Thursday 15 August, 2013

Five Achievements Since Independence







AS India completes 66 years of its independence on August 15, 2013, it is time to reflect on what the nation has achieved in this period. One can reel out dozens, possibly scores, of achievements but then these have to be special, unique and extremely select. Five should be a good number and a challenge!


So, here we go!



If the question were to be regarding achievements of India as a nation since the Indian civilization began millennia ago, there is no doubt that India has been a world leader in diverse fields, not just spiritualism.
India invented the decimal and the Number system millennia ago. Zero was invented by the Indian prodigy in astronomy and mathematics, Aryabhatta (476-550 CE). Great Britain’s oldest university, Oxford, came into existence only in the year 1167. India’s Takshashila University was the world’s first which was established in 700 BC wherein more than 10,500 students from all over the world pursued higher studies in more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda, built in the 4th century BC, is another feather in the Indian cap. It’s a pity that for various socio-political reasons the two ancient Indian universities could not sustain, while Oxford University continues its glorious run uninterruptedly.



The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, who actually is the father of the concept known to the modern world as the Pythagorean Theorem. Budhayan flourished in the 6th century, long before the European mathematicians dominated the world stage.



India is the birth place of algebra, trigonometry and calculus. It was a thousand years ago when Sridharacharya used numbers as big as 1053 while the largest numbers in the world then, used by the Greeks and the Romans, were 106.



But then this is the past. What about the present: the contemporary India? 

The five top most achievements of the independent India, according to me, are as follows.



1. Maintaining its unity and integrity: This is the most important achievement of India since independence because India has survived its modern map despite diverse challenges, despite an over a quarter century-long proxy war from across the borders and stiff terrorism-related challenges on domestic and foreign fronts. More importantly, despite such challenges India’s secular fabric and its amazing unity in diversity have remained intact.



2. India’s vibrant democracy: India has remained an island of democracy amid a vast ocean of autocratic rules in the neighbourhood. India has been a pulsating, throbbing democracy and has emerged as the largest democracy in the world. Right from the days of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, when the two topmost Indian leaders often differed drastically from each other on core issues, to the contemporary times of Anna Hazare, India has continued on the democratic path. Whenever a general election has thrown out a government, the new dispensation has taken over. Peacefully. Many a times. This is India’s victory!



3. The aam aadmi (common man)-specific programs:  Few other countries in the world would have taken up such programs and implemented these with such gusto as India has. The list is long, but on top of the chart would be the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sarak Yojana, Right to Information (RTI), Right to Education (RTE) and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). India’s most ambitious developmental project perhaps, the Right to Food is in the pipeline. This would inevitably pave the way for Right to Medicare and Right to Shelter and many more other rights that are enshrined in the Indian Constitution but have not yet been delivered.



4. India’s space program:  India’s modest efforts to conquer the space that began in 1975 with the successful launch of its first satellite Aryabhatta in 1975 have now come of age. Today, India is among the select few space powers in the world to launch foreign satellites and eye a big chunk of the $ 200 billion commercial rocket launch industry. India has sewn up space agreements with over 20 countries. More importantly, it is now preparing for its Mars Mission in December 2013. It is no mean achievement for a country that was finding it difficult to feed its own people till it successfully embarked on a Green Revolution nearly half a century ago, is now aiming literally for the stars!



5. The nuclear and missile programs: No other programs have beefed up India’s defence and forced the world to acknowledge India’s strides in the field of defence and science and technology as these two. In fact the Point number 5 in this list is a supplementary to the point number 1. India’s prowess in the field of missile technology is a strong deterrent for the enemies. The nuclear program and the missile program form an integral part of this. India has been running the two programs simultaneously and successfully. India’s missile program is spearheaded by such missile systems as the Agni, Prithvi, Akash and Nag. BrahMos, the world’s fastest Cruise missile jointly developed by India and Russia, is the newest addition to the Indian missile bouquet.



