Using Media for empowerment

Two case studies where local media was used for empowerment.

Excerpt from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4219362.stm

" Here, we speak to Stalin K, a human rights activist who has being running a revolutionary radio programme to expose corruption in India's western Gujarat province.

Stalin K came up with the idea of the programme after, in January 2001, Gujarat suffered one of the worst earthquakes to hit India in half a century.

More than 20,000 people were killed by the 7.9 magnitude quake, and more than a million were made homeless.

Stalin K, who says his father named him in honour of the former Soviet leader, has turned a group of villagers into fearless reporters prepared to challenge people in power.

Stalin K's community-focused programmes are broadcast on state radio in the poor rural region of Kutch, Gujarat's largest district.

In the months following the earthquake, he put together a radio programme called To Be Alive looking into issues relating to compensation, government handouts and shelter programmes.

A few months later, he launched a programme investigating abuses of power that got "under the skin of powerful people," as Stalin K puts it.

"It became very popular," he says.

Empowerment

One case involved a local politician who had gathered all the compensation money destined for the quake victims in a remote Kutch village.

He kept a "princely amount" for himself and handed out the rest to the intended beneficiaries, Stalin K says.

When confronted by Stalin K's reporters, the politician, who was being secretly recorded, denied everything. "

Excerpt from: http://www.indiatogether.com/2005/jul/env-rajpatrik.htm

Media campaign brings hope to desert
Shortage of water has been a tale of woe in Rajasthan for decades. But this year, the state's largest circulated Hindi daily, Rajasthan Patrika, has motivated around 155,000 volunteers to clean up 388 discarded traditional ponds and wells.

Equity and Development

This is a rather short post.

The World Development report on Equity and Development (2006) is out, and has a tremendous amount of information. This has been discussed by a recent Hindu article; here.

That wonderful blogger, Anand, has taken a deeper look at the Equity and Development reports, and his posts are well worth a read:

1) Applying the Equity lens-I

2) Applying the Equity lens-II

3) Applying the Equity lens-III

4) Applying the Equity lens-IV.

They're well worth the time spent.

A small excerpt from the Hindu article:
"China's extraordinary emergence as an economic powerhouse — GDP per capital has quadrupled over the past 25 years — is also held up as an illustration of the importance of equity in supporting growth. Under Deng Xiaoping's leadership, in the 1980s, economic decision-making was decentralised to local governments and individual businesses and farmers, as the failures of post-war central planning became clear. Although the political stranglehold of the Communist Party over China has not relaxed, Mr. Ferreira says opening markets and spreading wealth more widely has been crucial. "We actually see China, particularly in the early 1980s, as an example of what we argue for here: a combination of equity and markets."

The complete World Development report is here, as a pdf file, and is worth reading in detail.

Quality of Education in India - How many children can read?

Pratham conducted a study in various north and western Indian cities to look at some simple aspects as "How many children can read simple alphabets/sentences" and guess what are the results. The details of the study are here. (Left side-bar).

Some data from the study:

Nearly half of the all children age 7-14 cannot read simple sentences. And the number who can read only alphabets or nothing is also very bad as shown in below.

In all, 405 slum and low income communities were sampled and 41,328 children were surveyed.

Pratham conducted Reading camps in various parts of India during 2003 and the results were great as shown below.

Percentage of children in summer camps: who can	Baseline	Final test
Read simple text	18.7	56.9
Read simple words & alphabets	45.8	38.1
Unable to recognize alphabets	35.4	5
Total children tested	41633	41162

This lead Pratham and Govt of Maharastra to work together to carry out bigger pilot projects. The results of the pilot (which in itself if quite large) and the mechanism are detailed in this paper. It can also be found here.

Excerpts from the paper:

"A people-government collaborative effort to rapidly enhance the reading skills of children began with a pilot project in January-March 2003 in Maharashtra. School teachers, the Zilla Parishad, the Department of Education of Government of Maharashtra, and Pratham- a non governmental agency have been participating in the effort which has now gone through three phases:

1. Innovation of a new method and approach for rapid ‘learning to read’ by Pratham Dec 2002. (coverage 170,000 children across India)
2. Pilots in predominantly tribal Mokhada and Igatpuri talukas of Thane and Nashik districts in Jan-March 2003.
3. Replicating the taluka pilot to create one pilot taluka per district in 30 out of 33 districts of Maharashtra as a strategic springboard for district-wise scaling up. (coverage: 504,000 children in 5265 schools in as many villages)

Having completed the above three phases, the next phase of scaling up of the taluka pilots to district level has begun in 17 out of the 30 pilot districts. (coverage: approximately 2.5 million children).

Statewide results of district-wise pilots in one taluka in each of the 30 districts:

· Among the std II-IV children, the percentage of those “able to read” at least simple sentences-paragraphs, or more difficult texts, has increased uniformly from about 61% to 93%. Simultaneously, the percentage of those who can read nothing or can just identify alphabets reduced from 28% to 2%/

· Among the std V-VII children the percentage of those “able to read” increased from 71% to 94%, those who can read nothing or can just identify alphabets has dropped from about 13% to about 2%"

Pratham is planning to follow this up with other activites to consolidate the gains made and then improve the arthimetic and other skills.

We have to realize that absymal quality of education is one of the major reasons why children drop out of schools. Such targeted schemes are must to build a momentum in the system. All other NGO's should consider evaluating their projects and the impact they have made. In most educational projects this can be a start at the evaluations.

Some other papers looking at quality of education:
Learning Achivement at End of Primary Cycle in DPEP states

Teachers Absence in schools in India

A news story about teachers absence from Punjab schools and the lack of teachers in schools there.
Teachers play truant in Punjab schools: WB
Bottom of Class

"A joint survey by Harvard University and World Bank shows that 36 per cent of primary government school teachers in Punjab remain absent every day as against 25 per cent in the rest of India. Worse, even among those who attend school, nearly 49.5 per cent teachers stay away from their classes."

