Problems in INDIA
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June 6, 06: According to the 1991 Census, there are 33 million widows all over India --8% of the total female population and 50% of the female population over the age of 50. In terms of prevalence of widowhood, India ranks among the highest in the world. The incidence of widowhood rises sharply with age: 64% among women aged 60 and above, and 80% among women aged 70. An Indian woman who survives to old age is therefore almost certain to become a widow. In contrast, only 2.5% of Indian men are widowers, and even in the older age groups only a small minority of men are widowed. The main reasons for this are the much higher rate of remarriage for widowers, and the fact that male mortality rates are higher than female.
. . The story of the daily deprivations of these 33 million widows is never told. Deprivations that cause mortality rates for widows to be a shocking 85% higher amongst widows than among married women.
. . Most Indian states do have pension schemes for widows above a certain age. While the pension is less than Rs 150, the bureaucratic requirements are bountiful: the applicant must have no children capable of supporting her, she must earn less than Rs 100, she must be physically unfit to work, she must not beg, she must not own a house….But she must have the ability to apply for a pension, make several trips to the taluka office etc! No wonder less than 10% of all widows actually receive the State's largesse.
. . They are pressured to observe restrictive codes of dress and behavior. They are excluded from religious and social life. They are physically and sexually abused. And they are done out of their property. In theory, 51% of widows have rights to a share in their husband's land. But these rights are often violated in practice by brothers-in-law. It is ominous that in the Jharkhand region of Bihar, of the 46 Santhal women persecuted and killed as `witches' in recent years, 42 were widows with land rights.
. . With her husband dead, a widow's "riotous passion" is the cause of moral panic. She must therefore be completely neutered, desexed. The Laws of Manu laid down that she must give up ornamentation, observe fasts, emaciate the body, eat only one meal a day, and sleep on the floor.
. . Widows in India may no longer be required to shave their hair off. But the mindset that sees a woman's identity only vis-à-vis the males around her has not really changed.
June 3, 06: Millions in India breathe air loaded with cancer-causing chemicals and toxic gases present at levels that are thousands of times higher than permissible limits, an independent report said today.
. . India, one of the most polluted countries in the world, does not even have a standard for many harmful chemicals and gases, and thus no monitoring nor regulation for them, the report said. The study by the Community Environmental Monitors (CEM), an independent environmental and health agency, is India's first comprehensive national survey of ambient air that based its findings on a two-year survey carried out in 13 locations.
. . The study found that millions of Indians in cities and villages were exposed to at least 45 dangerous chemicals, including 13 carcinogens, some of which were present at levels 32,000 times higher than globally accepted standard.
. . The country has refused cuts to greenhouse gases imposed by the Kyoto Protocol, saying such a cap would hamper its furious pace of industrialization. India is exempt from the mandatory cuts because, like China, it is considered a developing nation.
Although caste discrimination is outlawed, some Indians regard Dalits --more than 16% of the country's one-billion plus people-- as less than human, and abuse and even murder are still common.
May 17, 05: Women teachers at a school in the Indian city of Bhubaneswar, India, have been told to wear aprons so that senior male students do not get distracted by their bodies, Indian newspapers reported. Women's groups are outraged. "What does the principal expect? Should women teachers come to classes clad in burqas?"
India leads the world in diabetes, with 37 million people affected. Every year, diabetics there suffer a million foot or lower-leg amputations.
Almost a quarter of India's 1.1 billion people (220 M) live on less than $1 a day; 700 million more live on less than $2 a day. [total: .922B! --almost everybody!) Today, India appears to have four broad approaches to tackling poverty. The first is essentially to abolish the poor, rather than poverty. This was graphically illustrated in Mumbai this year when slum neighborhoods were razed, making 400,000 people homeless. The Mumbai police followed up by beating protesters whose shacks had been demolished.
. . The second approach is often termed the trickle-down model, but perhaps better described as "ignore the poor." A favorite of many Indian economists, it argues that in the next two to three decades poverty will disappear.
. . Further north, in Gujurat, even more ambitious schemes are being led by the Self-Employed Women's Association, a trade union, development organization and women's movement rolled up in one. The association runs a bank catering to the poorest women, champions the rights of the poorest workers, offers literacy classes and computer classes for teenagers, & sponsors doctors in rural areas.
. . Can India ever overcome its huge poverty problem? It depends on what strategy the country takes. Today, India appears to have four broad approaches to tackling poverty. The first is essentially to abolish the poor, rather than poverty. This was graphically illustrated in Mumbai this year when slum neighborhoods were razed, making 400,000 people homeless. The Mumbai police followed up by beating protesters whose shacks had been demolished.
