Daily News Compilation (HINDU) for 19th March

Declining sex ratios seen in gender scorecard

(Just fodder material for essays or questions on WOMEN )

On International Women’s Day, the Election Commission of India held a special campaign to bring women voters to the polls. Although men and women vote at a more or less similar rate in State elections, women are 6-8 percentage points behind in the Lok Sabha elections where national issues dominate. 

India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally representative survey of about 42,000 households conducted by researchers from the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland, provides interesting insights for developing a gender scorecard covering the years of rapid economic growth between 2004-2005 and 2011-2012. 

Social stagnation

On social issues, IHDS paints a picture of overall stagnation, except for a few bright spots. 

1. The declining gap in school enrolment between boys and girls is the shining story of the past decade. In 2005, among children aged between 6-14, 88 per cent of girls and 92 per cent of boys entered school. By 2012, the percentage for both sexes rose to 96 per cent.

However, if we read this improvement in women’s literacy to indicate an overall improvement in their status, we are in for a disappointment. Women remain bound by strict patriarchal norms that govern where they go (18 per cent don’t even go to a Kirana shop), whether they can venture outside the home alone (50 per cent do not travel alone by bus/train even for a short distance), how much input they are allowed in household decisions vital to themselves and their children (only 25 per cent have the final authority on what to do when they are sick) and even whether they have any input in who they marry (only 25 per cent actually met their husbands before marriage). 

2. Rising incomes do little to improve women’s status since richer households appear to be more determined to control their movements and autonomy than poor households.

3. Perhaps the greatest area of concern lies in steadily declining sex ratios. Census 2001 recorded only 927 girls between the ages 0-6 compared to 1,000 boys. This ratio dropped to 919 in 2011.

4. During years of rapid economic growth, women’s employment has steadily declined. In spite of the attempts the IHDS survey made to capture diverse sources of women’s work, women’s work participation rates for those between the ages 15-59 dropped from 58 to 54 per cent for rural women and from 23 to 20 per cent for urban women between 2005 and 2012.

5. Moreover, women remain concentrated in the agricultural sector. In 2005, 73 per cent of the rural men did any agricultural work; by 2012 this number fell to 65 per cent. In contrast, the decline for women has been smaller, from 91 per cent to 86 per cent. Women’s participation in non-farm work would have been even lesser without the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). With the slow but steady migration of men out of agriculture into non-farm economy, agricultural work is slowly becoming feminised, leaving women concentrated in an increasingly smaller portion of the economy.

Public policy successes

What role do government policies play in shaping gendered outcomes? Here, there are a number of positive signs. 

1. Programmes like Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) have had a tremendous impact. Hospital delivery rates soared between 2005 and 2012. In 2005, before the implementation of JSY, which provides cash benefits of up to Rs.1,400 for a hospital delivery, only 50 per cent of the deliveries took place in a hospital; by 2012, this had risen to nearly 70 per cent. Implementation of the no-frills bank account has increased women’s financial inclusion.

2. The proportion of women with their name on a bank account has risen from 18 per cent to a whopping 38 per cent in these seven years. 

3. Efforts aimed at ensuring women’s participation in MGNREGS have also borne fruit. The scheme mandates that at least a third of beneficiaries should be women. IHDS records that 44 per cent of the beneficiaries are women.

While these major programmes have had an impact on women’s lives, many other schemes have proven to be remarkably ineffectual.

1. Only about one per cent of households have registered their daughters for the much trumpeted girl-child schemes that provide cash incentives for the survival and education of girls. 

2. Moreover, even large schemes often suffer from operational difficulties; the demand for hospital-based deliveries has fast outpaced the ability of government hospitals to deliver reasonable quality care.

Gyaan

Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a 

1. safe motherhood intervention under the National Rural Health Mission (NHM). 

2. It is being implemented with the objective of reducing maternal and neonatal mortality by promoting institutional delivery among poor pregnant women. 

3. The scheme is under implementation in all states and Union Territories (UTs), with a special focus on Low Performing States (LPS).
4. Janani Suraksha Yojana was launched in April 2005 by modifying the National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS). The scheme was transferred from the Ministry of Rural Development to the Department of Health & Family Welfare during the year 2001-02. 

5. The NMBS provides for financial assistance of Rs. 500/- per birth up to two live births to the pregnant women who have attained 19 years of age and belong to the below poverty line (BPL) households. When JSY was launched the financial assistance of Rs. 500/- , which was available uniformly throughout the country to BPL pregnant women under NMBS, was replaced by graded scale of assistance based on the categorization of States as well as whether beneficiary was from rural/urban area.  

States were classified into Low Performing States and High Performing States on the basis of institutional delivery rate i.e. states having institutional delivery 25% or less were termed as Low Performing States (LPS) and those which have institutional delivery rate more than 25% were classified as High Performing States (HPS). Accordingly, eight erstwhile EAG states namely Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Odisha and the states of Assam & Jammu & Kashmir were classified as Low Performing States. The remaining States were grouped into High Performing States.