"The report of the Director Public Instruction (DPI) admits that 522 primary schools in the state have closed down because of no teacher, while 1,500 are making do with only one teacher and 7,000 schools have two rooms and teachers each"

The actual study looking at teacher's absence and reasons behind them is here.

From the study absence rates in India are among the second worst from among eight countries for which data was avlaiable.

Peru 11
Ecuador 14
Papua New Guinea 15
Bangladesh 16
Zambia 17
Indonesia 19
India 25
Uganda 27

Among the various states the variation in absence rate is large, from 14% in Maharashtra to 41% in Jharkhand, Bihar 37.8% and 34.4% in Punjab.

Reasons for Teachers Absence:
Quite to the contary perception that teachers salary is the reason for absence, it is not. Infact the more the teachers salary, more the experience they have, the more is the absence rate.
Teacher absence rate is lower in schools with better infrastructure, a potentially important part of working conditions. Infrastructure includes toilets for teachers, electric connection, covered classroom, a library, a paved road to the village.
Schools which have frequent parent-teacher association meetings seem to have lower absence rates. For more details on the reasons and extent to which each affect look at the study.

Summary
India is wasting a lot of education budget due to teacher's absence and wasting an oppurtunity to educate our next generation. India should look at different reforms in this area from improving infrastrucutre in schools, to improving monitoring through local efforts etc. These reforms should be monitored to see what works and what doesnt.

Free Study for lone girl child

An interesting move on part of HRD ministry.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=78621

"In a bid to correct the male-female sex ratio while promoting population control, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has decided to waive fees and hand scholarships to all girls from single-child families until the post-graduation level."

Not sure of its implications from past expereinces. It has been seen that providing "Anganwadis" where girls who take care of younger sibling can drop their kids before school works to a great extent in increasing school enrollement/attendance. There are several other incentives also. Advocacy group will look into that in detail.

Quiz - Women's development

[Answers in comments. Try to guess the answers and then proceed to comments to view them.]

I believe that mass public action is critical for underprivileged in India (and all over the world) to have a better life in terms of freedoms they enjoy and quality of life. As Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze put it in there book "India Development and Participation" its about getting the voices of the the disadvantaged groups being heard. The concerns of the rich and powerful tend to command dispropotinate attention from the media, the parliament, the courts and other democratic institutions. We, being the more privileged should show solidarity and make these voices heard.

The quiz below is meant to bring forward the various women's empowerment/health/development numbers and point to the various variations across India. The numbers are from either the UN Human development reports or Census of India, NFHS, NSSO surveys. For more details on why some regions have done better than others watch out this space.

Please put your answers as comments for this blog. For the correct answers either mail me or check this blog on Monday.

When you answer questions, think beyond the numbers as these things actually affect a majority of women throughout India on a day-to-day basis.

1. The adult female literacy rate for the year 2003 (age 15+) in Cuba is ~97%, that in China is 86.5% and Srilanka is 88.6%. What is the female literacy rate overall in India in 2003?

a. Between 25-30%
b. Between 70-75%
c. Between 55-60%
d. Between 45-50%


2. India is characterised by enormous variations in regional expereinces and achivements. These regional variations are a rich source of insights on the interconnections between economic development, public action and social progress. For instance, the district level female literacy rates in 1991
vary from 8% to 94%. The literacy rate among females age 7+ in Himachal Pradesh was 68%, in Gujrat is 59%. What is this rate in Bihar?

a. Between 10-15%
b. Between 55-60%
c. Between 35-40%
d. Between 45-50%

3. In India the public services as schools, infrastructure in schools, number of teachers in schools varies a lot. The propotion of primary schools in Kerala with atmost two teachers in 1999-2000 was 1%, India overall was 58% and in U.P. was 63%!!!. The propotion of males aged 10-12 who have NEVER been enrolled in a school(1992-93) in U.P. was 19%, in Kerala was 1%. What is this % for females in U.P. ?

a. Between 20-25%
b. Between 30-35%
c. Between 40-45%
d. Between 55-60%

4. There is fairly strong medical evidence to the effect that - given similar care - women tend to have lower age-specific mortality rates than men. The ratio of female to male mortality in 1996-98 for the age group 0-4 in West Bengal was 91% (91 female deaths in 0-4 age group for 100 male deaths). Similarly this number in Bihar was 117%. What is this number for Punjab?

a. 111%
b. 120%
c. 130%
d. 150%

5. Inequality between men and women is one of the crucial disparities in many socities and this is particulary so in India. The female-male ratio in defined as number of females per 1000 males. In Kerala the ratio was around 1058 in 2001, in Maharastra it was 922, in Bihar it was 926. What is this ratio for Haryana?

a. 919
b. 903
c. 873
d. 861

6. The legal age for marriage in India is 18 years for females. The % of girls in Himachal Pradesh who were married before 18 years of age was 11%, the same number in Maharastra was 48%. What was this % in Andhra Pradesh?

a. 15-20%
b. 30-35%
c. 50-55%
d. 60-65%

7. Maternal mortality rate is defined as deaths caused during pregnancy per 100,000 live births. In South Korea this number for 1990-99 period is 20, China it is 55, Thailand it is 44, in India it is 410!!!. What is this number for Madhya Pradesh??

a. Between 450-470
b. Between 540-560
c. Between 700-720
d. Between 980-1000

8. Fertility rate is defined as number of children a women has over a lifetime. A fertility rate of 2.1 is considered as replacemtn rate (meaning population growth rate and death rate are the same.). The fertility rate for India is 3.3 for 1996-98. For Kerala this rate is 1.8, for Tamil Nadu its 2.0 (below replacement rate), for Karnatake its 2.5, for Rajasthan its 4.2. What is this rate for Uttar Pradesh?

a. 4.0
b. 4.3
c. 4.6
d. 4.8

9. Antenatal checkup is defined as a routine checkup for pregnant women. Atleast one full antenatal checkup is required by WHO. The propotion of recent births preceded by antenatal check-up in Kerala was 99% and overall in India was 65%. What was this number in Uttar Pradesh?

a. 60%
b. 50%
c. 40%
d. 35%

10. Contraceptive prevalance in 1998-9 in India overall was 48%. This number for west Bengal was 67%, for Madhya Pradesh was 44%. What was this number for Bihar?

a. 25%
b. 32%
c. 40%
d. 46%

Liberal culture?

