliest. Slowly things started falling into place. I started getting responses on my emails to Maneka Gandhi and Women & Child Development Ministry. The responses weren’t assuring enough, just the usual lines – we’re trying our best. But now, finally, after all this time, we have this bill. I don't mean to say that this bill got passed because of my petition. I would be a fool to say that. This bill would have been passed anyway sooner or later without this petition, no doubt about it. But this petition and Maneka Ma'am's reply to it is a message to all commoners like me - if you believe in something, don't wait for it to happen. Give your best and fight with all you can. I'm happy we finally have this bill in place, but I really hope that we don't have to fight this hard for our rights, to the point of begging for our share of equality and rights. I humbly thank each and everyone who signed and supported this petition. It couldn’t have been possible without you all. You all have won today. Feel proud and never give up! Thanks to Change.org for giving commoners like me a platform to fight for something we believe in and make our voices heard loud and clear! Thanks again everyone! Cheers! Happy Holi!