Society

Answer : After independence in 1947, women were granted constitutional equality. However, the Hindu, Islamic, and other religious communities retained jurisdiction over family law.

• The second wave began as grass-roots organizations focused not only upon gender but also upon caste, class, and culture as roots of women's oppression. The groups in this movement were affiliated with grass-roots labor, peasant, and tribal movements as well as leftist opposition parties. Among their activities were protests by tribal women in the Toilers' Union in Maharashtra against alcohol-related domestic violence and by the Chipko movement of poor women in the Himalayas to protect their forest resources and highlight women's unrecognized economic contributions. The Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), a union of women working as street vendors and rag-pickers and in home-based industries, established the first women's bank for poor women.
• Sustainable, grassroots development as a priority of Indian women's movement organ-izations is exemplified by the organization Stree Mukti Sangharsh (Women's Liberation Struggle). They envision development that promotes equality between men and women and overcomes the economic and environmental ravages of the rural areas precipitated by large multinational corporations whose focus on short-term gains havs created unsustainable forms of development.
• In the late 1970s, autonomous, avowedly feminist women's movements arose, outraged by the dismissals of cases of girls raped by police and by religiously sanctioned violations of women's human rights, their campaigns refocused on violence against women, dowry deaths (the murder of brides for their dowries), sex-selective abortions, and sati.
• The success of women's movement organizations has met with an antifeminist backlash, which calls upon familial, communal, and religious identities to try to push back women's gains. Since poverty and insecurity fan the flame of reactionary fears, the feminist strategy of promoting grassroots-based sustainable development is a double-edged one—it addresses both the economic independence of women and the long-term security and well-being of the whole community.
• In spite of all these, Women’s movements in India are an energetic and modern movement, influencing over social movements both nationally and internationally, there are still many problems to confront. Particularly the inversion of feminist values by right-wing groups and the problem of defining what exactly women’s rights should constitute: The narrowing of feminist values. The Indian women’s movement is diverse and that women in India today are involved in redefining their own gender roles. They are active in both an individual and collective approach to organisation, and are centrally engaged in transforming their own lives.

Answer : Globalization, as an inevitable process, has demonstrated that our world can be experienced in a single place. A phenomenon or an event of human interest or concern, whether socio-political, economic or religious, is almost instantly shared by fellow-humans the worldwide. Particularly with the advancement of international communication, commuting and commerce has wired us all together. Modern technology, transactions and transnational migration reminds us that ‘it’s a small world after all’. East has met West and local has become global.

• Youth is that age in the human developmental cycle where the thirst for knowledge, the thrill of adventures and the task of self-discovery are at their zenith. This formative and creative stage can also be a vulnerable and problematic period and no doubt globalization is a major influence. Our young people, in their choice of food, fashion trends, music, vehicles, careers, family values and even moral judgments, are today powerful catalysts for adopting and propagating global ideologies. In case of South India where the urban youth are shaping and simultaneously threatening certain cultural values and re-defining ethnic identity.
• Globalization raises several issues like youth culture, rise in rate of suicides among younger generation, and inclined more towards technology than giving importance to the human values and humanity. Again, paradoxically, urban youth are MacDonaldized- they prefer more instant, timesaving products and then are left with less time to develop lasting values (tyranny of the moment over leaving a legacy). Young people are taking seriously cultural norms and national ideals, the good and bad news in globalization warrants some critical study and re-assessment. Youth in India’s globalizing context will be determined based on socio-cultural aspect.

Answer : Youth in the age group of 15-29 years comprise 27.5% of the population. India is expected to become the 4th largest economy by 2025, contributing about 5.5%-6% to the world GDP, only after the United States, China and Japan with the help of this demographic dividend.

• But the great concern is that, how this bulge in working age population can be used as opportunities for growth and prosperity of a nation. The critical aspects of the challenge are mostly related to labour market entry where young people encounter difficulties in finding and maintaining a decent job. The growing large number of unemployed youth is one of the most daunting problems. Failure to integrate young people into the labour market has broader consequences for the future prosperity and development.
• Thus GoI has drafted “National Youth Policy-2014 which replaces policy of 2003 and identifies people in the age group of 15-23 years as youth.
• The basic focus of the policy is on youth empowerment. The target groups identified are (i) Student Youth (ii) Migrant Youth (iii) Rural Youth (iv) Tribal Youth (v) Youth At Risk (vi) Youth in violent conflicts (vii) out of school/dropouts (viii) groups with social /moral stigma (ix) Youth in Institutional Care. Young women, Youth belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged communities /groups, and differently abled youth form the three priority groups among the target age group.
• NYP 2014 seeks to achieve a productive workforce through education, skill development for better employability and entrepreneurship training; a healthy generation with sports as a way of life; a sense of community service and strong social values; high levels of participation in governance; and social inclusiveness by creating equitable opportunities for all. The thrust areas are promotion of National values, social harmony, national unity, and empowering youth through employable skills, education, health, sports and recreation, gender justice, participation in community service, environment and local governance. This all will help in enhancing human capital formation.

Answer : ‘Globalization’ means integration of economies and societies through cross country flows of information, ideas, technologies, goods, services, capital, finance and people. It has serious implications on socio-economic and political sphere of life.

• Rural labours are generally employed in informal sector and are usually subject to indebtedness and bondage as their meager income cannot meet with their livelihood needs. After Globalization rural labour may be broadly categorized: Small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers; bonded labourers, migrant workers, contract and casual labourers; migrant rural labour force working in unorganised sector such as Rikshaw pullers, Auto drivers, Sericulture workers, Carpenters, Tannery workers, Power loom workers and Urban poor.
• With the advent of globalization and resultant reorganization of production chains led to a situation where production systems are becoming increasingly atypical and non-standard, involving flexible workforce, engaged in temporary and part-time employment, which is seen largely as a measure adopted by the employers to reduce labour cost in the face of stiff competition. It indicates that these flexible workers in the new informal economy are highly vulnerable in terms of job security and social protection, as they are not deriving any of the social protection measures stipulated in the existing labour legislations.
• In our “global” cities such as Bangalore, which are being show-cased as the new faces of an affluent and vibrant India, there are lakhs of people who rely on manual labour for their own livelihood. Their incomes have not grown at the staggering rate of their employers; indeed adjusted for inflation their incomes have often fallen over the last two and half decades, driving them into deeper poverty.

Issues involved in unorganized sector

• There is no formal employer – employee relationship and are subject to exploitation significantly by the rest of the society.
• They receive poor working conditions especially wages much below that in the formal sector, even for closely comparable jobs, i.e., where labour productivity are no different.
• The work status is of inferior quality of work and inferior terms of employment, both remuneration and employment.
• Primitive production technologies and feudal production relations are rampant in the unorganized sector, and they do not permit or encourage the workmen to imbibe and assimilate higher technologies and better production relations.
• Large scale ignorance and illiteracy and limited exposure to the outside world are also responsible for such poor absorption. They do not receive sufficient attention from the trade unions.
• Both the central and state governments have formulated certain specific schemes to support rural labourers but they have failed in meeting with the real needs and requirements of the unorganized sector labour force.

Answer : Women’s roles have shown great change throughout history. Man considers woman to be frail and weak by nature. In India, women were glorified in epics and Puranas, for their service to their men. Serving a father first, secondly a husband, and later serving her children and grandchildren, had been her lot. Puranas mention the names of Seeta, Savitri and Anusuya and glorify them for their devoted service to their husbands. Women’s status was fairly high in ancient India in sense of considerable independence, power and choice. In agricultural stage, women’s contribution to food supply increased and women’s power also increased.

• Early phase of Industrialization in India lowered the status of women. It made men the primary breadwinners and women the helpers. But during the later stages of industrialization and in the post industrial society, family size started shrinking and more women started working in factories and offices. It can be safely said that while women have been slow in gaining power equal to their economic contribution, the economic base for male dominance is reducing considerably in both developed and developing nations.
• The condition of Indian women has imp-roved a lot. There are now adequate educational facilities for girls and women. Special incentives are there to encourage them to study. Even in employment, there are special incentives. We can now see women employed in all fields. To enable the rural women too to take part in politics in a significant way, 73rd and 74th Act has reserved one third of the seats in Parliament and other elected bodies for women.
• No developing country or society can afford to ignore the role of women, if they are to progress. Besides, their changed role at large, Indian women contribute significantly to agricultural activities, handicrafts, village art and crafts. Factors impeding the advancement of women include lack of access to housing and basic services, inadequate support services and technologies for reducing drudgery and occupational health hazards and for enhancing their productivity. This necessitates devising of a broad-based strategic action plan for the realization of equal partnership of men and women in all spheres of life and economic activity.