In the US, there is always a huge identity issue for people who are well-educated and supposedly aware of what goes on in the world: are you a conservative or a liberal? While these terms aren't exactly models of clarity, "conservative" usually gets associated with opinions like opposing gay marriage and abortion, while "liberal" gets associated with more progressive views like pro-abortion rights and pro-gay marriage. To any one who's been part of the academic community in this country, it would be clear that academicians mostly fall in the "liberal" category.

To me personally, the liberal culture is of primary interest since it provides the "kinder" and more "progressive" end of the mainstream spectrum. So, I was at an NSF (National Science Foundation) panel meeting yesterday - we were deciding among 15 proposals from different universities, which were the best candidates to fund. Each proposal has to not only argue the technical points, but also point out the broader impact on education and outreach. I tend to read these sections with some interest since it shows some interesting attitudes. Witness what I read in one of the proposals. The PI (principal investigator) was arguing about the outreach and impact of his proposal. He had a category called "Inclusion of under-represented minorities". The first sentence in this read "Our database group is actively involved in recruiting under-represented minorities for research....". Very promising so far. Next, he said "Two of our current students are women...." justifying his previous claim.

I am not kidding - he was classifying women as a minority. I had to read it a second time to make sure that was what he was saying. And remember his background - its a liberal, well-educated community of intellectuals with PhDs, doing research and so on.

To those of you who've read the Carter administration's report "Crisis of Democracy", this kind of sensibility would immediately ring a bell. The "Crisis of Democracy" was a book-length report written by the Trilateral Commission, initiated by David Rockefeller, consisting of representatives from three world components of capitalist democracy - US, Japan and Western Europe. Their main concern was the "governability of democracies". The Carter administration was highly liberal - Jimmy Carter is in fact a winner of the Nobel Peace prize (here is a quote attributed to this martyr of peace. Talking about the Vietnam war, he said the US owed no reparations to Vietnam since "the destruction was mutual").

Back to the "crisis of democracy", the authors felt that what is called for "is a greater degree of moderation in democracy" to overcome the "excess of democracy" of the 60s. One of the threats that caused this "excess of democracy" was that "previously passive or unorganized groups in the population," such as "blacks, Indians, Chicanos, white ethnic groups, students and WOMEN -- (all of whom) became organized and mobilized in new ways to achieve what they considered to be their appropriate share of the action and of the rewards" (capitals are mine). Of course these groups were classified as "minorities", "some part of the population", etc. This was a serious threat to the governability of democracies since, according to the authors, "The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups," such as women.

This is what liberal thought really is.....

How advertising influences media

Advertising is usually a covert censor for the editorial board, which is any way educated enough to understand what to say and what not to say. Sometimes, an overt warning is required. Here is a case in point: this appeared in spinwatch a few months ago:

Demands Advance Review of News Content
By Lisa Sanders and Jean Halliday May 24, 2005
NEW YORK -- Days after financial services giant Morgan Stanley informed print publications that its ads must be automatically pulled from any edition containing "objectionable editorial coverage," global energy giant BP has adopted a similar press strategy.
Zero tolerance
According to a copy of a memo on the letterhead of BP's media-buying agency, WPP Group's MindShare, the global marketer has adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward editorial coverage it is not informed about in advance, "regardless of whether editorial is deemed positive or negative."
The memo cites a new BP policy document entitled "2005 BP Corporate-RFP" that demands that ad-accepting publications inform BP in advance of any news text or visuals they plan to publish that directly mention the company, a competitor or the oil-and-energy industry.
A spokeswoman for MindShare refused to comment on the memo, calling it a “client matter” and referred calls to BP.
BP: 'Unfortunate' and 'regretable'
Scott Dean, a BP spokesman, said that to his knowledge MindShare penned the memo. He called the language in it "unfortunate" and "regretable."
"This is not meant to be Draconian or to influence coverage. We are just asking for a head's up" about a cover story about the oil industry. "We never asked to read [editorial] copy in advance."
When asked what sparked the policy, Mr. Dean said the marketer hadn't had "any major issues." But, he added, as far as he knew there was a single occasion in which BP pulled a corporate ad after being alerted about an oil industry cover story and moved the ad to a later issue.
Mr. Dean said the policy involves corporate ads, not BP's retail gas advertising, and only affects advertising in major news magazines, not newspapers or broadcasts.
BP spent $95.5 million in measured media in the U.S. in 2004, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Of that, cable TV garnered the largest outlay, at $23 million; magazines came in second, at $18.6 million, followed by spot TV, at $17 million. Spending in national newspapers was $2.1 million; spending in other newspapers was nearly $1 million.
Magazines' financial situation
One former publisher and longtime magazine industry executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that “magazines are not in the financial position today to buck rules from advertisers” and predicted that such moves will continue.
The MindShare memo lays out five directives ad-accepting publishers must follow in order to comply with the policy. It also requests that publishers confirm their ability to meet BP's demands and to explain the procedures they have instituted in their newsrooms and ad sales departments to ensure such adherence.
Suspension of full ad schedule
Both broad and quite specific, the directives range from notifying the media agency prior to running any editorial that contains fuel, oil or energy news text or visuals to providing the agency the option to pull any advertising from the issue without penalty. If the ad cannot be pulled, then the agency “must receive notification immediately of the situation in order to alert BP and to manage the situation proactively,” the memo said. It also states that if MindShare is not notified of the mentions prior to the issue’s on-sale date, immediate advertising schedule suspension will “likely result.”
One executive familiar with the situation said that “this is not the first time the agency has done this on behalf of BP,” but seemed to suggest some aspects of it may be new.
'Hiding something'
Another magazine executive who had not heard about BP’s policy or of Morgan Stanley’s said his company has unwritten guidelines with advertisers from several industries, including auto, airlines and tobacco, to pull their ads if related negative stories are in the issue. These cases, the executive said, occur more with news magazines than lifestyle ones.
“I think it’s OK to have systems in place to pull advertisers out, but clearly we don’t show them stories ahead of time.” The executive called BP’s policy a "stupid request. It makes you think these guys are hiding something.”
Nearly a decade ago, a move by automaker Chrysler Corp. set off a maelstrom of reaction when it sent letters in early 1997 demanding that magazine sales staffs warn them of potentially “offensive” or “provocative” editorial. Editors’ concerns over the policy’s potentially chilling effect were realized when Hearst Magazines’ Esquire killed a short story containing homoerotic scenes, apparently to avoid losing the automaker’s business. The marketer, now known as Chrysler Group, discontinued its policy in the fall of 1997. That October, two publishing organizations, the Magazine Publishers of America and the American Society of Magazine Editors, took the unusual step of issuing a joint policy on the topic of editorial integrity that bars magazines from giving advertisers a sneak peek at stories, photos or tables of contents for upcoming issues.

