International Affairs,Essays,Selected Editorials,etc

Gender analysis is a way of seeing/analyzing problems, situations and solutions with awareness of gender relations and in order to identify gender issues. The key elements of a gender analysis should include identification of similarities and differences between men and women and amongst women. These relate to work, resources, responsibilities and powers-Assessment of how gender relations have an impact on opportunities, needs, incentives and rewards. Assessment of capacity of intervening institutions to promote gender equality goals. Estimation of the potential obstacles and resistances to initiatives to promote gender equality and development of strategies to counter these resistances. It is important to understand practical needs and strategic needs of women.

Practical needs can be defined as women’s needs that do not question her subordination or traditional roles। These are often to do with the practical needs of day to day living such as housing, water; healthcare and employment. In contrast Strategic Gender interests are the needs of women identified on the basis of thier subordinate position in society. They may vary from context to context and may include issues such as legal rights to freedom from domestic violence, rights to land and property, sexual rights, unequal divisions of labor in the family etc.These are often less obvious and have long term implications.

For example a woman who is not in dire poverty, may still fight with her brothers for equal rights of inheritance to family land. The struggle for strategic needs is more difficult and encounters much more resistance than the struggle for practical gender needs. It is the SGIs therefore that often get left out of gender planning .Merely fulfilling the practical needs of women do not improve their status in terms of power or equality. It is important to acknowledge that addressing both is critical to the success of planning; addressing Practical Gender Needs alone will not lead to long term improvements for women and may reinforce their subordination. Similarly addressing strategic gender interests alone may fail as a strategy if practical considerations are not taken into account. Other steps in gender analysis include collection of gender disaggregated data, and collecting information focusing on gender differences in activities, access to and control over resources and roles and position in decision making processes.

Analysis may take place at various levels-individual, household, community, institutional and politics. At the institutional level, gender analysis may look at institutional policy and services, organizational structure and staff qualifications and training. At the family level, gender analysis may look at who does what work, how financial resources are controlled and by whom etc.Many tools, checklists and questionnaires are available to assist gender analysis in various sectors.

Read Users' Comments (0)

Summers are here and the cities in India are already complaining about water shortage not to mention many villages which lack safe drinking water। In the list of 122 countries rated on quality of portable water, India ranks a lowly 120।Although India has 4% of the world’s water, studies show average availability is shrinking steadily. It is estimated that by 2020, India will become a water-stressed nation. Nearly 50% of villages still don’t have any source of protected drinking water.

According to 2001 census 68.2% households have access to safe drinking water. The department of drinking water supply estimates that 94% of rural habitations and 91% urban households have access to drinking water. But according to experts these figures are misleading simply because coverage refers to installed capacity and not actual supply.

The ground reality is that of the 1.42 million villages in India, 1, 95,813 are affected by chemical contamination of water. The quality of ground water which accounts of more than 85% of domestic supply is a major problem in many areas as none of the rivers have water fit to drink.

37.7 million People –over 75% of whom are children are afflicted by waterborne diseases every year. Overdependence on groundwater has brought in contaminants, fluoride being one of them. Nearly 66 million people in 20 states are at risk because of the excessive fluoride in water. While the permissible limit of fluoride in water is 1 mg per litre in states like Haryana it is high as 48 mg in some places. Delhi water too has 32 mg.But the worst hits are Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 6 million children below 14 suffer from dental, skeletal and non-skeletal fluorosis.

Arsenic is the other big killer lurking in ground water putting at risk nearly 10 million people. The problem is acute in Murshidabad, Nadia, North and South 24 Paraganas, Malda and Vardhaman districts of West Bengal. The deeper aquifers in the entire Gangetic plains contain arsenic.

High nitrate content in water is another serious concern।Fertilizers, septic tanks, sewage tanks etc are the main sources of nitrate contamination. The groundwater in MP, UP, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Kanataka and Tamil Nadu has shown traces of nitrates.

However it is bacteriological contamination which leads to diarrhoea, cholera and hepatitis which is widespread in India. A bacteriological analysis of the water in Bangalore revealed 75% bore wells were contaminated.Iron; hardness and salinity are also a concern. Nearly 12,500 habitats have been affected by salinity. In Gujarat it is a major problem in coastel districts. Often babies die of dehydration and there are major fights in villages for freshwater. Some villages have seen 80% migration due to high salinity.

Health is not the only issue; impure water is a major burden on the state as well. Till the 10th plan the government had spent Rs 1,105 billion on drinking water schemes. Yet it is the poor who pay a heavier price spending around Rs 6700 crore annually on treatment of waterborne diseases.

There is an urgent need to look for alternative sources of portable water in places where water quality has deteriorated sharply. Community based water quality monitoring guidelines should be encouraged. People should be encouraged to look at traditional methods of protecting water sources. Also in places where groundwater has arsenic or fluoride, surface water should be considered as an alternative.