Answer : In India, there is co-existence of abject poverty of the masses and affluence of the privileged class both in the rural and urban areas since ages. The failure of the government in resolving the problem of poverty has been generally attributed to rising population, havoc of natural calamities such as drought and flood and character deficiency of individuals.

• The major benefits of development have been cornered by the richer sections of the population. In reality, poverty in India is a social product and not a natural phenomenon, been socially generated, reinforced and perpetuated.
• It results from differential position of different social classes, castes and groups in economic, political, social and religious domains of society.

Economic and Political Factors

1. Highly unequal distribution of the economic resource of the country among various social classes and castes.
2. The productivity of labour remains low in agriculture due to highly unequal distribution of landholdings.
3. The small and marginal farmers do not possess enough resources to make adequate use of modern input raising productivity.
4. The agricultural labourers do not feel much motivated to work hard due to their low wages.
5. The urban poor have to lead to miserable life due to their employment in low paid jobs in the unorganized sector, low income activities of self-employment and the problems of unemployment.
6. The state power has been controlled by the privileged ruling class both in the urban and rural areas. The ruling class controls the machinery. It directly or indirectly protects and promotes its class interests. But the mass of the poor people have always remained powerless.

Socio-Cultural Factors

1. The caste system has been an important factor in perpetuating poverty of the masses. The caste system imposed social distance between castes with regard to marriage, food habitation and general social interaction.
2. The upper castes practiced discrimination against the lower castes in social and religious matters.
3. Moreover, the belief in ‘Karma’ justified the unjust social order. It held that poverty is the consequence of one’s bad deeds in earlier births.
4. Materialism has got an upper hand over humanitarian values.

The problem of poverty continues as ever with an added momentum. The poor has strong feelings of marginality, of helplessness, of dependence, of inferiority, sense resignation, fatalism and low level of aspiration. These tendencies are transmitted from one generation to the next. Thus the problem of poverty gets perpetuated.

Answer : Despite being one of the fastest growing economies in the world, India is still grappled with the declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR). In the Population Census of 2011 it was revealed that the population ratio in India 2011 is 940 females per 1000 of males.Despite a slew of laws to prevent female foeticide and schemes to encourage families to have girl child, the ratio has declined from 927 females against 1,000 males in 2001 to 914 - the lowest since Independence.

The falling numbers can be attributed to many reasons including son preference, low value of girl child, neglect of girl child resulting in higher mortality at younger age, female infanticide, female foeticide, higher childhood mortality etc

The government launched twin programmes of "Beti bachao, beti padhao (save the girl child, educate the girl child)" and "Sukanya Samriddhi account"

To address issue of decline in CSR with following objectives:

• Prevent gender biased sex selective elimination
• Ensure survival & protection of the girl child
• Ensure education of the girl child Targets to be Monitored Under the Scheme
  • Improvement of SRB in 100 gender critical districts by 10 points per annum
  • Reduction of gender differentials in Under 5 Child Mortality Rate from 8 points in 2011 to 4 points by 2017
  • Enhance nutrition status of girls; reduce underweight and anaemia in girls below 5 years (from NFHS 3 levels)
  • Universalisation of ICDS; Girl's attendance and equal care to be monitored through joint ICDS NRHM Mother Child Protection Cards
  • Increase women's enrolment in secondary education from 76% in 2013-2014 to 79% in 2017
  • Separate toilets for girls in each school in 100 CSR districts by 2017
  • Promotion of a protective environment for girl children through implementation of POSCO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) 2012
• Trained elected representatives/grass-root functionaries to serve as community champions for mobilizing communities to enhance CSR and promote the education of girls.
• It seems that with the onset of development, the life chances of women have further decreased but for a better country these life chances should be improved and the skewed ratios should be at parity. So, 'Save the girl child' and build a better nation.

Answer : World Bank says Urbanization in India slow, messy, and hidden. This is seen in severe problems of livability and congestion, making cities unattractive for rural migrants. As a result, whatever benefits urban agglomerations could have offered in terms of economic advance are getting diluted. The report says that urban areas in India and her neighbors are suffering from "three fundamental urban governance deficits-an empowerment deficit, a resource deficit, and an accountability deficit."

• Between 2001 and 2011, the number of census towns shot up from 1,362 to 3,894 due to reclassification. This contributed to nearly 30% of the increase in urban population. The WB report estimates that between 2010 and 2050, urban India's population will increase by about 497 million, to accommodate which nearly $600 billion (at 2004 prices)or about Rs 1 lakh crore per year, at current exchange rateswill be needed just to provide adequate water, sanitation and roads, the report suggests. And this does not include the cost of housing, electricity, transportation, education or health, to name a few essential requirements for a decent life. Going by current trends, at least a third of this gigantic amount would have to be raised by local bodies.
• India has launched two flagship schemes to drive urban transformation and economic growth - The "Smart Cities Mission" and the "Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)". The "Smart Cities Mission" will cover 100 cities with the objective of promoting area-based urban development initiatives, focusing on providing a decent quality of life to citizens through "Smart" solutions, enabled by technology applications, while maintaining a clean and sustainable environment. The AMRUT will cover 500 cities. AMRUT seeks to provide basic services (e.g. water supply, sewerage, urban transport) to improve the quality life for all, especially the poor and the disadvantaged."Policy makers also need to foster connectivity and planning, fix land and housing deficiencies, and plan for resilience to disaster and the effects of climate change.

Answer : Quoting the renowned author Ramachandra Guha defining the political ideology of post-independent India.

• "In India, every political party in power is reformist (read capitalist for the hefty kickbacks involved) and every party sitting out on the benches in the opposition is automatically socialist.
• Post- independence, Indian economic policy took its first steps experimenting with Nehruvian brand of Socialism. Socialism is defined as an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy. Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production, with the goal of profit-making. Primary elements of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, and a price system. There are, however, multiple variants of capitalism, including laissez-faire, welfare capitalism, and state capitalism. Socialism seems to be like the middle ground between communism and capitalism. The whole idea of socialism is based on the fact that capitalism is unsustainable.
• India is a mixed economy combining features of both capitalist market economies and socialist command economies. Thus, there is a regulated private sector (the regulations have decreased since liberalisation) and a public sector controlled almost entirely by the government. (The public sector generally covers areas which are deemed too important or not profitable enough for the private sector). Since independence, various phases have seen nationalisation of such areas as banking, thus bringing the minto the public sector, on one hand, and privatisation of some of the Public Sector Undertakings during the liberalisation period on the other -. Indicative planning was not contemplated at the beginning of fifties as there was hardly any corporate sector in India and Government shouldered almost the entire responsibility of socioeconomic planning. (Indicative planning) was adopted since 8th five year plan (1992-97). It is characterized by an economy where the private sector is given a substantial role and State would turn its role into a facilitator from that of a controller and regulator.
• Thus, the Government and the corporate sector are more or less equal partners and together are responsible for the accomplishment of planning goals. Government provides the right type of policies and creates the right type of milieu for the private sector-including the foreign sector to contribute to the results.

Answer : Swach Bharath Abhiyan (SBA) seems to be inheriting some of the same predicaments that it's predecessor programmes faced. SBA with its mass campaign was intended to bring in some much needed changes to revolutionize mass-led sanitation in India.

Some of the challenges that the programme is facing today are as follows:-

1. The implementation of the programmes is not as bottom-up as it must be. Community led participation is minimal when it comes to building and using toilets.
2. The approach of SBA focuses just on the "build and use" aspects, leaving out larger issues like its connection with public health, spread of disease, nutrition etc.
3. The cleanliness aspect of SBA has gotten more attention than sanitation in its own right.
4. Focus has been more on building toilets rather than making them fully functional.

Answer : Social empowerment - Social empowerment of women is understood as the process of developing a sense of autonomy and self-confidence, and acting individually and collectively to change social relationships and the institutions and discourses that exclude women and keep them weak socially and economically. Women empowerment, and their ability to hold others to account, is strongly influenced by their individual assets (such as land, housing, livestock, savings) and capabilities of all types: human (such as good health and education), social (such as social belonging, a sense of identity, leadership relations) and psychological (self-esteem, self-confidence, the ability to imagine and aspire to a better future). Also important are people's collective assets and capabilities, such as voice, organisation, representation and identity.