Slums & attitude of the non-slum people

Over the weekend a bunch of us saw two documentaries on Mumbai slums.

1. Bombay Our City: This is about slum evicitions which took place in 1984. It goes through various points as how slum demolitions take place, effect on slum dwellers, reasons people live in slums, attitude of the administration, the middle/upper classes towards slums, the cruelity of governement. Though old its a very well made documentary by Anand Patwardhan and apt even today. Middle classes/administration are so ignorant/selfish ...

The image on the side is from a survey done by a magazine in Mumbai. I got it courtsey this blog.

Just goes to show the ignorance (mumbai cant run without people in slums, more than 50% people live there, most of the unorganized sector - people working in producing ancillary parts, factories, construction, .... , people working in mumbai munciplaity come from slums). And hell they are people like you and me, why shouldnt they have rights ??.


2. Jagriti: This is about an expereince of a couple setting up a school in delhi slums. Enacted by children in the school this is a very nice documentary.

After Solapur, muster roll irregularities in Satara

Another story of corruption in EGS scheme in Maharastra. I had mentioned this before also. With help of RTI these things can be brought to light and corruption reduce. To enforce EGS we need more public action to bring scams to light.

http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/14/stories/2005091418261400.htm

India's abysmal Performance in Human Development

UN Report on Human Development was released recently.

Statistics for India : Look at the numbers specially the health & gender related numbers. Keep rough figures in mind ...

Look at this animation (or Here http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/). This shows you human development in animation over the years. Again notice the India/China/Brazil/Russia/Africa numbers. This gives you very good idea about where things have headed.

Go here to see reports for various Indian states. Now if you wish to compare numbers across countries go here and create your own tables from the data. You can select the countries, regions and compare over 1000's of factors. I did some of my own analyzing and its pretty neat.

Summary: India literally sucks on health and gender statistics (and all others ...) compared to most of the developing countries.
Our female literacy rate is 47% (China: 86%, Brazil 88%, Russia 99%).
Our Health expenditure per capita is an absymal 99 PPP $ (China: 261, Brazil: 661, Russia:535).
Child underweight for age: 47% (china: 10, Brazil 6, Russia 3).
Avalability of sanitation facilites: 30% (China: 44%, Brazil 75%, SubSaharan Africa 36%)

The numbers are horrible and NO excuses. If you look at state wide numbers you will find that southern states are steadily improving and northern states are rapidly declining creating this huge divide in India.

Jeane Dreze in one of his papers after analyzing census data for 1981 & 91 concludes that if we increase our female literacy rate to 70% we will have achieved stability in population growth (i.e growth rate of 2.1 per female ). That strong is the impact of female education.Just look at Kerala if you want an example closer to home

Under 5 mortality: 19 (per thousand) Kerala vs 95 India vs 123 UP
Fertility rate: 2.0 (births per woman) K, 2.9 India, 4.0 U.P.
Birth Attended by Health Professionals: 94% K, 42% India, 22% U.P.
Child receving all vacinations: 80% K, 42% India, 11% Bihar, 21% U.P.

From the report & articles:
"Perhaps the starkest inequality is revealed by this simple fact: girls aged 1-5 are 50 pc more likely to die than boys. This fact translates into 130,000 ‘‘missing’’ girls."

"The under-5 mortality rate is more than twice as high for children of illiterate mothers as for children whose mothers have completed middle school. Apart from being less prone to undernutrition, better educated mothers are more likely to space births — all factors positively associated with child survival."

"Girls born in Kerala are five times more likely to reach their fifth birthday, are twice as likely to become literate and are likely to live 20 years longer than girls born in Uttar Pradesh"

Have we really being independent for >58 years and at what gains to the masses?. Is it worth being the emerging economic-political-military-technology superpower when majority of country is in this state?

Some artilces on this:
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77762#
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050908/asp/frontpage/story_5211728.asp
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77720

Maharastra EGS fraud: Public audit unearths fraud, stayed

In this story in India together the author talks about how fraud was unearthed using RTI in MEGS. But still the publich hearings were stayed on absurd reasons

Some Excerpts:
"In Satara district, Shivaji Raut, an RTI activist, has uncovered similar corruption and falsification of records using the MRTI law in Poolkoti village (Mann Taluka) and Shirtavo village. In Poolkoti, 19 workers had been shown to have worked under EGS for the Forest department. All the names are bogus, according to Raut's finding. In Shirtavo village there were 66 names on the muster roll, which had thumb impressions of all of them. But 19 people said they were literate and did not put a thumb impression, but signed their names. Raut is also associated with the National Campaign for the People's Right to Information (NCPRI).