Read Users' Comments (1)comments

UNICEF released the State of World’s Children Report- 2009 with some shocking findings regarding maternal mortality status in India. Avoidable complications during child birth are killing 78,000 women in India every year. One woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every seven minutes. One million children born in India are dying every year even before they become 28 days old. A child born in India is 14 times more likely to die during the first 28 days than one born in the US or UK.The maternal mortality rate of India stands at 301 per 100,000 births. It is highest in Uttar Pradesh at 517 and lowest in Kerala at 110.For Bihar it is 371. An Indian woman is 350 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy –related complications than women in America or England. For every mother who dies, 20 others suffer pregnancy related illness. Around 10 million women annually experience such adverse outcomes. Despite an increase in institutional deliveries, 60% of pregnant women still deliver their babies at home. In India more than 2/3 of all maternal deaths occur in a handful of states- UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa, MP, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam. In UP one in every 42 women faces risk of maternal death compared to 1 in 500 women in Kerala

The main medical causes of maternal deaths are:

Abortion: 8%
Obstructed labor: 5%
Hypertensive disorders: 5%
Sepsis: 11%
Hemorrhage: 38%
Other conditions: 34%

In India the states with the top five neonatal mortality(Early neonatal mortality refers to a death of a live-born baby within the first seven days of life, while late neonatal mortality covers the time after 7 days until before 28 days. The sum of these two represents the neonatal mortality) rates are

Orissa- 52 deaths /1000 live births
Madhya Pradesh- 51/1000 live births
Uttar Pradesh- 46/1000 live births
Rajasthan- 45 /1000 live births
Chattisgarh- 43/1000 live births

Read Users' Comments (0)

Public health system in India suffers from many problems which includes insufficient funding, shortage of facilities leading to overcrowding and severe shortage of trained health personnel. There is also lack of accountability in the public health delivery mechanisms. These are some of the reasons which have placed India at the lowest rank in the Human Development Index.

India however holds top position in migration of physicians to developed countries like UK and the US. According to Planning Commission the country has a shortfall of six lakh doctors, 10 lakh nurses and two lakh dental surgeons. This has led to a dismal patient-doctor ratio in the country. For every 10,000 Indians, there is just one doctor.

The much publicized National Urban Health Mission is yet to see the light of day. The scheme plans to monitor and improve the health of 22 crore people living in urban slums in 429 cities and towns. It was to be launched mid 2008 but the mission is yet to become functional.NURM is aimed at providing accessible, affordable, effective and reliable primary health care facilities especially to urban poor. Even for NHRM there is limited progress due to lack of standardization of medical facilities.

India has banned tobacco consumption in public places but only 12 states have started implementing the ban. More than 10 lakh people at present die in India every year due to tobacco consumption. At present more than 57% male and 10.9% female consume tobacco while 15% children consume tobacco.

Female feticide continues to tarnish India’s image.The child sex ratio (0-6 years) was 945 (1991 census) and this declined to 927 girls per thousand boys (in 2001 census).The figures are alarming in prosperous states like Punjab(798),Haryana (819),Chandigarh (845),Delhi (868),Gujarat (883) and Himachal Pradesh (896).

Number of PHCs,CHC and SCs
Year	CHC	PHC	SC
2007	4,045	22,370	1, 45,272

Infant Mortality Rate
Year	Rural	Urban	Total
2007	61	37	55

Number of Health Care Workers
Year	Doctors at PHCs	Specialists at PHC	Health workers	Health workers
			Male	Female
2007	22,608	5,117	62,881	1, 47,439

Read Users' Comments (4)

• Terrorism in India is primarily attributable to Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and Naxalite radical movements.
• long term terrorist activities today are Jammu and Kashmir, Mumbai, Central India (Naxalism) and Seven Sister States (independence and autonomy movements).
• Punjab insurgency led to militant activities in the Indian state of Punjab as well as the national capital Delhi.

Mumbai

• Mumbai has been the most preferred target for most terrorist organizations, primarily the separatist forces from Kashmir. Over the past few years a series of attacks including explosions in local trains in July 2006, to the most recent and unprecedented attacks of 26 November, 2008, where two of the prime hotels and another building, in south Mumbai, were sieged.

  Terrorist attacks in Mumbai include:*

• 12 March 1993 - Series of 13 bombs go off killing 257
• 6 December 2002 - Bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 2
• 27 January 2003 - Bomb goes off on a bicycle in Vile Parle killing 1
• 14 March 2003 - Bomb goes off in a train in Mulund killing 10
• 28 July 2003 - Bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 4
• 25 August 2003 - Two Bombs go off in cars near the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar killing 50
• 11 July 2006 - Series of seven bombs go off in trains killing 209
• 26 November 2008 to 29 November 2008 - Coordinated series of attacks killing at least 172.

• Armed insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir killed tens of thousands till date.