Neonatal mortality

The number of neonatal deaths per 1000 live births

A neonatal death is defined as a death during the first 28 days of life (0-27 days).
(# of neonatal deaths / Total # of live births )x1000

The NMR is often broken down into early and late mor­tality rates. The Early Neonatal Mortality rate (ENMR) is calculated as follows:
(# of neonatal deaths 0-6 days/Total # of live births) x 1000

The late neonatal mortality rate (LNMR) is calculated as follows:
(# of neonatal deaths 7-27 days/ Total # of live births) x 1000

“Many women have no say in marriage”

 

Four out of 10 women in India still have no say in their marriage; eight out of 10 need permission to visit a doctor; six out of 10 practise some form of head covering and the average Indian household gives over Rs. 30,000 in dowry.

These are some of the findings of the latest India Human Development Survey (IHDS)

The 2011-2012 data shows that child marriage has come down in India, with 48 per cent women over 25 years admitting they were married before the age of 18 as opposed to 60 per cent in 2004-05. The average number of children per woman (over 40) has also come down from 3.85 to 3.55, indicating a decline in fertility.

The practice of marrying a cousin or relative — more prevalent in South India — is becoming less common, but over 20 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka still marry their relatives.

Women’s autonomy still remains severely constrained, with 41 per cent respondents replying in the negative when asked about their say in their marriage and only 18 per cent accepting that they knew their husbands before marriage.

Ukraine crisis may impact Indian pharma units: FICCI

The prolonged political crisis in Ukraine could have a bearing on the domestic pharmaceutical companies based there, according to a survey conducted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

While the recent developments in Ukraine have had no immediate impact on the businesses of leading Indian pharmaceutical companies based in Ukraine, it is felt that if the situation continues, it could have a bearing on the country’s exchange rate, which would make the landed cost of Indian pharmaceuticals higher, the survey said.

Ukraine is India’s second largest trading partner in the Commonwealth of Independent States after Russia. In 2012-13, India’s total trade with Ukraine was $3.18 billion. Exports of pharmaceuticals from India were $154 million in 2012-13, which is about 30 per cent of India’s total exports to Ukraine.

Gyaan

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is an association of business organizations in India. Established in 1927, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi by GD Birla and Purushottam Das Thakurdas, it is the largest, oldest and the apex business organisation in India. It is a non-government, not-for-profit organisation. FICCI draws its membership from the corporate sector, both private and public, including SMEs and MNCs. The chamber has an indirect membership of over 2,50,000 companies from various regional chambers of commerce. It is involved in sector specific business policy consensus building, and business promotion and networking. 

India and China agree to co-operate on IT

India and China, on Tuesday, signed a memorandum of understanding on IT cooperation, which, officials said, was a ‘formal recognition’ from the Chinese government to promote Indian software companies, which have largely struggled to obtain contracts from Chinese state-run companies. Both countries held their third Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) here on Tuesday.

India also sought Chinese support in substantially raising the speed on three rail corridors and in developing modern stations.

China has rapidly modernised its rail network, which only three decades ago lagged behind India’s. Today, express trains run at 200 to 250 kilometres per hour, up from 110 kilometres per hour, while the government has revamped stations to build a network of modern, airport terminal-like rail hubs. The country has also built the world’s biggest high-speed rail network, where trains run at 350 kilometres per hour on 13,000 kilometres of newly-laid track, running entirely separately from the older rail network. India has sought assistance in raising speeds on three lines, between New Delhi and Agra, Kanpur and Chandigarh. Chinese rail officials said they could help raise speeds from the current 130 kilometres per hour to 160 or even 200 kilometres per hour.

India has, however, asked Japan for assistance in carrying out a project report considering the possibility of building a high speed rail line between Mumbai and Vadodara. At the SED, both sides signed an MoU to push IT cooperation. India has asked China to expand market access for software and pharmaceutical companies, and to take steps to narrow the record $35 billion trade deficit, which, Mr. Ahluwalia said, was ‘not sustainable’.

 Crimea deal pits Russia against West

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday invited G7 leaders for an emergency meeting in the Netherlands next week to discuss further action in response to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, as world economic powers consider whether Moscow’ should keep its membership in the G8. The U.S. and the European Union announced new sanctions against Russia.

Iran n-talks resume on upbeat note

Iran and the six global powers embarked on a new round of nuclear talks in Vienna, which is expected to yield progress, without achieving a breakthrough for a comprehensive nuclear deal.

Ahead of the dialogue, Mr. Zarif also pointed to the possibility of incremental achievement in Vienna. He said on Monday that talks would focus on enrichment of uranium, which, if purified above the 90 per cent level can be used for making an atomic bomb. Under the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) signed last November in Geneva, Iran agreed to halt its on-going 20 per cent uranium enrichment, and dilute or irreversibly turn into fuel, the existing stockpile of this material.

Mr. Zarif said that negotiations would also cover the Arak heavy water reactor, which can yield plutonium, provided it is separated from spent fuel, using a cumbersome chemical process. Iran is yet to develop the infrastructure in Arak to carry out this separation.