. . The second approach is often termed the trickle-down model, but perhaps better described as "ignore the poor." A favorite of many Indian economists, it argues that in the next two to three decades poverty will disappear as market forces go to work. But even if prosperity does eventually trickle down, sitting back and doing nothing about poverty for yet another generation is a human and economic waste.
. . India's government is backing a third, developmental approach that aims to improve the social and physical conditions of the rural and urban poor. This means more and better roads, improvements in water supplies and rural electrification; it also means big steps forward in education and health, together with efforts at microfinance.
. . In the state of Kerala, near India's southern tip, bureaucrats work with the poorest women in a program called Kudumbashree, or Family Prosperity. The aim is to identify the women's needs - from literacy and training to housing, health care and jobs --and to put them in charge of managing their own development.
. . The women set up self-help savings groups, move on to microfinance and loans, and then establish their own micro-enterprises; the government helps them identify opportunities and gives them training in areas like information technology and marketing.
. . Thousands of enterprises have been established, from a data-processing company that has grown in two years to employ 20 people, to businesses offering beauty products, plumbing services, catering and garbage collection. Further north, in Gujurat, even more ambitious schemes are being led by the Self-Employed Women's A
Dalits live apart from the rest of the community in the interior of states like Bihar and Rajasthan in northern India and Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in the south. They are forbidden to enter temples, draw water from village wells, bathe in communal ponds or walk along certain streets. Teashops and eating-houses throw them out.
. . Dalits own less land than other Indians. Their education lags behind the national average. They are the poorest in India. No wonder some have turned to Marxist-Leninist rebellion. Others have become Buddhists. Romance across the caste divide in these places is punished with swift severity: Daring Dalit boys are killed, Dalit girls raped.
. . Yet, social servitude and economic bondage is not the entire story. Positive discrimination --easy loans, tax benefits, and reserved education, employment and numerous other facilities-- has created what an official report calls "a vested interest in backwardness."
. . Thus, the number of Dalit groups doubled between 1950 and 1960, with 190 more clamoring for inclusion. That same report spoke of "a creamy layer" within the community. Apparently, a handful of politically savvy Dalits who corner privileges treat their brethren with the contempt of which they themselves complain.
. . Politics provides the worst example of distorted good intentions. Hundreds of reserved seats in state legislatures and the federal Parliament have made Dalits the target for lobbying and taught them the value of bargaining. Though the best-known Dalit politician, Jagjivan Ram, a prime ministerial contender in 1979, wisely acknowledged that permanent privileges would make people think of Dalits as "a community of incompetent and inferior people", he did not refuse them.
. . The constitutional privileges introduced in 1950 were meant to last only 10 years. But Dalit luminaries who have taken their woes to the UN, the World Conference Against Racism in Durban and the European Parliament (which condemns "continual acts of discrimination in Indian society based on caste-related, social or religious status") would be the first to protest if positive discrimination ends.
. . The real worry is whether anything the Commission on Human Rights does will help impoverished and illiterate Dalits in remote villages. Obscurantist high-caste officials will thwart reform; so might their own pampered leaders. The international spotlight is a good thing, but experience shows that India's economic revolution, bringing education and social and political awareness in its train, is the best guarantor of minority rights.
(Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, a former editor of The Statesman in India, is author of ''Waiting for America: India and the U.S. in the New Millennium
When the giant red bulldozers arrived in the Mumbai (Bombay) slums in Christmas 04, effortlessly grinding thousands of tin and brick hovels under their tracks, they advanced in the name of one grand idea --progress. But 400,000 people were thrown on to its choked streets by the demolitions. The dispossession was as brutal as it was swift.
. . When an address disappeared under the bulldozers, so did one's entitlement to a meagre kerosene ration and to cast a vote --a precious right among India's poor. Social activists, unions and Left-wing political parties have succeeded in halting the demolitions for the time being. "If this was a natural disaster, the UN would be here setting up refugee camps."
. . For all their squalor and unsightliness, the "bustees" [slums] house almost 60% of the city's 16 million residents, a voting block that even the most powerful politician cannot ignore.
In India, females are permitted to marry when they turn 18 while for males the age is 21. "But extreme poverty, especially in drought-prone areas, make people get their daughters married ... regardless of age."
. . According to 2001 census, 6.4 million Indians under the age of 18 were married, with the desert state of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh accounting for a large chunk of such marriages. [& how many of those married now *were married before age 18?]
. . The custom is believed to have started around 1,000 years ago when Hindus had their daughters married young to try to prevent Muslim invaders from taking them away. In more recent times, grinding poverty forced villagers to marry-off their daughters at a young age because society dictated the girls were a financial burden.