It is well known for many years that Maharashtra's Employment Guarantee Scheme is run with great corruption. In fact this was the argument raised during the debate over the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, by the bill's opponents. But the NCPRI and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) have stated that corruption in EGS schemes can be reduced significantly using RTI. And when a large number of beneficiaries participate in an audit by public hearings - as evidenced in Solapur -- corruption would find it difficult to survive. Citizens using the Right to Information law to extract public records can ensure that this.

The stopping of public examination of the muster rolls has been a clear attempt by the state government to thwart honest officials like Manisha Verma. Citizens must come forward and support her efforts. The demand must be that Manisha Verma and other collectors restart the public audits of the EGS muster rolls immediately. "

This shows several things:
1. Such schemes are vulnerable to fraud and wide spread corruption.
2. RTI, public hearings and more involvment of public can help highlight the fraud.
3. Local media can play a very active role in doing this.

Status of Women in India - An Overall Picture

In this article we will be looking at status of Indian women across various factors. This is part of the research by advocacy group on women's Issues. In coming blogs we will look further into specific case studies of some states and lessons to be learned from their expereinces especially kerala.

========Posting on Behalf of Sandhya ==========

India is home to one sixth of the world’s population. It is also one of the poorest countries in the world, with 47% of the population living below the international poverty line (WRI 2000). Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is mostly available in urban areas, and even then, only to the affluent. Roughly 20% of the population in the region does not have access to safe water, while 70%, live without adequate sanitation. Of those who do have sanitation services, 73% are located in urban areas (WRI 2000). (3) The country’s per capita income remains low and 26 per cent of the population live below the income poverty line.

If we look at India, gender stats of the world bank in 2002, reflect that Indian female life expectancy, female labor force, primary school enrollment, female population is lower than world and developing countries levels. Female enrollment in primary school in India was 75.7% which is much lower than world’s 85.2% and developing countries (83.7% ). Female labor force in India was 32.5%, world’s 40.8 and developing countries 40.3. Percentage of female population in India was 48.4, world’s 49.7% and developing countries 49.5%. Indian female life expectancy at birth was 64.2% much lower than world’s 68.8%, and developing countries 66.4%. (4)

Stats – Health & Education

• 60 per cent of the women are anaemic·
  More women than men die before the age of 35
• Maternal deaths in India account for almost 25 percent of the world's childbirth-related deaths.
• Maternal mortality rate in India is 100 times more than in the developed world. FN
• Malnutrition poses a continuing constraint to India's development. Despite improvements in health and well-being, malnutrition remains a silent emergency in India. The World Bank estimates that malnutrition costs India at least US$10 billion annually in terms of lost productivity, illness, and death and is seriously retarding improvements in human development.
Despite some improvement, India's women remain significantly more malnourished than men. Bias against women and girls is reflected in the demographic ratio of 933 females for every 1,000 males. The country's maternal mortality rates are very high, particularly in rural areas, ranging from 440 to 580 deaths per 100,000 live births.
• The rise in literacy rates over the last decade indicates India's progress in education. From 1991- 99, the overall literacy rate increased from 52 percent to 64 percent. Yet more than half of Indian women are still illiterate; about 40 million primary school-age children are not in school (mostly girls and those from the poorest and socially-excluded households); and only about one-third of an age group completes the constitutionally prescribed eight years of education. (5)

Click on Read More to read the complete article ...

Employment:

Most of the work that women do, such as collecting fuel, fodder and water, or growing vegetables, or keeping poultry for domestic consumption, goes unrecorded in the Census counts. Many women and girls who work on family land are not recorded as workers. In 1991 women and girls comprised 22.5 per cent of the official workforce. Data from the National Sample Surveys records higher work participation by women than the Census.

Women constitute 90 per cent of the total marginal workers of the country. Rural women engaged in agriculture form 78 per cent of all women in regular work. They are a third of all workers on the land. The traditional gender division of labor ensures that these women get on average 30 per cent lower wages than men. The total employment of women in organized sector is only 4 per cent.

It is well known that women and children work in huge numbers in bidi-rolling, agarbatti-rolling, bangle making, weaving, brassware, leather, crafts and other industries. Yet, only 3 per cent of these women are recorded as laborers. They are forced to work for pitiable wages and are denied all social security benefits. A study by SEWA of 14 trades found that 85 per cent of women earned only 50 per cent of the official poverty level income. (6)

Even the above statistics can be said to be improvement when compared to past decades. The factors/reasons for continuous poor status of Indian women may be many and vary depending on geography, class and caste with one major common factor is gender bias in every aspect of life.

a) Social – Indian women are gripped within many social evils though forms have changed with changing times. Violence against women is still an issue and as pointed out not with earlier issues of sati child marriages, and ill-treatment of widows but with rape, dowry, wife battering, female infanticide, divorce, maintenance and child custody. (7)

In modern era (urban area growth) the issues are concerning street children, sexual exploitation of children & women, sexual harassment & discrimination of women. With supposed development activities of dams, mining etc., are resulting in displacement without even recognizing any right either in property or compensation affecting women drastically and further pushing them into total helplessness.

b) Legal – Constitutional rights (Equal rights & prohibition of discrimination, reservations (73^rd & 74^th Amendments), The committee on the Status of Women is constituted and it published “Towards Equality”, UN recognition & declaration of women’s rights as human rights, formation of National Women’s Commission etc. though recognizes that women has equal rights, and State plans and attempts to implement women oriented initiatives, many of those initiatives lack enforcement.

Campaigns for legal reform are important aids for focusing upon injustice and discrimination against women. However, the reforms themselves will not bring social justice in all the cases/situations. Some reforms fail to yield positive results for lack of social acceptance & legal enforcement. (dowry prohibition act, widow remarriage act etc).