Economic empowerment: Economic empowerment is thought to allow to think beyond immediate daily survival and to exercise greater control over both their resources and life choices. For example, it enables women households to make their own decisions around making investments in health and education, and taking risks in order to increase their income. There is also some evidence that economic empowerment can strengthen women's participation in the decision-making. For example, microfinance programmes have been shown to bolster women's influence within the household and marketplace. The evidence also suggests that economic power is often easily 'converted' into increased social status or decision-making power.

Women in Armed Forces: On its 66th Republic Day, during a mighty parade in the national capital, India showcased "woman power" with all-women contingents of the three Services for the first time. A day earlier, Wing Commander Pooja Thakur became the first woman to lead a ceremonial tri-service guard of honour, which the visiting U.S. President inspected. But, when it comes to the overall status of women in the Indian armed forces (especially in the Army) all this represents a travesty of gender justice. Since being inducted into the Army in 1992 under the Women Special Entry Scheme (they were in even earlier in the Military Nursing Service from 1927 and in the Medical Officers Cadre from 1943), women Army officers are still denied permanent commission on a par with men: they have to be content with the short service commission. On a batch of petitions filed in 2003 by women officers demanding an end to the discriminatory practice, the Delhi High Court in March 2010 granted their just and fair claim for permanent commission - with the singeing words that it was not some "charity being sought… but enforcement of their constitutional rights". While this prompted the Air Force and the Navy to grant women officers permanent commission, the Army took a different stand, arguing, among other things, that "the bulk of the army's Junior Commissioned Officers and other ranks hail from rural India, who are not yet ready to accept a woman as their leader in combat situations". In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in 2012 while appealing against the High Court order, the Army added: "In theory women in the army may sound good but in practical terms the arrangement has not worked well in the Indian Army and as a concept also our society is not prepared to accept women in combat role."

As the issue remains in the Supreme Court for more than four years now, the Army needs to get real, and persuade itself to go beyond symbolic and cosmetic steps. It needs to recognise women's capabilities - as many advanced armed forces across the world have done, even committing them to combat roles - and their right to a full-fledged career in the force, on a par with men. During the 14-year short service commission tenure they now enjoy, women officers in various corps are assigned duties similar to those of men officers without distinction, to all possible field units with men officers. If it is the Army's claim that beyond that point in permanent commission tenure women could be exposed to hostile environments - it has cited "the unique nature of responsibility and organisational requirement that… the Army Act" necessitates - that truly smacks of gender discrimination. The time has come for the Army to end this iniquitous situation.

Answer : Why does India face problems to pass simple laws like uniform civil code that most nations passed now problem has been started by Muslim League by to start collecting 5 crore signature to stop trying to impose uniform civil code. Even 60% Muslim populated having this law but Indian Muslims not like this law. Minority Christian also not opposing this law while Christian countries already passed this law.

Does uniform civil code possible in India?

First Let us address the common myths -

1.Uniform civil code means imposition of Hindu law.

This is absolutely incorrect. Uniform civil code only means uniformity in personal laws. It will be a neutral law which will have nothing to do with religion.

2.Uniform civil code will take away your freedom of religion.

No, it will not. Freedom of religion granted as a Fundamental right will remain so under the Constitution.

3.We don't really need the Uniform Civil code, India is working just fine.

By that logic we don't need any laws for that matter. We absolutely didn't require codification of Hindu law. But the act helped the community in the long run and made its implementation easy.

India should implement Uniform civil code for the following reasons-

(a)To be 'Secular': In order to be completely secular, laws should have nothing to do with religion. All we have right now is different factions of the population practising different laws. The true implementation of India's secularism would be made by enacting personal laws outside the purview of religion. All Indians will truly be treated equally regardless of our religions.

(b)To reduce the burden on the legal system: Different personal laws for different communities creates unnecessary burden on the legal system. Bringing a Uniform Civil code would reduce that. It would also help in simplifying a lot of technicalities which are present in different personal laws. It will also address all the loopholes present in different personal laws.

(c)It will promote unity: Single personal law for all Indians would promote unity. It will also help in the progress of India as a nation.

(d)Better laws will be enacted: A lot of different personal laws which are grossly unjust, unfair, discriminatory and downright unconstitutional are given protection under religious freedom. Most of these laws do not help people. Uniform Civil code will bring about better laws and will promote a better legal system.

(e)It will help better the situation of Muslim women: Monogamy should be mandated on all the Indians. This will happen through Uniform Civil code. Uniform Civil code is also a major step towards gender justice. Muslim women have hardly got any rights as to maintenance or inheritance. Providing a strong Uniform civil code will help better the situation of Muslim women which will in turn help the community's progress. The progress of women is most important if any community wishes to rise above poverty and progress. Also certain provisions of Christian law and Hindu law needs amendment. That too will happen with Uniform civil code.

(f)It will help end vote bank politics: If all Indians have same laws governing them, then the politicians will have nothing to offer to any community in exchange of their votes.

The Supreme Court has time and again reiterated the importance of enacting a Uniform Civil Code. The Directive Principles of state policy under the Constitution of India also state that the State shall pass a Uniform Civil Code. Every modern nation which has truly embraced 'Secularism' has a Uniform Civil Code.

Answer : Communalism is still a powerful force in India. The challenges of casteism, communalism and religious fundamentalism involving separatism in India are the major threats to our Secular state. They weaken the working and stability of our democratic secular Federal state and militate against the basic principles governing our national life and providing means to our new identity. ‘Casteism’ and ‘Communalism’ are tearing apart the rich and closely-knit fabric of Indian cultural pluralism.

• Our national movement was the biggest and the most widespread anti-imperialist movement in world history, because it was a movement of all patriotic elements drawn from the diverse regions linguistic groups, religious communities, castes and tribes rural and urban segments Inter–communal and Inter-caste tensions and violence have been recurrent and increasing numbers of communal riots and caste carnage. They should stop if India is to emerge as a democratic and secular polity.
• India is a puzzling and complex mix of tribal, feudal and industrial stages of social evolution. This is compounded by low literacy rate, strangle-hold of religion, superstitions, ignorance and poverty. Apart from these and other not so easily identifiable causes of social tension, the democratic process itself is the most potent cause of tension. Each group, community and region is, as it were, up in arms against the Union Government, the only viable unifying force still left intact.
• Quite often communalism is wrongly used as a synonym for religion or simply for a sense of belonging to a community. A communalist is basically interested in using and exploiting religion and that too for political, electoral and economic gains. Communalism is exploitation of religion, sometimes open and sometimes subtle. The objective is open or camouflaged, political.

Answer : Objectives of national population policy of India

1. To fulfill unmet need for contraception, strengthening the health infrastructure, integrating the services for Reproductive and Child Health.
2. Medium Term: Effective implementation of inter-sector strategies to substantially reduce the TFR by 2010.
3. Long Term: To sustain the economic growth, social development and eco-conservation, stabilize the population by 2045.

Issue and challenges

1. Socio economic status: The socio economic status of households plays a substantial role in the success of programs. In our country illiteracy, poverty, poor access to information, gender disparity. In India women do not have right to take decision on family planning and there is lack of involvement of male person leads to poor results of family planning program.
2. Resources and inadequate knowledge and awareness: Most of the time people do not have access to services in lack of resources. Government is not able to reach in remote areas and sometimes lack of efficient medical personnel is also a very big challenge. Most of the time trained health personnel were not available and if available, they do not have training to work efficiently to meet the demand of population. There was lack of proper IEC support and proper management in rural and urban areas. The information given to men and women about contraceptive was inadequate.
3. Access to quality health services: Both urban and rural area people face this problem. People of slum areas and remote village people do not have access to services in lack of infrastructure, inefficient staff and adequate knowledge. People do not have contraceptive choices for the family planning in the program. At present this is a very big challenge for the government to provide quality health services to people.

Factors that affect population growth

The overarching factor that affects population growth is low socio-economic development. For example, Uttar Pradesh has a literacy rate of 56%; only 14% of the women receive complete antenatal care. Uttar Pradesh records an average of four children per couple. In contrast, in Kerala almost every person is literate and almost every woman receives antenatal care. Kerala records an average of two children per couple.