The marriage of young girls affects their health because they have children early.
In many cases, girls are abandoned by their husbands and social customs and traditions make it impossible for them to marry again.
In early May 05, the New Delhi high court ordered the removal of stray cattle from the city's streets. Fanning out across the capital, city workers backed by riot police began roping and hauling cows off in trucks to a suburban pound. Some people applauded. Others, who venerate the cows or make their livelihood by milking the stray animals at unregistered dairies, protested. Days after the roundup began, cows could still be seen all across the city.
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INDIA
China and India have half the world's 45,000 dams.
. . Some two-thirds of India's billion-plus people work in agriculture.
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Feb, 05: Mumbai (Bombay): Indian slumlords are the men who make their livings by wheeling and dealing in illegal property deals that make new slums possible. In a land-scarce city, slums have come in the way of building new roads, bridges, schools and playgrounds. By one estimate, there are 35,000 slums alone which sit on top of or run alongside the city's water mains.
. . By the end of a recent overcast day, some 2,600 homes had been razed to the ground. At night, they sneak back to the ruins --soggy concrete, tatty tarpaulin, rotting tin and dry feces - and reclaim what they call their land. They sleep under the stars even as the twisted tin lacerates their bodies and rodents bite their new-born children. The state government says that it will provide housing only to slum dwellers who came into the city after 1995.
. . It's part of a demolition drive against illegal constructions in Mumbai. Municipal authorities reckon this is the largest ever demolition exercise in urban India. Since the drive began --December 04-- 67,000 illegal constructions have been demolished --shantytowns have taken the brunt simply because they have encroached upon 14% of the island city's area. A total of 123 acres of prime government-owned land has been already freed up in a little less than two months since the drive began. The target is to free up another 375 acres by ridding them of their residents and their wretched homes. This is part of a $6bn urban rejuvenation plan for India's richest and dirtiest megalopolis.
. . The lure of a job in Mumbai draws droves of poor from all over India --in many cases entire villages have moved into slums replicating the village names and sequence of homes. "We want to put the fear of the consequences of migration into these people. We have to restrain them from coming to Mumbai." ~Vijay Kalam Patil, Mumbai municipality.
. . Urban planners say that the makeover will only happen if the government builds new homes to house 7.5 million of the city's 12 million people who live in slums - that's more than 60% of the population.
. . That's not all. At least 5% of Mumbai's people live on the roads, and 2% are simply nomads. Another 2.5 million people live in dilapidated buildings which have been officially tagged as 'dangerous'.
. . Planners say that the only way out is for the state to build low-cost housing in a city where real estate is frighteningly expensive and drives people even with reasonable incomes to live in slums.
. . Some 585 acres of land occupied by textile mills have been lying idle for ages after the businesses shut down. "It's big money. The slumlord grabs the land, pays off the police, municipal worker and the local elected representative. Then he sells it to somebody for a hefty price, who in turn parcels it into lots and sells huts to the poor."
. . The cost of a shanty, he says, could range from anything between 50,000 rupees ($1,100) to 300,000 rupees ($6,600), depending on the location. "You allow illegal settlements, make money. Then you burn them down or demolish them and rebuild them and make money again."
A total of 150 million people live in slums in India. A radical scheme to police some of India's worst slums by using slum dwellers as the main law enforcers is to be greatly extended in the city of Bombay (Mumbai). The scheme, which recruits seven women and three men in each slum to work alongside an official police officer in a group known as a panchayat, has been highly successful so far in reducing crime. It is now set for more widespread use.
. . With Bombay adding about half a million people every year to its total population of 13 million, the existing infrastructure is under pressure.
. . Authorities in India's financial capital, Bombay, are finalizing plans to move nearly 100,000 slum residents into specially constructed apartments. The program --the largest urban resettlement project ever undertaken in India-- is part of a $800m World Bank funded scheme. The project aims to improve the city's crumbling infrastructure.
. . Vashi - about 25 kms from Bombay. 20,000 families who had made the rail tracks and platforms their homes. Children living by the tracks were in constant peril. There, modest but fairly pleasant 225 sq feet apartments have been built in newly constructed high-rise buildings.
India's new census reported that the gender ratio has changed. There are now only 927 girls (under 6 y old) per 1000 boys. It had been 945 a decade ago.
India will overtake China's over-population by about 2030.
Sept 17, 04: India has banned child weddings but half of the nation's women are still married off before the age of 15, according to a new government report. The legal age for marriage in India is 18 years for females and 21 years for males. "In the large north Indian states such as Rajasthan and Bihar, 68 to 71 percent of girls were married off by age 18.