C) Financial/Property Rights – Most of the women are deprived of property rights, and social structure is the major factor in deprivation of women’s property rights. Some state initiatives (allocation of funds for women in development projects)& legal reforms (eg. Right to maintenance, Women’s property right act) in some states recognized it but its enforcement/impact is questionable.

D) Political Power – There are some active women politicians from time to time and with few exception still the question remains is effective participation of women in political process.

Reservation system in panchayats opened doors for some active participation by women in the political process especially in rural development.

Representation of women in the state legislatures and in Parliament is low. Women currently comprise 5.9 per cent of Lok Sabha members. In the 1999 elections a mere 6.5 per cent of candidates were female.

Women have persistently lobbied for the passing of the 81st Amendment Bill, drafted in 1996, that proposes the reservation of one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha. But political parties have repeatedly sabotaged attempts to have the Bill approved.

However, hope lies in India's huge experiment with grassroots democracy through the panchayats. Nearly a million women have entered the panchayats and local bodies, thanks to one-third reservation in these bodies through the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution. Women head one-third of the panchayats and are gradually learning to use their new prerogatives. (8)

I believe once again the women reservation bill has come into light and focus of recent controversy.

E) Health – Indian women lacks resources & autonomy to access reasonable health care and resulting in their poor health and mortality rate. Health issues are totally ignored in rural areas etc. Another issue of world focus is HIV/AIDS issues. They also lack reproductive rights & fertility rates are high in some states.

Percentage of women who have not obtained advice or treatment from health care providers is 69% in rural area. 49% of ever-married Indian women are not involved at all in decisions about seeking health care for themselves. (9)

Poverty, early marriage, malnutrition and lack of health care during pregnancy are the major reasons for both maternal and infant mortality. In rural India almost 60 per cent of girls are married before they are 18. Nearly 60 per cent of married girls bear children before they are 19. Almost one third of all babies are born with low birth weight.

The privatization of the health sector has increased the burden of the poor. Studies suggest that illness is the second highest cause for rural indebtedness. Government spending on public health fell from 1.26 per cent of GDP in 1989-90 to 1.12 per cent of GDP in 1995-96. Only 50 per cent of villages have any government health facility. (10)

(For status of Indian Women’s Education - See http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf )

I strongly believe that the education does play a major role in improving overall conditions of all including women.

Access to educational opportunities did provide some girls with new options during the late period of indenture and schooling began to have a much more positive influence in the lives of many women after the mid-1930s. Despite these changes, educated women’s access to formal employment and equal status were severely limited. Women’s empowerment was also restricted by the gendered ideology of various cultures, and the continued domination of men in the family and society.

The following seminar papers attempts to examine the self-decision making power of the Women while defining some of the empowerment measures based on NFHS study. (11)

see the following link for more detailed examination of issues – http://www.iipsindia.org/sp04%5Csucheta.pdf

An attempt to analyze women’s autonomy based on direct and indirect measures has been made by selecting one state each from east, west, north and south region from the NFHS-II data in the above mentioned seminar papers. I wish to draw some attention to the following interesting findings of the NFHS-II data analysis in above mentioned seminar paper.

a) The overall picture of autonomy in terms of selected direct measures on various domestic chores reveals that a relatively larger proportion of women in Punjab (83 percent) and Maharashtra (80 percent) take decision on matters related to cooking independently. The corresponding figures for Madhya Pradesh and Orissa are 69 and 72 per cent respectively while it was lowest in Kerala (57 percent). However, when we consider autonomy in seeking health care, Kerala comes at the top with 55 percent followed by Punjab (46 percent) women deciding independently on health care whereas it was lowest in Orissa (12percent).

b) In Punjab only a hand full of women decide independently on going and staying with natal family (nine percent). In Contrast, Oriya women precede other states as far as women’s autonomy status on going and staying with her natal family is concerned (29 percent).

3) As the data suggests, the proportion of women who decide independently on spending money and keeping money aside for herself is highest in Punjab followed by Kerala and lowest in Orissa (ranging between 54 to 29 per cent and 78 to 66 per cent respectively). But across all the states the autonomy to buy jewelry seems to be very low. This sort of confirms that the women indeed are deprived of economic assets of their own use.

4) Except for Punjab and Kerala, women in other states with better literacy status have greater autonomy on seeking health care.

5) Relatively higher proportion of the Hindu women take independent decisions in seeking health care as compared to Muslims, although the variations are of lesser magnitude. As one would expect, more women residing in the urban areas apparently decide independently on health matters related to them. In the states of Kerala and

Punjab, earning cash for money does give women more say in the family matters. Also exposure to mass media shows some association with percents of women independently deciding on health care in Kerala, Punjab and to some extent Maharashtra

6) While considering indirect measures, it’s been found education to be very significantly associated with women autonomy, except for autonomy on cooking and for seeking health care and spending money. But, on the other hand if we take the spousal educational difference the autonomy of the women rises with the increases in husbands education i.e. when husband is more educated compared to her, she exercise greater autonomy in contrast to the situation where the women is more educated than her husband. This relation holds true for all the states under study. From the data inference can be drawn that it is the husband’s understanding and education

7) Where husband is highly educated the wife exercised more autonomy in compared issues like cooking, visiting family, keeping cash for her own purpose, access to health care, children education, use of contraceptives, preferring sex of the child etc.

8) Where there is a substantial age gap between the couple – 10 yrs or so elder to wife – women has more autonomy.

My attempt has been only to point out existing issues to the extent possible. I am certain, there are many more issues which I might have failed to notice or mention here. I feel that the most disadvantaged group is rural community. As some of the reading suggests that the issues concerning urban women do get some attention from women’s movement, NGO’s, State, Media etc. unlike rural and tribal women issues.

Approximately 20 million Indian people have been displaced by development activities such as dams, mining and construction of infrastructure since India's independence in 1947, according to estimates made by several independent Indian research organizations.