• Infant mortality: In 1961, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), deaths of infants per 1000 live births, was 115. The current all India average is much lower at 57. However, in most developed countries this figure is less than 5. IMR is the lowest at 15 in Kerala and the highest at 73 in Uttar Pradesh. Empirical correlations suggest that high IMR leads to greater desire for children.
• Early marriage: Nationwide almost 43% of married women aged 20-24 were married before the age of 18. This figure is as high as 68% in Bihar. Not only does early marriage increase the likelihood of more children, it also puts the woman's health at risk.
• Level of education: Fertility usually declines with increase in education levels of women.
• Use of contraceptives: According to NFHS III (2005-06), only 56% of currently married women use some method of family planning in India. A majority of them (37%) have adopted permanent methods like sterilization.
• Other socio-economic factors: The desire for larger families particularly preference for a male child also leads to higher birth rates. It is estimated that preference for a male child and high infant mortality together account for 20% of the total births in the country.
• Government Initiatives: The National Population Policy 2000 gave a focused approach to the problem of population stabilization. Following the policy, the government also enacted the Constitution (84th Amendment) Act, 2002. This Amendment extended the freeze on the state-wise allocation of seats in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to 2026. It was expected that this would serve 'as a motivational measure, in order to enable state governments to fearlessly and effectively pursue the agenda for population stabilization contained in the National Population Policy, 2000'.
• The National Commission on Population was formed in the year 2000. The Commission, chaired by the Prime Minister, has the mandate to review, monitor and give directions for implementation of the National Population Policy.
• The Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh (National Population Stabilization Fund) was setup as an autonomous society of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2005. Its broad mandate is to undertake activities aimed at achieving population stabilization.
• Programmes like the National Rural Health Mission, Janani Suraksha Yojana, ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) etc. have also been launched by the government to tackle the healthcare needs of people. This is also expected to contribute to population stabilization.
• Free contraceptives are also being provided. In addition, monetary incentives are given to couples undertaking permanent family planning methods like vasectomy and tubectomy.
• Nutritional and educational problems are being targeted through programs like the mid-day meal scheme and the recently enacted Right to Education.

Answer : Many great cultures had developed in different countries and regions of the world. Many of them have perished or have been replaced by other cultures. However, Indian Society has had an enduring character. Despite major changes and upheavals significant threads of continuity can be traced throughout the course of Indian history right upto the present day.

• In the Harappan civilization which flour-ished in the Indian subcontinent over 4500 years ago, archaeologists have found evidences to show that cultures existed here and even today the pattern of a house in an Indian village is not very different from that of a Harappan house. Some aspects of Harappan culture are still practised, such as, the worshipping of Mother Goddess and Pashupati. Similarly, Vedic, Buddhist, Jain and many other traditions continue to be followed even today.
• At the same time one should not lose sight of the changes as are evident in the multistoried buildings in the metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi, quite unlike the Harappan houses that had only one storey. The point to be noted here is that continuity and change in our civilization has gone hand in hand. In fact, a remarkable feature of Indian culture is that along with continuity it has kept on changing, whereas the basic spirit of our culture continued. It has kept on discarding what was becoming irrelevant in the modern age.
• The cultural pre-requisites of a compre-hensive modernization necessitate adaptive changes in the system of values which come in direct confrontation with traditional cultural values and norms. For instance, secularism, untouchability, non-parochialism are some cultural demands of modernization in contem-porary India which its traditional value system continues to resist.

Important trends of social and cultural change in India which are relevant to the process of modernization are:

• In cultural sphere, major changes have been introduced by legislations.
• These seek to abolish social inequalities and exploitations handed down by tradition and accord democratic rights and constitutional privileges to all members of society.
• This has led to a trend away from Sansk-ritisation (Emulation of the Great tradition) and towards formation of new identities and associations of castes, regional groups and tribes.
• These processes are accelerated by ‘Great traditions’ of modernization such as, urban-ization, industrialization, spread of educa-tion and politicization.
• The traditional structures and loyalties are being mobilized for objectives which are essentially modern and an increased emphasis is on protest movements.

Thus, major potential sources of breakdown in the Indian process of modernization may, in one form or another, be attributed to structural inconsistencies, such as:

• Democratization without spread of civic culture (education),
• Bureaucratization without commitment to universalistic norms
• Rise in media participation (communication) and aspiration, without proportionate increase in resources and distributive justice
• Verbalization of a welfare ideology without its diffusion in social structure and its implementation as a social policy
• Over-urbanization without industrialization
• Finally modernization without meaningful change in the stratification system

Answer : A region is a territory, the inhabitants of which have an emotional attachment to it because of commonality of religion, language, usages and customs, socio-economic and political stages of development, common historical traditions, a common way of living, etc. Any one or more of these, and above all widely prevalent sentiments of togetherness, strengthen the bond. A sense of discrimination or competition on economic, political or cultural grounds, desire for justice or favour gives rise to regionalism.

Regional disparities or imbalances means wide differences in per capita income, literacy rates, availability of health and education services, levels of industrialization, etc. in different regions. These regions may be either state or regions within a State. Regional imbalances are a major cause of regionalism in India in many ways. The movements for creation of separate States in Jharkhand area of Bihar, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh were because of underdevelopment of these regions in those States and a feeling of deprivation and exploitation among people. Protest in Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh led to the creation of 29th State of India. Similar movements are going on in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Darjeeling region of West Bengal and in some other regions.

There are grievances due to sectoral imbalances in States like lack of industrial development along with agricultural develo-pment. Another aspect of imbalanced develo-pment is development only in limited areas, that work force from other States and areas keep on flocking to the developed areas in search of job and employment. Continuous large scale arrival of industrial labour from backward regions to developed regions is creating two types of tensions.

(i)First, it affects the cultural harmony of that area by creating apprehensions among the linguistics and cultural groups also their position.

(ii)Second, it generates feeling in the local work force, who are unable to get jobs or in the view of migratory labourers’ willingness to work at lower rates and become unable bargain effectively with the employees. This gives birth to the sectional organizations and sons of the soil agitations.

Similarly, expansion of education, particularly higher education, but not industrialization and other job creating institutions is increasing the army of educated unemployed youths in the backward regions. These frustrated young men are allured by the movements against the inflow of people from other countries and States, which is a cause for agitation in Assam.Similar developments are simmering up in parts of Bihar and Odisha. Besides, these unemployed youths are also attracted by the caste, communal and other sectional agitators fighting for the protection of rights on sectarian lines.

The regional imbalances are hindrances to national economy and a national politics to great extent and gives rise to inter-state, inter-region and center-state disputes.

Answer : Social mobility refers to the movement of individuals or groups in social position over time. It may refer to classes, ethnic groups, or entire nations, and may measure health status, literacy, or education; however, more commonly it refers to individuals or families, and to their change in income. For example, a child of day laborers who becomes a professor achieves upward social mobility. In societies organized by social class, rather than caste, one's ability to achieve a higher social status can depend on factors such as social connections, wealth, effort, and education.

• Education makes an important contribution towards social mobility of individuals and groups. Education is used as a means through which power is exercised. Dominant groups of society use education to exercise their control. The biased selection of knowledge followed by the deliberate representation favors the powerful sections of society which ensure the subtle control of masses through the educational curriculum. Such control happens in the area of education that makes the power of the dominant groups legitimate and extremely difficult to challenge. Education becomes the agency for maintaining social hierarchies in society. The dominant social groups of society sustain and further perpetuate their power by making their knowledge and skills highly exclusive. It becomes the prerogative of only a few elite people to possess such highly privileged knowledge. This becomes the major means for dominant groups of society to maintain their power.

Answer : Are deep rooted in our society and it cannot be controlled with only law. Death of reason gives births to monsters. The flourishing business of these self acclaimed godmen indicates the thin line between faith and blind faith, and the near complete merger of faith, politics, and money in contemporary Indian society. We are so used to the sight of our elected representatives and the pillars of civil society-from prominent scientists, business tycoons to Bollywood superstars-prostrating themselves before gods and godmen that we do not notice how smoothly faith, politics and money blend into one another.

• Article 51-A (h) of directive principles of the constitution says "it shall be the duty of citizen of India to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform". India is the only country that has raised the notion of scientific temper to the level of a constitutional obligation. And yet in the recent times India as a nation has failed enormously to inculcate and spread that spirit (of scientific temper) in society.
• Indian society has been, culturally and historically, trapped in religious dogmas, superstitions and blind beliefs.
• Conclusion: education is the key to inculcate a scientific attitude towards lifeand society. Even if the country's education system has failed, the media have a role in informing and educating the people. But all along the media have played a dubious role. For years the print medium has been carrying astrology columns. But with increasing access to the visual mediums and its impact on Indian society and its impact on the viewing public, television has emerged as the most potent agency inculcating an attitude that runs counter to scientific temper among the people, with channels devoted entirely to discourses by self styled godmen exploiting people's blind religious beliefs and sentiment.