These, in my view, are top five achievements of India since independence. India’s Herculean efforts in combating poverty, illiteracy and unemployment do not find a mention in this list, though they are covered in point number three. This is largely because India as a nation was expected to fare better than it has thus far. This leads us to the five top failures of India in the past 65 years. Perhaps we can call them “challenges”, instead of “failures” because these are, and have to be, the templates for any government that comes to power in the next few decades. 



The five “challenges” are: (i) corruption, (ii) population explosion, (iii) poverty, (iv) illiteracy, and (v) unemployment. If India wants to become a global superpower, then these challenges have to be met. India has the required resources, given its very high percentage of young population. It is up to the leaders to deliver and also up to the people as to what kind of leaders they choose to ensure early deliverance. 


courtesy by  Saudi Gazette

Sunday 17 March, 2013

Should India lower the age of consent?



India's government has reportedly cleared lowering the age of consent for sex to 16 years.

This comes after increasing it to 18 in a tough anti-rape ordinance following the outrage after the fatal gang rape of a student in Delhi last December.

Raising the age of consent to 18 has placed India among the more orthodox countries in a world where the norm and the global average is around 16 years.

Many believe that raising the age of consent is fraught with risks.

India is a divided and hierarchical society where relationships between men and women belonging to different castes, classes and religions can spark violence and feuds. Sex before marriage remains taboo.

Nevertheless, India's young are more sexually active than ever before. A 2007 study by the International Institute for Population Sciences and the Population Council found that more than 42% of men and 26% of women aged 15-24 in relationships had sex with their partner.

Many fear that a higher age of consent could lead to young men being packed off to reform homes on the basis of complaints by the irate parents of the young women.

Last year, a judge in Delhi expressed fears that such a move would "open the floodgates for the prosecution of boys for offences of rape on the basis of complaints by girls' parents [even if] the girl was a consenting party".

Also, as leading women's right's lawyer Flavia Agnes points out, a third of rape cases in India are filed by parents against boys with whom their daughters have eloped.

"All that raising the age of consent to 18 years will do is to give society greater control over the lives of young people and young boys in consensual relations with girls," says lawyer Vrinda Grover.

Raising the age of consent can have other unfortunate consequences.

Many young people rush into marriage quickly as it is widely considered to be sanction for having "legal" sex.

Many of these marriages fall apart quickly as their partners are mentally not prepared for it. A large number of girls aged 15-18 are also kidnapped for marriage.

Supporters of a higher age of consent for sex argue that those under 18 are not prepared to handle sexual relations.

They say a higher consent age also checks widespread child abuse, teenage pregnancies, human trafficking and rape.

Over a century the age of consent in India has been raised from 10 to 18 reacting mainly to concerns over child marriage, and much later over rape and teenage pregnancies.

Still, according to the National Population Policy, over 50% of girls marry below the age of 18. Conflating age of marriage for girls (18) with age of consent, says researcher Pallavi Gupta "negates any form of sexual freedom that young girls below that age group can exercise".

But clearly, India needs to do more to protect its girls and stop child marriages than raise the age of consent


by BBC

Wednesday 25 April, 2012

Domestic Violence: Sign Of Inhumanity

 It's a shocking revelation in this day and age. Not just Indian men, but even adolescents - in the 15-19 age group - feel that wife beating is justified.

Unicef's "
Global Report Card on Adolescents 2012", says that 57% of adolescent boys in India think a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife.

Over half of the Indian adolescent girls, or around 53% think that a husband is justified in beating his wife. In comparison, 41%
women in Bangladesh and 54% in Sri Lanka harbour a similar feeling . In Nepal, however, the prevalence of both men and women justifying domestic violence is inordinately high at 88% and 80%, respectively.

According to the report, societal attitudes that convey acceptance or justification of domestic violence are making girls and women more vulnerable to abuse. It says, "Available data for developing countries show that nearly 50% of girls and women aged 15-49 believe that wifebeating is justified... girls aged between 15 and 19 years hold the same views as women in the 45-49 age group."

The report explains that because of reporting bias, this may be an under-estimation of the actual size of the problem in several countries. Many factors contribute to the incidence of domestic violence . For instance, in many places, child marriage, gender-based power relations, women's low economic status and traditional practices or social norms perpetuate it.