A two-year research project that looked at development projects in four parts of the country that have witnessed large-scale projects--Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh--finds that women suffer disproportionately due to systemic inequities, such as women being denied land rights and sons being given preference over daughters when it comes to schooling. (13)

Another notable factor for rural women’s plight is lack of access to natural resources especially water. As stated, the principle users and collectors of water in rural Indian households, women continue to bear many of the costs associated with increasing water scarcity, while having the least amount of input into the use and allocation of the resource. In many rural areas, scarcity of resources requires women and children to travel long distances to fetch water for daily household needs. One estimate has women from semi-arid regions in India traveling on average 1,400 km per year to fetch water from distant sources (Gupta et al. 1993). The investment in time, which could be devoted to other income-generating activities or education, has only perpetuated the poverty cycle in many regions. (14)

In conclusion, I was shocked to find high percentage of maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate including male and female children in India, and poverty is a significant contributing factor. It is a vicious circle in which lack of education, lack of resources leading to poverty and poverty resulting in illiteracy, poor health etc, in addition to gender gap impacting women and children.

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1) UNFPA-Bejing at Ten: UNFPA’s commitment to the Platform for Action) –available at www.unfpa.org &

2) http://www.weforum.org/pdf/Global_Competitiveness_Reports/Reports/gender_gap.pdf

3) http://www.devalt.org/water/WaterinIndia/issues.htm

4) http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdevelopment.pdf

5) http://www.indianngos.com/factfile.htm & see http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9803.pdf

6) http://www.infochangeindia.org/WomenIbp.jsp#h3), http://wcd.nic.in/CEDAW4.htm & http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9802.pdf & http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_india/indiaappend3.htm

7) http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/505/505%20kameshwari%20jandhyala.htm

8) http://www.infochangeindia.org/WomenIbp.jsp#h3

9) http://iussp2005.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=51549

10) http://www.infochangeindia.org/WomenIbp.jsp#h3 & http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9803.pdf; For status of Indian women’s Education - See http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf )

11) Women’s Autonomy In India Some Issues By Sucheta Shukla , Seminar paper submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Master in Population Studies (M.P.S), Academic year 2003-2004. International Institute for Population Sciences Govandi station road, Deonar Mumbai – 400008, 2004) http://www.iipsindia.org/sp04%5Csucheta.pdfhttp://www.iipsindia.org/sp04%5Csucheta.pdf

12) http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/80/India.html & http://www.mmpindia.org/sthepinie.PDF

13) http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2332/context/archive

14) http://www.devalt.org/water/WaterinIndia/issues.htm

References & Suggested Readings

1) http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_2038.html

2) Empowerment of women is another area in which the village has excelled. Kambalwadi has a woman sarpanch and, recently, it was made mandatory to transfer all built-up property to women in the family. “If the house belongs to a woman she will be able to dictate terms. We have their best interests at heart,” explains sarpanch,Bharati shahji Redekar. http://infochangeindia.org/GovernanceItop.jsp?recordno=3396&section_idv=20#4014

3) http://www.iussp.org/Brazil2001/s10/S16_01_Bhat.pdf

4) http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/database/poplaws/law_india/indiaappend3.htm

5) http://wcd.nic.in/empwomen.htm

6) http://zaza.com/awomansplace/index.html

7) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4190570.stm

8) It must be admitted that legislation and judiciary has its own limits as the needs of the women are diverse and multiple. The problems like ignorance, illiteracy, discrimination and violence continue to persist. The judicial redress still remains a costly, time taking and rare commodity. Even with the provision of best safeguards and sensitive judicial approach, women’s rights continue to be a casualty in any conflicting situation with the other sex. http://www.indoindians.com/writer/empower.htm

EGS - A scheme to reduce employment(poverty) or a way for the corrupt to make more money?

So now that REGS has been passed it remains to be seen whether this will help reduce poverty or just serve as an scheme for making more moeny for the people in power?.

A quick background: REGS will provide employment for 100 days per year per rural household @ minimum wage (~Rs.60 per day).
The REGS bill presented by governement in Parliament can be found here. Several crituquies of the scheme from right to food campaign can be found here. This article gives you a almost all the information about what the scheme constitutes and money needed and other details.

Some opinions:
Atanu Dey argues that this scheme will only deepen poverty.
"In summary, the NREGS will have the expected effect of deeping poverty and enriching the bureaucratic and political intermediaries."
In this blog entry, posted by Ramdhan Yadhav the argument is for employment gurantee scheme stating the unemployment numbers and how the scheme could be beneficial.

The scheme if implemented even partially as proposed can act as a great source of employment generation, infrastructure building in rural areas, reducing rural-urban migration, increasing purchasing power of rural India, reduce deaths due to food scarcity etc ... the potential for this scheme to do good is enormous.
But ... India after independence has had several "similar" schemes like rural employment schemes, food for work program etc. Even now we have a food-for-work scheme going on in 150 districts in India. So what are the results of the implementation of this scheme?. Dismal.
There have been several corruption cases in this scheme. There has been no formal analysis done by the government on the results of the scheme.
Jean Dreze , one of the authors of EGS scheme, has done extensive studies of food-for-work scheme and similar schemes implemented in India. The conclusions from these are that such schemes are sources of rampant corruption. None of the schemes have benefited the poor but only acted as sources of money for the corrupt. Similary the experiences from the Maharastra EGS are dismal.
But the picture is not all that bad as it seems. Combined with Right to Information, this scheme can be enforced by people. As Jean Dreze mentions in his studies, the experience of food for work program in Rajasthan was very different than other studies. And the difference was RTI in Rajasthan. People could ask for muster lists (registers with info on employment) and check these for any irregulatries. This together with activist people helped reduce the corruption. This can be done on a larger scale.