Answer : Some studies indicate that economic push factors (for example lack of rural credit, unemployment, lack of land, general rural poverty) are most important while others suggest that economic pull factors (e.g. perception of high wages from urban employment) are predominant. A number of other motivations for rural-urban migration including educational opportunities offered in urban areas, marriage and joining the family already at the destination are cited in the literature. Also, a few studies suggest that rural-urban migration is facilitated by the concentration of migrants of same origin in the destination city.

Three categories of factors are perceived as important reasons for rural-urban migration. The first set is related to the need for education and acquisition of skills in various vocations. The second set relate to the absence of desirable job opportunities in rural areas. These include the absence of employment, absence of industries and companies and boredom in agriculture. The third set of factors is social, such as inadequate amenities and expulsion from rural areas due to an offence or crime committed by the migrant. The first two sets of factors are common in rural-urban migration literature as factors responsible for the movement of migrants. Of the social factors are, however, only inadequate social amenities has a fair mention in the literature.

Role of Rurban mission in mitigating the challenges posed by this migration:

• The ambitious Rurban mission is expected to help reduce migration from rural to urban areas with modern infrastructure being created in villages, as the present high rate of migration was creating heavy pressure on the civic infrastructure in India’s cities. Government is committed to providing good amenities, jobs and infrastructure in rural areas on a priority basis. By providing basic facilities to all the stakeholders in the rural areas, the problem of migration could be tackled effectively. This scheme has been modelled on the existing Provision of Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA) strategy. In the first phase, Rs 100 crore will be spent on the scheme in three identified projects in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh and Sangli and Buldhana districts of Maharashtra.

Answer : The hollowness of Digital India, Skill India and Make in India cannot ring louder for those who will access the Internet, start business ventures and produce goods, but do not have basic facilities as human beings. India ranked 55 out of 76 countries in the Global Hunger Index last year, behind Nepal. Half of rural India lives in kuccha houses and works as casual manual labour. And these lives are supposedly going to be transformed by the magic wand of broadband access (which stands at 1.2 per cent of the population now).

• We have clear definition, scope and objective of these missions but even today we do not have one single and succinct definition of poverty. It has been never seen that such large ceremonies, as is organized for the launch of these missions, were ever organized for poverty reduction agenda. Nor is there opinion mobilization have ever happened amongst the scholars, experts, private participants and civil society with a single pint agenda to reduce poverty as fast as possible. Poverty should not be seen as an economic crisis but it should be seen as humanitarian crisis which demands urgent attention of the policy makers.
• According to a United Nations report about 30 crores people still lives in extreme poverty even as the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) will expire in December. India adopted MDG with an aim to free millions from extreme poverty and hunger, illiteracy and poor health. Poverty is the biggest challenge.The poverty alleviation programmes in India can be categorized based on whether it is targeted for rural areas or urban areas. Most of the programmes are designed to target rural poverty as the prevalence of the poverty is high in rural areas. Also targeting of the poor is challenging in rural areas due to various geographic and infrastructure limitations. The programmes can be mainly grouped into 1) Wage employment programmes, 2) Self-employment programmes, 3) Food security programmes, 4) Social security programmes and 5) Urban poverty alleviation programmes.

Answer : Every nook and corner of India is a clear display of increasing population. Whether you are in a metro station, airport, railway station, road, highway, bus stop, hospital, shopping mall, market, temple, or even in a social/ religious gathering, we see all these places are overcrowded at any time of the day. This is a clear indication of overpopulation in the country.

• According to the Indian census, carried out in 2011, the population of India was exactly 1,210,193,422, which means India has crossed the 1-billion mark. This is the second most populous country of the world after China and the various studies have projected that India will be world's number-1 populous country, surpassing China, by 2025.
• Causes of Over Population: The two main common causes leading to over population in India are:
  • The birth rate is still higher than the death rate. We have been successful in declining the death rates but the same cannot be said for birth rates.
  • The fertility rate due to the population policies and other measures has been falling but even then it is much higher compared to other countries.
  • The above causes are interrelated to the various social issues in our country which are leading to over population.
• Early Marriage and Universal Marriage System: Even though legally the marriageable age of a girl is 18 years, the concept of early marriage still prevails and getting married at a young age prolongs the child bearing age. Also, in India, marriage is a sacred obligation and a universal practice, where almost every woman is married at the reproductive age.
• Poverty and Illiteracy: Another factor for the rapid growth of population is poverty. Impoverished families have this notion that more the number of members in the family, more will be the numbers to earn income. Some feel that more children are needed to look after them in their old age. Also hunger can be cause of death of their children and hence the need for more children. Strange but true, Indian still lag behind the use of contraceptives and birth control methods. Many of them are not willing to discuss or are totally unaware about them. Illiteracy is thus another cause of over population
  • Age old cultural norm: Sons are the bread earners of the families in India. This age old thought puts considerable pressure on the parents to produce children till a male child is born. More the better.
• Effects of Over Population: Even after 67 years of independence, the scenario of our country is not good, due to over population. Some major impacts of high population are as follows:
• Unemployment: Generating employment for a huge population in a country like India is very difficult. The number of illiterate persons increases every year. Unemployment rate is thus showing an increasing trend.
• Pressure on infrastructure: Development of infrastructural facilities is unfortunately not keeping pace with the growth of population. The result is lack of transportation, communication, housing, education, healthcare etc. There has been an increase in the number of slums, overcrowded houses, traffic congestion etc.
• Decreased production and increased costs: Food production and distribution have not been able to catch up with the increasing population and hence the costs of production have increased. Inflation is the major consequence of over population.
• Inequitable income distribution: In the face of an increasing population, there is an unequal distribution of income and inequalities within the country widen.
• Steps to Control Population in India: The Government of India, politicians, policy makers should initiate a bold population policy so that the economic growth of the country can keep pace with the demands of a growing population. Major steps which have been already implemented but still need to be emphasised more to control population. Increasing the welfare and status of women and girls, spread of education, increasing awareness for the use of contraceptives and family planning methods, sex education, encouraging male sterilisation and spacing births, encouraging female empowerment, more health care centres for the poor, to name a few, can play a major role in controlling population.

Answer : Naxalism is the most significant political movement since independence. It has been the most long-lasting though it has had its ups and downs. Despite its fragmented nature a continuing thread with some variations can be seen in the ideological thrust, strategy and tactics of mobilization of different groups within its fold. The movement's capacity to challenge the state has also enormously increased considering the incidents of violence and casualtiesresulting from them. The movement is viewed with greater anxiety in the government because it is most intense precisely in areas which are rich in natural resources and, therefore, targeted for fast-track industrial development. These are also the areas which have a history of mass protests by the peasantry against colonial policies.

Geographical Cause: If natural resources or lack of it is a major reason for the Naxalite conflict, then why is there is a Naxalite problem in Jharkhand, but not in Himachal Pradesh? Why in Bihar, and not in eastern Uttar Pradesh? Are natural resources an accurate parameter to measure growth of the Naxal problem in these regions? Either the state or Union government controls natural resources like mountains, forests, reservoirs, rivers, and mineral resources like coal, mica, bauxite, and copper. The state remains the arbiter and distributor, while the individuals or groups of individuals have little say in this matter. Individuals have exploited the state for their own benefits, but the problem lies with the failure of governance by the state, but not with individuals.

The reasons for the growth of Naxalite problem could be enumerated. The slow implementation of land reforms is the main reason for the growth of Naxalism. Landlords frequently moved the court to delay implementation of these reforms. They also connived with local politicians and bureaucrats, making the land reform process slow and cumbersome. Land reforms failed in the end.

Another major cause is degradation of environment which also causes social injustice. The tribal heartland, the centre of naxalite movement, is the worst affected in this regard due to concentration of mining and industrial projects.The mining projects haveturned agricultural land in the vicinityof projects barren, polluted water sources, denuded forests, defiled the air and degraded the quality of life of the people who live and work in the area. The change in land use deprives people of their traditional source of livelihood and life supporting benefits from the forest.

Answer : Tradition refers to the customs, beliefs and cultural practices that are passed down from one generation to the next generation. It has its origin in the past. Modernity refers to the contemporary behavior or way of doing things. It is fresh, new and modern. Tradition and Modernity both prevail side-by-side in India. Indian culture is a blend of tradition values and the modern spirit.