Mission director for India's National Rural Health Mission Anuradha Gupta said spousal violence takes place both in developed and developing countries "though the degree would vary" . She said, "When girls are brought up with the message that a woman's status in a family is inferior, she starts to accept whatever behaviour is meted out by her husband or in-laws ." She added, "When a boy grows up seeing his father assault his mother, he starts to accept such a behavior and repeats it."

Ranjana Kumari, director of Centre for Social Research, said, "Most women think this is their fate. Education or economic prosperity alone can't improve the situation."

Times View

These findings on youth attitudes towards marital violence should not just be seen as shocking. They should also teach us the limitations of laws on domestic violence. Such laws may be important to help minimize violence against women. But they are clearly not enough, especially when the victim herself does not perceive any wrong in being beaten up. A strong legal framework to deal with domestic attacks must be backed up, therefore, by a sustained and intensive campaign to raise awareness on the issue among men and women. Steps to raise the levels of female education would play an important role.


Source: Times of India

Tuesday 24 April, 2012

Child Marraige : A Curse To The Nation

Akha Teej, considered the most auspicious day for weddings, is almost synonymous with child marriage in Rajasthan. Scores of children are married off each year in Rajasthan on Akha Teej. To save the cost of large weddings, younger siblings ...are often married off along with their older ones. Officials are on high alert to prevent these marriages. 2 days back, 5000 Villagers of Jhalawar, allegedly assaulted & pelted stones at Officials who tried to stop the child marriages. Child marriage is one of the main factors in deaths of young mothers during pregnancy as 40 per cent of Maternal Mortality is due to under age pregnancies.
Why do you think child marriages are rampant, despite a more stringent law?

Wednesday 18 April, 2012

Status of children in India

As India races towards achieving superpowerdom, its children are still far behind in terms of healthcare, education and other facilities. Children especially girls are faced with lack of educational opportunities, malnourishment, infant mortality and early marriages. According to the latest data collated by the National Health Survey 2005-06 the all India average for malnourished children is 47%.Every second child under 5 years is malnourished. Even the prosperous states like Gujarat and Kerala there is rise in the number of malnourished children. Both states saw an increase of 2% between 1991-2001.Other states for instance Madhya Pradesh registered a rise from 54% in 1991 to 60% in 2001.
Nearly 3/4ths of all infants between 6-35 months of age are anemic in the 19 states for which NFHS -3 data are available. Among all the children up to 3 years age over 1/3 are stunted and more than 1/6th are wasted. Two out of five children are underweight. This state of the youngest Indians point towards pervasive malnutrition. For most of these infants, malnutrition would have started in the womb itself. This is apparent from the data on married and pregnant women. An astounding 54% of pregnant women and nearly the same proportion of married women were found anemic. Infact the Body Mass Index (ratio of weight to height- a measure of nutritional availability) of nearly 1/3rd of all women was below normal.
What is alarming that the situation is worsening or at best not improving over the years. Comparison with NHFS-2 carried out five years ago shows that the proportion of wasted children has increased while underweight children are only marginally less. Similarly the proportion of anemic infants has marginally increased. The number of pregnant women who are anemic has jumped from about 49% to over 54% in these five years in these 19 states. The prevalence of anemia among infants has declined in several states but it has not improves or even worsened in AP, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Meghalaya, Orissa, Punjab and UP. In no state has the proportion fallen below 50%.Up, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka, Gujarat and Assam all have shockingly high proportions of anemic infants-80% or above.
Incidentally nearly a third of married men in the eastern states of W.Bengal,Orissa,Assam and Meghalaya and in highly advanced Gujarat are anemic and have lower than normal BMI.Chattisgarh has the highest number of underweight children closely followed by Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. However while the numbers have declined in the former, they are increasing in the latter two over the past five years.
Another indicator is high infant mortality rate where India is bettered by Pakistan, China, Brazil and even Nigeria. The all- India average is 58 infant deaths for every 1000 live births and states like Uttar Pradesh (73), Rajasthan (65), Arunachal Pradesh (61) and Gujarat (50) top the list.