Summary: The track record of similar schemes in India is very poor. But this scheme has a great potential to improve lives of masses and if enforced by people (mass movements, NGOs) can do wonders. Govt of India should before starting the scheme ensure safeguards so that scheme is not manipulated. Also we need mass movements to force enforcement of this scheme with help of RTI.

The Katrina Hurricane

On Sept 2nd, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a CNN reporter that "the federal government did not even know about the (New Orleans) convention center until today." Here is a video of the suffering at the convention center where the people were left for several days with no help. It's a must-watch video - both heart-rending and infuriating.

Think about it - 25000 people stuck in a superdome (ironically, many of these people wouldn't be able to afford a Superdome ticket on a normal day) with no food, no water, no baby food, no medicine, no toilets (the upper rows are full of human faeces, reports say). More than 10000 people stuck in the convention center without the federal government even knowing about it for several days. Again with no food, no water, no medicine. All in scorching tempatures.

And what is the background to this? Any number of warnings over the past few years saying that a hurricane hitting New Orleans was one of the biggest dangers to this country. There were actually preparations over the last 2 years for exactly this purpose. Apparently, neither of these foresaw the levees blocking the water from Lake Pontchartrain - crucial since the city is built on low lying wet lands. Indeed, you have Bush instead bleating that "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees". Does this even sound remotely credible? In fact, there were warnings of exactly this. On the other hand, the part of the budget for the New Orleans Corps of Engineers that dealt with flood control was cut by 44% ($71 million) by the Bush administration.

What about the FEMA? Mr. Allbaugh, the previous director of FEMA said that the federal disaster assistance had become "an oversized entitlement program". Consistent with this tagline, the Bush administration merged the FEMA with the Department of Homeland Security, so that instead of money going directly to state and local governments, was routed through the Homeland Security department. And guess where do most of federal preparedness grants go? Counter-terrorism!

Well, given that the disaster did take place, why weren't any forcible evacuation orders given, even after Katrina was declared a level 5 hurricane (a suspected outcome of global warming)? The timing was "bad", we're told - a lot of the people were on unemployment and were waiting for this month's checks. As a result, they could not afford to leave when the warnings came. What about the government's inaction? Why aren't buses from the area rerouted to help New Orleans and other affected areas? Why are hotels not used to accommodate the people? Why isn't more food and medicine provided? To top it off, the National guard is largely busy in Iraq!

And what do we say of the admonition to "shoot-to-kill" the looters? Why is property more important than humans? The video attached above shows what the primary reason for the "looting" is. The coverage of this is highly racist too. Read the following to get an idea of this.

And finally, some perspective. The outrage and shock over the Katrina (just like the Tsunami late last year) is to be admired, but what about the silence over "normal" suffering? Is a disaster of this scale needed to remind everyone of the poverty in this country? Doesn't the fact that New Orleans had a 40% illiteracy rate before Katrina symbolize an erosion of civilization? Or the fact that in Manhattan, the top one-fifth make 52 times the bottom one-fifth (comparable to the income disparity in Namibia, and much worse than in the past)? Or the fact that one in every 3 children in New York City lives in poverty (below federal poverty line)?

Women's Issues - An Overall Picture

A group of volunteers here have formed a group to lobby for Women's Issues specially in the developing countries. As part of this effort we intend to do a thorough research on status of women - across various aspects. Going further we plan to network with other groups to lobby for women's rights. This is the second blog in this series. First Blog is here.
Feel free to comment and join us.

===Posting on behalf of Sandhya====

Even before I started my research on women’s issues with focus on empowerment I realized it is a very wide in scope & it is very difficult to identify all the issues involved. However, this is an initial attempt to provide a brief outline, and the issues covered below are based on online resources/links.

Global State– Poverty – Around 1.2 billion people in less developed countries, majority of whom are women and children are living in extreme poverty. Poverty has a devastating effect on entire population but with a disproportionate impact on women and girls. It effect all aspects of live including education, nutrition, water and sanitation, employment, income and consumption, and most importantly health including reproductive health and increasing risk of AIDS.

Education of women has proved to be the most influential factor in improving child health and reducing infant mortality, and an extra year of schooling for girls reduces fertility rates by 5-10 percent(More on this later blogs). However, globally nearly 600 million women are illiterate compared to 320 million men.

Health of women is a major concern as 35% of pregnant women in developing countries (45 million) each year, receive no prenatal care. Every minute a woman dies in childbirth, which means more than 500, 000 deaths per year.

Violence against women often disregarded worldwide & categorized as personal issue causes more deaths and disability for women between ages 15 & 44 than cancer, traffic accidents and war. One out of three women in the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or abused in some other way, and most often by a man she knows, including her husband or other male relatives. UNFPA Global Survey indicates that 97 of 147 responding countries worldwide had established laws punishing gender-based violence, however only 24 countries actually enforcing them.

Economic empowerment of women has many obstacles including persistent gender discrimination in hiring and promotion related to pregnancy in the workplace, as well as the lack of national legislation ensuring women’s rights to own land & other property.
Political power is still sphere of men and traditional gender roles limit women’s choices in education & career, and compel women to assume the burden for household responsibilities, and share of women in parliament still doesn’t reach the level of 30% in most countries of the world. Only 14 countries have met the Beijing Platform for Action target of 30% of seats in national parliament held by women.

Environment and women’s interrelationship needs to be focused. While being responsible for household resources, women often lack secure access to land & other productive natural resources. Even So, Women are most affected by environmental degradation; soil erosions, water shortages, & crop failures; Deforestation & contamination increase the time women must look for fuel and clean water; while other responsibilities for house do not diminish toxins in the air & passed on to infants through the breast milk. National laws, local law and customs often effectively deny women the right to secure title or inherit land.

Media lacks gender sensitivity and degrading, violent and negative images of women in media had increased in different forms since the adoption of Beijing platform.

====Posting on behalf of Sandhya====

In the next blogs on this topic we will look at some of the issues in detail and particularly the status of women in India.