• Although the rigidity of caste is slowly getting diluted - inter-caste marriages are increasingly being popular, inter-caste dining is also being accepted. However, the sense of caste is getting stronger as well as caste groups are now more indulged regional and national politics.
• Role and status of women in society has changed over time. Several regressive traditions have disappeared with the adoption of modern ideas. Prohibition of Satee, widow remarriage, prohibition of child marriage, decline in dowry system are some of the examples of regressive traditions that have disappeared. The importance of women's education is increasingly being recognized. The proportion of women in work force is now increasingly rapidly. It is in contrast with traditional notion that women should stay within the four walls of the house. Women are now increasingly becoming breadwinners for the family, especially in urban India.
• Religion is an important source of tradition. Indian society is still deeply religious but the influence of religion is slowly fading. Most people no longer believe in superstitions and magic. In recent census, a miniscule minority has registered themselves as atheists as well. On the other hand, it is seen that hoards of people are now attracted towards spiritualism and gather in large congregation to listen to their gurus. The religious festivals are now celebrated with ever greater fervor across the nation.
• The importance of ancient knowledge and wisdom is increasingly being recognized. Yoga, Pranayam and Ayurveda are being adopted by a large number of people. Although Allopathic medicine is now popular among the masses, people are now turning to traditional wisdom of Ayurveda. The influence of modernity in Indian agriculture has caused mechanization and the use of chemicals, however Indian farmers still like to keep cattle and use manure in their fields. The importance of organic agriculture is increasingly being recognized.
• Modernity has caused disappearance of several traditions of family life such as purdah or ghoonghat but there are some traditions and social wisdom such as simplicity and non- possession of material goods, respect for the elders, parents and teachers, love and respect for living beings - animals and plants, that are still intact and alive.

Answer : 'One is not born a woman, but becomes one' is the most famous statement of Simone de Beauvoir, a famous philosopher. It represents the logical continuation of the proofs de Beauvoir uses to support her argument that femininity does not arise from differences in biology, psychology, or intellect. Rather, femininity is a construction of civilization, a reflection of not only essential differences in men and women, but of differences in their situation. Situation determines the character.

• A woman is not born fully formed; she is gradually shaped by her upbringing. Biology does not determine what makes a woman a woman as she learns her role from man and others in society. Woman is not born passive, secondary, and non-essential, but is made so because of all the forces in the external world. None of the uniquely female experiences - the development of female sex organs, menstruation, pregnancy, menopause - have a meaning in themselves; but in a hostile or oppressive society they can come to take on the meaning of being a burden and disadvantage, as women come to accept the meanings a patriarchal society accords them.
• The interpretation of this statement explains that as a girl's bodily development occurs, each new stage is experienced as traumatic and demarcates her more and more sharply from the opposite sex. As the girl's body matures, society reacts in an increasingly hostile and threatening manner. There are many more such events in a growing girl's life which reinforce the belief that it is bad luck to be born with a female body. The female body is such a nuisance, a pain, an embarrassment, a problem to deal with, ugly, awkward, and so on. Even if a girl tries to forget that she has a female body, society will soon remind her. There are several examples of this: the mother who frequently criticises her daughter 's body and posture, thus making her feel self-conscious; the 'man on the street' who makes a sexual comment about a young girl's body, making her feel ashamed; and a girl's embarrassment as male relatives make jokes about her menstruation.
• Differentiation of sexes and genders is significantly implicated in the arrangement of relationships between women and men in society, chiefly because it legitimises this arrangement as natural. The argument about unquestionable validity of natural laws justifies unequal division of labour between women and men, in which women do most of unpaid or worse paid work. It also justifies unequal distribution of power between women and men - the power to decide about themselves and the world that surrounds them.

Answer : For converting the population into a resource, a country has to invest a lot in the form of improving the health and nutritional status of the people, their education and specialized training and their overall quality of life. India's burgeoning population can also prove to be resource if it is provided with proper education and skill. Any population which is not properly skilled or educated cannot drive economic growth.

• With China slowing down, India has a great opportunity in hand to take over China as the leading economy of the world. India has one of them most important resource a country needs in order to propel the engine of economic growth. India's population is very young and is likely to provide a huge workforce at a steady rate. Having a large workforce provides an economy the benefits of low wages and large local consumer market as well. The need of the hour is to provide this large population proper education and produce a workforce that is skilled as per the requirements of the industry. Keeping this in mind, the governments in the recent past have focused on education of the masses and have started programs such as skill India.
• However, excessive population growth can have dampening effects on an economy as young population consumes a lot of financial resources. Although a large number of workforce prove to be beneficial for economy in short run, the same workforce, in long run (after a few decades) becomes a burden for the economy when it reaches in its old age.
• Associated with rapid population growth is rapid urbanization. Rapid urbanization brings multitude of problems such as unplanned expansion of urban areas, shrinking of farm land, hazardous living environments such as slums and squatters, traffic jams, congestion, air pollution etc. With migrants from rural area continuously pouring in, cities are never able to catch up. Their infrastructure remains eternally inadequate. The quality of life suffers as well.

Answer : In contemporary India, tribes and tribal societies are heading towards a paradigm shift with respect to their increasing exposure to the arena of development and related changes. The maximum intensity of this change is being experienced by the tribal youth, who is carrying the reflections of such changing order in various ways in the personal and family life, social relationships, health behavior, life style and so on.

An example can be of the increasing mainstreaming of Santhal society that has influenced the other nearby tribes to a great extent. Individuals from other tribes like Bhumij which is another major tribe and cohabit with Sathals are also striving in this front. This process of identity politics has also taken root in other tribes like Kondh with Kui as the language, Oraons, Ho tribes with Warang Chiti script, etc in Odisha and central India region.

The transformation among tribes in Indian Society is visible on various fronts as explained under:

• Lifestyle diseases are serious concerns among tribal groups of India. It is evident from anthropological researches that all most all tribal groups consume culturally prepared liquor. But in recent times the effects and prospects of modernization, industrialization like activities are fast putting their heels among the ST.
• Among other socio-cultural practices the trend of dowry is very much evident among tribal people in recent days. Demand for high amount of cash, household goods and luxury items like motor bike and television etc. increasingly taking place during marriage negotiations.
• With the increased availability of communication and information facilities, both by government as well as non-governmental agencies, the knowledge and use of modern technologies like mobile, internet facility etc. are fast available among tribal societies and the usage of such modern technology has revolutionized their life.
• Tribal society which is known for its family solidarity is experiencing a flux due to growing urban patterned nuclear family system. Increasing desertion of parents, are leading to serious mental health situations among elderly populations. It can be considered as a phenomenal change in attributes of tribal societies.
• Modern musical systems are now available for use in festivals which looks more portentous and gracious. Again, as it is being used by nontribal societies extensively, it is increasingly being considered mostly by the young tribal generation either out of curiosity or as a status symbol. A new trend i.e. dominant practice of video show replacing traditional community dancing and singing.

Answer : Female foeticide is the selective abortion/elimination of the female child, done deliberately by the mother, after the detection of the child's gender through medical tests. Female foeticide has a serious impact on the society, in the overall growth and development of the country.

The factors behind the growing menace of female foeticide in India are following:

• Son preference: It is an established view that the male offspring will better support the family. Since sons are seen as the main source of income, even though today, women have many career options, the common misconception still remains that it is the male who will help run the house and look after his parents, while women are viewed as being like cargo, something to be shipped off to another household.
• The evil dowry practice: In India, the age-old dowry system puts a damper on the spirits of those who are blessed with a girl child. When a girl is born, the parents begin to calculate the expense of her future marriage, the lump sum that will paid to the future groom's family. Because of this, the birth of a girl is seen as a tragedy waiting to happen.
• Women's low status in society: As a result of institutional and cultural sexism, female children and adults have less power, status, rights, and money. Even as adults, it's harder for females to take care of or make decisions for them. Centuries of repression have made inferiority second nature to most women. Female feticide often happens with the explicit consent of the mother.
• Foul medical ethics: With the legalization of abortion in India, illegal sex determination and termination of pregnancies have become much easier. The cost of an abortion is nothing compared to the expense of having a child, especially a girl.
• Industrial Growth: Industrialization of the health sector has further established the practice of sex selective abortion. With the advent of CVS, amniocentesis, and ultrasound, sex determination of the fetus has become much easier. These manufacturers of high-tech equipment and gadgets benefit from the preference for male children.
• Following are the ways to stop female foeticide in India:
• Most of the decisions are made by men in the families; they need to be sensitized about the practice of female foeticide and consequences thereof. The education curriculum should be made gender sensitive, leading to gradual formation of a changed value system in coming generation.
• All abortions must be registered. In cases where a healthy female foetus is aborted, both the doctor and the family should be brought to book.
• To check female foeticide, the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 was enacted. The Act came into force in 1996. By itself it is a comprehensive legislation which lays down the situations in which the use of pre-natal diagnostic techniques is prohibited as also where it is regulated. It has provisions for establishing mechanisms responsible for policy making under the Act and also those responsible for the implementation of the Act.
• To deal with a problem that has roots in social behaviour and prejudice, mere legislation is not enough. Various activities have been undertaken to create awareness against the practice of prenatal determination of sex and female foeticide.
• To implement the provisions of the Act the help of media units like AIR, Doordarshan, workshops and seminars have been organized through voluntary organizations at state, regional, district and block levels.
• The long-term strategies should include education and empowerment of women. Empowerment of rural marginalized women and education to improve their lot will heighten their status in the society.