An immunization level is one of the indicators which show serious concern. The NFHS shows that only in six of the 19 states for which data has been made public are more than 60% of children fully immunized. In 8 states the proportion of fully immunized children is less than half.
Not only do children have fewer chances of surviving and are underfed they also lack educational opportunities. Literacy rate among girls from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes is 42% and 35% respectively, much lower than Muslim girls who have a literacy rate of 50%.In general too only 30 of 100 girls who enter school complete their primary education. The worst offenders in lack of educational opportunities for girls are Bihar (33%), Arunachal Pradesh (33.4%), Sikkim (37.2%) and Rajasthan (38.2%) as opposed to an all India average of 55.6%.Meghalaya is an exception where female literates are actually much more than their male counterparts.
Early marriages are far from being eradicated. In Rajasthan, 41% girls get married between 15-19 years of age while in Punjab; the proportion of girls being married before 18 has risen from 12% to 19% in seven years, between 1998-99 to 2005-06.
Table -1:
Immunization
State
Kids below 2yrs fully immunized
UP
22.9
Rajasthan
26.5
Arunchal
28.4
Assam
31.6
Meghalaya
32.8
Gujarat
45.2
Andhra Pradesh
46.0
Chattisgarh
48.7
Orissa
51.8
Karnataka
55.0

Table- 2:
Anemia


              Anemic infants
Anemic       pregnant  women
States
NFHS-3
NFHS-2
NFHS-  3               NFHS-2
Assam
76.7
63.2
72.0              62.3
Karnataka
82.7
70.6
59.5              48.6
Kerala
55.7
43.9
33.1              20.3
Arunchal
66.3
54.5
49.2              49.2
Uttar Pradesh
85.1
73.8
51.6              45.8
AP
79.0
72.3
56.4              41.8
Gujarat
80.1
74.5
60.8              47.4
Orissa
74.2
72.3
68.1              60.5
Meghalaya
68.7
67.6
56.1              58.6
Punjab
80.2
80.0
41.6              37.1
Some of the harsh facts
·         Every second child under 5 years is malnourished.
·         1 in 4 adolescent girls between 15-19 years is married.
·         30 of 100 girls who enter school do not complete primary –level education
·         50% of new AIDS infections are between 15-24 years.
·         Worst offenders are Bihar ,Arunchal Pradesh,Sikkim and Rajasthan

Census of India- 2011: A Provisional Report

The population of the country as per the provisional figures of Census 2011 is 1210.19 million of which 623.7 million (51.54%) are males and 586.46 million (48.46%) are females. The population of India has increased by more than 181 million during the decade 2001-2011. Percentage growth in 2001-2011 is 17.64; males 17.19 and females 18.12.2001-2011 is the first decade (with the exception of 1911-1921) which has actually added lesser population compared to the previous decade. Uttar Pradesh (199.5 million) is the most populous State in the country followed by Maharashtra with 112 million. The percentage decadal growth rates of the six most populous States have declined during 2001-2011 compared to 1991-2001:
-Uttar Pradesh (25.85% to 20.09%)
-Maharashtra (22.73% to 15.99%)
-Bihar (28.62% to 25.07%)
-West Bengal (17.77 % to 13.93%)
-Andhra Pradesh (14.59% to 11.10%)
-Madhya Pradesh (24.26% to 20.30%)
During 2001-2011, as many as 25 States/UTs with a share of about 85% of the country's population registered an annual growth rate of less than 2% as compared to, 15 States/UTs with a share of about 42% during the period 1991-2001.15 States/UTs have grown by less than 1.5 per cent per annum during 2001-2011, while the number of such States/UTs was only 4 during the previous decade. The total number of children in the age-group 0-6 is 158.8 million (-5 million since 2001)
Twenty States and Union Territories now have over one million children in the age group 0-6 years. On the other extreme, there are five States and Union Territories in the country that are yet to reach the one hundred thousand mark. Uttar Pradesh (29.7 million), Bihar (18.6 million), Maharashtra (12.8 million), Madhya Pradesh (10.5 million) and Rajasthan (10.5 million) constitute 52% children in the age group of 0-6 years.