Bihar

• Poor governance and the law and order system in Bihar have helped increase the menace caused by the militias.
• The Ranvir Sena is a militia of forward caste land owners which is taking on the might of powerful Naxalites in the area.
• The state police is ill equipped to take on the AK-47, AK-56 of the militants with their vintage 303 rifles.
• Communist groups like CPI-ML, MCC and People's War took advantage of this and instigated the low caste people to take up arms against establishment which was seen as a tool in the hands of rich.
• There have been arrests in various parts of the country, particularly those made by the Delhi and Mumbai police in the recent past, indicating that extremist/terrorist outfits have been spreading their networks in this State.

Punjab

• During 1970s, the Indian Green Revolution brought increased economic prosperity for the Sikh community in Punjab.
• The insurgency intensified during 1980s when the movement turned violent and the name Khalistan resurfaced and sought independence from the Indian Union.
• Led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who , though not in favor in the creation of Khalistan but also was not against it, began using militancy to stress the movement's demands.
• In 1984, Operation Blue Star was conducted by the Indian government to stem out the movement.
• Indira Gandhi, India's then prime minister, ordered the military to storm the temple, who eventually had to use tanks, helicopter gunships, artillery and chemical weapons.
• In doing so, it damaged some portions of the Akal Takht, the Sikh Reference Library and some damaged to the Golden Temple itself.
• During same year, the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards, believed to be driven by the Golden Temple affair, resulted in widespread anti-Sikh riots, especially in New Delhi.
• Following Operation Black Thunder in 1988, Punjab Police, first under Julio Ribeiro and then under KPS Gill, together with the Indian Army eventually succeeded in pushing the movement underground.
• In 1985, Sikh terrorists bombed an Air India flight from Canada to India, killing all 329 people on board Air India Flight 182.
• The ending of Sikh militancy and the desire for a Khalistan catalyzed when the then-Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto handed all intelligence material concerning Punjab militancy to the Indian government, as a goodwill gesture.
• organisations include Babbar Khalsa International, Khalistan Commando Force, Khalistan Liberation Force and Khalistan Zindabad Force.

Read Users' Comments (0)

पॉइंट्स अत शोर्ट

1. Swami Vivekananda who introduced Yoga and Vedanta to America.
2. he introduced Eastern thought at the World's Parliament of Religions.
3. Despite being one of the pioneers and founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement, India developed a closer relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War
4. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, India began to review its foreign policy in a unipolar world
5. closer ties with the European Union and the United States.
6. Clinton and Bush administration, relations between India and the United States blossomed
7. over common concerns regarding growing Islamic extremism
8. slight downturn in India-U.S. relations following the election of Barack Obama as the President of the United States in 2009.
9. Obama administration's desire to increase relations with China
10. After Indian independence until the end of the cold war, the relationship between the two nations has often been thorny.
11. Barack Obama's protectionist views on dealing with the economic crisis.
12. Dwight Eisenhower was the first U.S. President to visit India in 1959.
13. John F. Kennedy's period as President, he saw India as a strategic partner against the rise of communist China.
14. From 1961 to 1963 there was a promise to help set up a large steel mill in Bokaro that was withdrawn by the U.S.
15. 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistani wars did not help their relations.
16. Atal Bihari Vajpayee became Indian Prime Minister, he authorized a nuclear weapons test in Pokhran, which got the immediate attention of the US.
17. In March 2000, President Bill Clinton visited India
18. He had bilateral and economic discussions with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
19. During the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the , President George W. Bush chose India as the country to control and police the Indian Ocean sea-lanes from the Suez to Singapore.
20. The tsunami that occurred in December 2004 saw the U.S. and Indian navies to work together
21. An Open Skies Agreement was made in April 2005
22. Air India purchased 68 U.S. Boeing aircraft, which cost $8 billion.
23. After Hurricane Katrina, India donated $5 million to the American Red Cross and sent 2 plane loads
24. U.S. base in the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia
25. Major items exported by India to the U.S. include Information Technology Services, textiles, machinery, ITeS, gems and diamonds, chemicals, iron and steel products, coffee, tea, and other edible food products.
26. Major American items imported by India include aircraft, fertilizers, computer hardware, scrap metal and medical equipment.
27. In July 2005, President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh created a new program called the Trade Policy Forum
28. interaction of companies from both countries regarding new policies related to Indian media and broadcasting.
29. The Foreign Policy magazine reported that even though Foreign Policy Staff of the previous administration had recommended India as a "key stop"
30. India's National Security Adviser, M.K. Narayanan, criticized the Obama administration for linking the Kashmir dispute to the instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan
31. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a close aide of India's main opposition party the BJP, said that if the United States continues with its anti-outsourcing policies, then India will "have to take steps to hurt American companies in India.
32. Obama administration cleared the US$2.1 billion sale of eight P-8 Poseidons to India
33. strengthening of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and has pressurized India to sign the agreement.
34. Shyam Saran, "warned" the United States that India would continue to oppose any such treaty as it was "discriminatory".
35. U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen encouraged stronger military ties between India and the United States

Read Users' Comments (0)