Answer : Although economic growth has enabled the government to spend on anti-poverty programs, middlemen or corrupt bureaucracy does not allow the benefits to reach the real poor. Many scholars say that anti-poverty programs such as integrated rural development program were successful in reducing poverty. However, the wake of inadequate funding, it is difficult to sustain these programs.

Economic liberalization has significantly affected the rural poor as:

• Economic growth after liberalization has been concentrated in non-farm sector - mainly service sector. The contribution of manufacturing sector is still very low and it has not been able to pull enough people out of agriculture. Therefore, the agricultural sector is overcrowded and underproductive.
• Liberalization in India has brought an era of very high inflation. In the absence of any safety net, it the poor who suffers most. Inefficient public distribution system further exacerbates the problem. Subsidized food and other essential items do not reach the poor because of leakages and corruption at several levels.
• Liberalization did not create additional jobs in agriculture - a sector which is overcrowded. It employs more people than it can sustain. Agriculture has suffered negatively during liberalization regime. With farm subsidies being abolished, the agriculture is no more profitable.
• Liberalization had adverse effects on the cost of public healthcare in India. Introduction of use fees in public health facilities and rise in the price of medicines has led to high out-of-pocket expenditure. Since a large number of people do not have any insurance cover, every year, millions of people plunge into poverty.
• Economic liberalization has mainly benefitted the upper strata of the society. It has created a large middle class as well but its fruit did not reach the poor. Thus, post liberalization era has been notable for rising economic inequality in India.

Answer : Ancient Indian history is interesting because many races and tribes intermingled in early India. The pre-Aryans, the Indo-Aryans, the Greek, the Scythians, the Hunas, the Turks, and others made India their home.

• Each ethnic group contributed its mite to the evolution of the Indian social system, art and architecture, language and literature. All these peoples and their cultural traits commingled so inextricably that currently they can be clearly identified in their original form.
• A remarkable feature of ancient Indian culture has been the comming­ling of cultural elements from the north and south, and from the east and west. The Aryan elements are equated with the Vedic and Puranic culture of the north and the pre-Aryan with the Dravidian and Tamil culture of the south. However, many Munda, Dravidian and oilier non-Sanskritic terms occur in the Vedic texts ascribed to 1500-500 BC.
• They indicate ideas, institutions, products, and settlements associated with peninsular and non- Vedic India. Similarly, many Pali and Sanskrit terms, signifying ideas and institutions, developed in the Gangetic plains, appear in the earliest Tamil texts called the Sangam literature which is roughly used for the period 300 BC-AD 600. The eastern region inhabited by the pre-Aryan tribals made its own contribution.
• India has since ancient times been a land of several religions. Ancient India saw the birth of Brahmanism or Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, but all these cultures and religions intermingled and interacted. Thus, though Indians speak different languages, practise different religions, and observe different social customs, they follow certain common styles of life. Our country shows a deep underlying unity despite great diversity.
• The ancients strove for unity. The Indian subcontinent was geographi­cally well defined and its geographical unity was supplemented by cultural integration. Though there existed many states, languages, cultures, and communities, gradually people developed territorial identity. The states or territorial units, called janapadas, were named after different tribes.
• However, the country as a whole came to be named Aryavarta after the dominant cultural community called the Aryans. Aryavarta denoted northern and central India and extended from the eastern to the western sea coasts. The other name by which India was better known was Bharatavarsha or the land of the Bharatas.
• Our ancient poets, philosophers, and writers viewed the country as an integral unit. They spoke of the land stretching from the Himalayas to the sea as the proper domain of a single, universal monarch. The kings who tried to establish their authority from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin and from the valley of the Brahmaputra in the east to the land beyond the Indus in the west were universally praised.
• They were called Chakravartis. This form of political unity was attained at least twice in ancient times. In the third century BC Ashoka extended his empire over the whole of India barring the extreme south. His inscriptions are scattered across a major part of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, and even in Afghanistan. Again, in the fourth century ad, Samudragupta carried his victorious arms from the Ganga to the borders of the Tamil land.
• The unity of India was also recognized by foreigners. They first came into contact with the people living on the Sindhu or the Indus, and so they named the entire country after this river. The word Hind or Hindu is derived from the Sanskrit term Sindhu, and on the same basis, the country became known as 'India' which is very close to the Greek term for it. India came to be called 'Hind' in the Persian and Arabic languages. In post-Kushan times, the Iranian rulers conquered the Sindh area and named it Hindustan.

Answer : Although India was the first nation to introduce a family planning program back in early 1950s, rapid population growth is still a grave problem in front of the nation. Poor planning and implementation is the reason behind the failure of our family planning program and slow decline in fertility rates.

• Like its predecessors, the new population policy launched in the year 2000 too is over ambitious. It proposes targets that are unrealistic as they cannot be achieved within given period of time, given the poor condition of public health care and education in the country.
• One of the objectives of the NPP, 2000 was to achieve population stabilization by the year 2045. However, slow decline in the first decade of 21st century has forced the government to rethink about this target. As expected, the government had extended the date of target to the year 2070. It is just one example how unrealistic the goals of this population policy were.
• Although fertility has declined below replacement level of TFR 2.1, many central and Northern states still have very high fertility. The NPP envisaged a TFR of 2.1 by 2010. However, it could not achieve it aims because a goal of 2.1 TFR was too ambitious given the high growth of highly populated north and central states.
• The NPP also promised to provide high quality reproductive healthcare within a given time frame. However, given the poor healthcare delivery system in rural areas, this target was bound to be missed. Lack of human resources for health, equipment and physical infrastructure
• Delaying the age of marriage - one of the main targets of the NPP - still poses a great challenge as according to the National Family Health Survey-3, about 47% of the women aged 20-24 still get married before they turn18.
• Thus, NPP was an over-ambitious document that was not prepared looking into ground realities.

Answer : Urbanisation is the process by which a rural or semi-rural area turns into an urban area. This involves a variety of means by which population increases including people having children, immigrants arriving from other countries, and most importantly, rural-urban migration. Urbanisation often includes the merging of smaller urban areas into larger urban organizations, the development of urban infrastructure to support a much denser population and creation of new industries.

Urbanism is a way of life. It reflects an organization of society in terms of a complex division of labour, high levels of technology, high mobility, interdependence of its members in fulfilling economic functions and impersonality in social relations. Urbanism is the characteristic way of interaction of inhabitants of towns and cities with the character of urban life, organization, problems, etc. Urbanism is also movement of the population to the urban areas urbanization or its concentration in them.

Urbanization has brought about many changes in various spheres of urban life, namely physical, social, psychological and cultural aspects. The facilities like education, healthcare system, employment avenues, civic facilities and social welfare are reasons attracting people to urban areas. But this has also resulted in various problems in the society.

Problems arising out of urbanization in Indian society:

• Industrialization: This has resulted in an increase in urban population, which creates further pressure on urban land. As a result, there is a dearth of space, and consequently congestion and overcrowding occur.
• Environmental pollution: The high density of population and rapid industrialization has polluted the urban environment to a great extent. The problem of environmental pollution has become a serious threat to the urban environment.
• No time for socialization: As the cities and towns grow and develop, people living in these cities also change. Cities although in reality do not destroy intimate relationships or community identities, but because of commuting long distances people hardly have any time to develop any social relations. Moreover, the modern city is in fact a mosaic of communities, which provide protection and support to their members.
• Rising health problems: The busy city life has led to the increase in feelings of distrust, rejection, anger and depression, which in turn leads to health problems such as headaches, upset stomach, rashes, insomnia, ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. Stress is a common phenomenon in urban life especially in this age of globalization and urbanization.
• Group conflicts: These may arise due to various reasons such as social, economic, political, religious, lingual and regional. Conflicts in some form or other always exist in a dynamic society whether between individual and the society or in the family.
• Poverty: Urban poverty has a serious impact on the economic growth in India. Many people who come to city in search of livelihood end up in poverty. The result is beggary and prostitution.
• Unemployment: Urbanization can lead to unemployment. People are drawn to urban areas in the false hope of a better standard of living, better healthcare and job opportunities. As there are more people competing for fewer jobs in the city, unemployment is a constant problem.

