Census 2011 throws up........!
It is reported that pregnant women are gravely underweight
in India. This fact came out while
analysing census data. Majority of
Indian girls are anemic and under nutritioned.
The reasons attributed to this dismal level are the prevalent poor
sanitation and drug resistant infections. India ranks even below the world's poorest countries,
like, Congo, Zimbabwe and Somalia. About 42% of Indian mothers are underweight
and the figure for sub-Saharan Africa is 16.5%.
This situation has resulted in a higher child mortality rate. One can perceive that though cultural
practices make the mother to eat the reminder after feeding all in the family,
it is economic backwardness that dominates the majority of the households.
On the other hand it is also reported from the census data
that in Tamil Nadu more than 70 lakh people in the age group of 20-80 are
unmarried. Of these 71% of them are
males and the remaining are females.
Amidst them are people who never seriously considered getting married
despite the pressure from the families to get married. The unmarried in Tamil Nadu account for nearly
10% of the population. The number of
unmarried has jumped 13 times since the previous census in 2001. One of
the reasons attributed to this is the financial constraint. Family commitments to support the siblings
and parents alongwith the extension in the family through marriage has been a
deterrent. There seems
to be no urban rural divide in the composition. In all the southern states of India, the percentage of
unmarried to that of total population is in the range of 8% to 10%.
The above two scenarios have a common link that both are the
result of economic backwardness. This is
despite the fact that India had grown considerably during the last two decades
after opening up of the economy. It is a
fact that the per capita income has increased, the average standard of living improved, the
GDP has grown, is the fastest growing among the BRIC countries and the Indian Economy has
become one among the top ten biggest economies of the world. The development is skewed. It is also a fact that all these improvements have not
percolated down and the disparity between APL and BPL has not narrowed down so
far. If this is not addressed early, the feeling of
discontent will gather momentum and a clash of classes may become a distinct
possibility.
Incidentally it is pertinent to recall that on March 8, 1917,
Russia’s February Revolution began in St, Petersburg. It was called ‘February revolution’ as the Gregorian calendar was not adopted by
Russia then and the earlier calendar that
was in vogue in Russia then lagged behind 12 days.
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