. . "A host of factors, such as lack of awareness, limited mobility and decision-making authority, and lack of communication with husbands have an important bearing on the ability of adolescent girls to make informed choices and seek appropriate care", the report said.
. . The health ministry painted a grim picture of a looming health crisis in India which has an estimated five million AIDS victims. The report warned that youngsters were also engaging in unprotected sex.
More than 70 percent of India's billion-plus population is employed in agriculture. Over 700 million people!
Oct 1, 02: India's desperately poor who are most tempted to illegally sell a kidney for cash end up worse off both financially and medically, a study said. The survey conducted by U.S. researchers in Chennai, a city in southern India, easily located 305 people who had sold one of their kidneys for fees that averaged about $1,000.
. . The finding could sharpen the debate over how best to find donors for the growing number of patients awaiting transplants. But legalizing the sale of human body parts creates nightmare scenarios of body snatching on behalf of the rich, medical ethicists say.
. . The kidney sellers in the study received fees ranging from $450 to nearly $6,300, which they said they used to pay debts. But six years after the surgeries, called a nephrectomy, the sellers' family incomes fell by an average of one-third and many remained in debt. Eighty-six percent of the sellers reported that their health deteriorated and 79 percent said they would not recommend selling a kidney, which has become common in India over the past decade.
. . A total of 6,200 U.S. patients died last year awaiting a healthy organ, while officials estimate that less than half of potential donors actually have their organs harvested. India has an even greater kidney shortage, where 4,000 kidney transplants are performed yearly.
In India, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Amnesty International has reported on one case in which a husband murdered his wife based on a dream that she had betrayed him. In Turkey, a young woman's throat was slit in the town square because a love ballad had been dedicated to her over the radio.
Mar '02: In India, the number of new AIDS cases has risen sharply and now only trails South Africa in total people infected.
Clamor for Sons Fuels
India's Population Growth
NEW DELHI
November 16 - A strong preference for male children in key heartland states is fueling India's population growth, a survey on population and health said. The preference for boys was strong in the predominantly Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh and the western state of Rajasthan.
. . It said that as much as 53 percent of women in these states wanted more sons than daughters. The average preference for boys among women in the rest of the country was 33 percent.
. . 1/3 women in India want more sons than daughters, the survey conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences and funded by the United States Agency for International Development said.
. . This may lead to larger families, if couples continue to have children until they reach their desired number of sons.
. . India's population growth is among the world's fastest, adding about 15.5 million people a year.
. . Traditionally, Hindu families have preferred male children for financial security in old age and because of the large dowry that a groom brings home in Hindu weddings.
...could add second Billion by 2100. (june 8th, 00)
... and 1.5B by 2050--surpassing China--sez the Population Reference Bureau.
Pop-Institute: April issue of POPLINE:
. India topped 1B people in 'mid-99, and some demographers think it could top 2B before it levels off. [ridiculous. Famine & disease would devastate it long before then.] Their pop rises more than 30/minute, 1,815 /hour, 1.3M /month, & 15.7M /yr! The growth rate has been 2%/yr since the 60s, & tripled since their Independence Day.
. In the late 70s, India lauched a sterilization program that gave incentives to the doctors--this resulted in widespread abuses of men.
. A proposal has been approved by India's government cabinet--it would slow down their rapid growth rate by offering incentives to couples who have no more than two children. Couples who live in acute poverty and undergo sterilization after 2 kids would get an insurance policy. (as people often have kids a a form of old-age insurance.)
. The gov't also plans rewards for couples with earnings less than the equal of $1/day, who marry after age 21 & have no more than 2 kids. All this will cost the country 1.4B $U.S.
January 27, 2000. Chicago Tribune.
India's Systems May Collapse Under the Weight of Population.
The overpopulated state of Uttar Pradesh, home to l6l million people, may be a warning of what is to come. (Were it an independent nation, it would be the world's 5th biggest!) India's population is increasing by l8 million persons a year, which is like adding another Australia to the world every year.
The average fertility rate has gone from 6 children per woman to 3.4, but that is not enough -- the population still may reach 1.8 billion in 50 years, although the environmentalists predict collapse before it reaches that point.
Uttar Pradesh is a USAID target of family-planning options. They hope surrounding states will draw from their example. Rashmi Mayur, director of the International Institute for Sustainable Future, says "This is still a Victorian society--not like Thailand, where they made the condom the center of the population control movement--so nothing happens [here]. This is a very prudish country where sex is all but hidden."
One half of the land has been degraded since independence in l947. The water has also degraded. Lester Brown of Worldwatch Institute agrees that India will never reach the l.8 billion mark.
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