Population (0-6 years) 2001-2011 registered minus (-)3.08 percent growth with minus (-)2.42 for males and -3.80 for females. The proportion of Child Population in the age group of 0-6 years to total population is 13.1 percent while the corresponding figure in 2001 was 15.9 percent. The decline has been to the extent of 2.8 points. Overall sex ratio at the national level has increased by 7 points to reach 940 at Census 2011 as against 933 in Census 2001. This is the highest sex ratio recorded since Census 1971 and a shade lower than 1961. Increase in sex ratio is observed in 29 States/UTs. Three major States (J&K, Bihar & Gujarat) have shown decline in sex ratio as compared to Census 2001. Kerala with 1084 has the highest sex ratio followed by Puducherry with 1038; Daman & Diu has the lowest sex ratio of 618. Child sex ratio (0-6 years) is 914. Increasing trend in the child sex ratio (0-6) seen in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and A&N Islands. In all remaining 27 States/UTs, the child sex ratio show decline over Census 2001.
*Mizoram has the highest child sex ratio (0-6 years) of 971 followed by Meghalaya with 970.
Haryana is at the bottom with ratio of 830 followed by Punjab with 846. India’s effective literacy rate has recorded a 9.2 percent rise to reach 74.04 percent, according to provisional data of the 2011 census. Literacy rate improved sharply among females as compared to males. While the effective literacy rate for males rose from 75.26 to 82.14 percent marking a rise of 6.9 percent, it increased by 11.8 percent for females to go from 53.67 to 65.46 percent. According to provisional totals of the latest census, literates constitute 74 percent of total population aged seven and above. Out of total 217,700,941 literates added during the decade, females at 110,069.001 outnumbered males at 107,631,940. A significant milestone reached in 2011 census was the decline of illiterates by 31,196,847. Ten states and union territories, including Kerala, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Tripura, Goa, Daman and Diu, Pondicherry, Chandigarh, National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, have attained literacy rate of above 85 percent. Kerala has the highest literacy rate at 93.91 percent followed by Lakshadweep at 92.28 percent. Bihar is at the bottom of the ladder with literacy rate of 63.82 followed by Arunachal Pradesh at 66.95.
Credit: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Major-highlights-of-the-Census-2011/articleshow/7833854.cms

Global Hunger Index -2011

This is an effort to bring to the social evils of India to the notice of as many people as possible. You can contribute and share your views, ideas and articles on "Social Issues" that ail India.


Hunger can be defined as an uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Also the exhausted condition caused by want of food, the want or scarcity of food in a country. World hunger refers to the aggregated to the world level. The target set at the 1996 World Food Summit was to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015 from their number in 1990-92.The estimated number of undernourished people in developing countries was 824 million in 1990-92.In 2009 the number had climbed to 1.02 billion.
According to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Global Hunger Index 2011 India’s food security continues to be alarming. It ranks 67 of the 81 countries of the world with the worst food security status. This means that there are only 14 countries in the world whose citizens have worst nutritional status.
The GHI is based on 3 indicators – the proportion of the population that is undernourished, the proportion of children who are under weight and under five child mortality.
India’s GHI for 2011 was 23.7 lower than it was 15 years ago giving it a rank of 67.Pakistan,Nepal,Rwanda and Sudan did better than India while Bangladesh, Haiti and Democratic Republic of Congo were countries which are worse than India
India is being among the countries with the least improvement in last 10 years. It has however moved from having an extremely alarming food security situation to alarming.China, Brazil and India are among the countries that have more than halved their GHI scores over the last decade.
The Indian government is not able to introduce a Food Security Bill in the monsoon session and there is little agreement over who qualifies as poor enough to receive subsidized food grain. There is growing volatility in global food markets which is due to three factors: increasing use of food crops for biofuels, extreme weather conditions and climate change and increased volume of trading in commodity future markets.
The report says, ‘The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, to purchase enough food.’
Source: The Times of India