Answer : Indian scenario of globalization

Economic Dimensions

• India has seen acceleration in its average annual rate of economic growth, from 3.4 percent in the pre-reform period to about 8 percent. The fiscal deficit in the reform period has remained 5.7 per cent as compared to 8.8 per cent of GDP in the second half of 1980's.
• There has been industrial growth and, indeed, acceleration in the industrial growth rate. The average annual rate of industrial growth has jumped from 5.2 8percent during the pre-globalization period to 7.0 percent after 1991. Though negative aspect like stagnation during economic crisis can also be mentioned.
• Business in India is now more competitive and is venturing forth into the global market. Increased imports and the entry of foreign multinationals have not swamped it. Essentially, India is master of its own economy.
• India has generally lagged behind in R&D effort."However, ever since India embraced the path of liberalisation and globalisation its spending in R&D has fallen. India spent 0.96 per cent of its GDP on R&D in 1988 which came down to 0.8% in 1999. The corresponding amount is 2- 3% of the GDP for developed countries.
• Propotion of trade to GNP has gone up steadily from 14.1 per cent in 1990-91 to 18.2 per cent in 1998-1 999. India's economy has become increasingly interdependent on the global economy.
• The remittances of Indians abroad has been to the tune of 2.5 per cent of GDP during the libearlising decade compared to just 1 per cent in the late 1980's. In fact just prior to liberalisation these remittances were declining. Indians are one of the major contenders in the global labour flows today.
• Globalization of India’s economy has led to fewer economic crises. The period of economic autarky before globalization was essentially one long, enduring crisis. Since the paradigm shift to economic liberalization in 1991, there has been a marked absence of economic crisis in India.

Socio-cultural dimensions

• Unemployment has witnessed a decrease over the period.
• India has seen a long and unprecedented period of welfare enhancement. The period before globalization featured high levels of poverty.
• Easy flow of people has led to increase in different kinds of tourism.
• Dressing pattern and Food habits have witnessed massive change.

Negative dimensions

• The matter of concern is that globalization leads to growing regional disparities in India.
• The inter-state inequalities in per capita income income increased significantly in 1990's while there was no evidence of convergence and divergence during the period 1965-85. Rich states showed much higher growth while poor states recorded lower
• Digital divide has increased.
• Disparity between rich and poor has also increased.
• Environmental degradation has increased to accomodate the needs of foreign firms. Also increased energy consumption is putting strain on energy resources.
• Another fear is that globalization leads to loss of national sovereignty and that countries are finding it increasingly difficult to follow independent domestic policies.

Indian economy cannot be considered truly globalized

• Agricultural sector has not been opened for free trade and competition.
• Defense sector is not opened for 100% FDI
• Education sector is fully closed for foreign universities
• Although globalization opened gate for global opportunities but it benefited already well off or developed Human resource not to everyone.
• There many sectors like Print and electronic media, which are still under government control and many sectors, are still partially opened for FDI and free competition

Answer : Problems and issues of children’s can be broadly classified into two categories – Directly related to Children and Organisational and Policy problems

National policy for Children -2013 is a policy document tried to address these issues and problems as below:

• Survival, Health and Nutrition: Improve maternal health care, including antenatal care, safe delivery by skilled health personnel, post natal care and nutritional support. Address key causes and determinants of child mortality through interventions based on continuum of care, with emphasis on nutrition, safe drinking water sanitation and health education.
• Provide universal and affordable access to services for prevention, treatment, care and management of neo-natal and childhood illnesses and protect children from all water borne, vector borne, blood borne, communicable and other childhood diseases.
• Prevent HIV infections at birth and ensure infected children receive medical treatment, adequate nutrition and after-care, and are not discriminated against in accessing their rights equitable access to comprehensive, and essential, preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative.
• Education and Development: Provide universal and equitable access to quality Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) for optimal development and active learning capacity of all children below six years of age. Ensure that every child in the age group of 6-14 years is in school and enjoys the fundamental right to education as enshrined in the Constitution.
• Foster and support inter sectoral networks and linkages to provide vocational training options including comprehensively addressing age specific and gender-specific issues of childrens’ career choices through career counseling and vocational guidance.
• Protection: The State shall create a caring, protective and safe environment for all children, to reduce their vulnerability in all situations and to keep them safe at all places, especially public spaces.
• The State shall protect all children from all forms of violence and abuse, harm, neglect, stigma, discrimination, deprivation, exploitation including economic exploitation ands exual exploitation, abandonment, separation, abd-uction, sale or trafficking for any purpose or in any form, pornography, alcohol and substance abuse, or any other activity that takes undue advantage of them, or harms their personhood or affects their development.
• Participation: The State has the primary responsibility to ensure that children are made aware of their rights, and provided with an enabling environment, opportunities and support to develop skills, to form aspirations and express their views in accordance with their age, level of maturity and evolving capacities, so as to enable them to be actively involved in their own development and in all matters concerning and affecting them.
• The State shall engage all stakeholders in developing mechanisms for children to share their grievances without fear in all settings; monitor effective implementation of children’s partici-pation through monitorable indicators; develop different models of child participation;
• Advocacy and Partnerships: The State shall encourage the active involvement, participation and collective action of stakeholders such as individuals, families, local communities, nongovernmental organisations, civil society organisations, media and private sector including government in securing the rights of the child.
• Coordination, Action and Monitoring: Addressing the rights and needs of children requires programming across different sectors and integrating their impact on the child in a syne-rgistic way. Rights based approach to survival, development and protection calls for conscious, convergent and collateral linkages among different sectors and settings, with indicators for tracking progress.
• Research, Documentation and Capacity Building: The implementation of this Policy will be supported by a comprehensive and reliable knowledge base on all aspects of the status and condition of children. Establishing such a knowledge base would be enabled through child focused research and documentation, both quantitative as well as qualitative. A continuous process of indicator-based child impact assessment and evaluation will be developed, and assessment and evaluation will be carried out on the situation of children in the country, which will inform policies and programmes for children.

• Globalisation: In very simple terms globalisation can be depicted as increasing global interconnectedness. It is a process rather than an outcome, which refers to the trend toward the growing interconnectedness of different parts of the world, not to their being interconnected. It primarily is an interchange of economic, social, cultural, political, technological attributes that takes place between societies when different societies come into contact with each other. Though this interchange is going on for times immemorial, this process was termed as “globalisation” for the first time around the second half of 20th century.
• Features of Globalisation: New markets, New technology tools like internet, cellular phones etc.
• New actors like the World Trade Organ-ization (WTO) with authority over national gov-ernments, the multinational corporations with more economic power than many states, the global networks of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other groups that transcend national boundaries, and New rules - multilateral agree-ments on trade, services and intellectual property, reducing the scope for national policy.
• Socio-Economic phenomenon: As an econ-omic phenomenon, globalization stands for greater integration of national economies into a world economy (global economy) in which the market predominates. As a social phenomenon, globalization refers to the process of integration which is intensifying world wide social relations and interdependence among nations and people for creation of a global society.
• Political phenomenon: As a political phen-omenon, it transcends political boundaries and calls for moving beyondnation states to transnational governance in which international governmental organisations dominate in many spheres. Thus there is undermining of the authority of nation state. Globalization can be thought of as the relaxation of the authority of the State in favour of the Market.
• Cultural Phenomenon: Globalization is leading to homogenization of cultures and rise in consumption of global goods across cultures. So you can have Thai food in US, ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ in Mongolia and India and ‘idli sambhar’ in Italy.

Drivers of Globalization

(i)Proliferation of Information and Communication

(ii)International/Global Institutions

(iii)Business Without Borders: Trans National

(iv)Corporations

(v)Changes in World Political Scenario

• Globalization creates a homogenised ‘global culture’ that is opposed to ‘national’ or ‘ethnic’ culture. The proliferation of print and electronic media has brought in a swift flow of cultural information to all parts of the world.
• On one hand it is a strategy often adopted by foreign firms while dealing with local traditions in order to enhance their marketability. In India, all the foreign television channels like Star, MTV, Channel V and Cartoon Network use Indian languages. Even McDonald sells only vegetarian and chicken products in India and not its beef products, which are popular abroad. McDonald’s goes vegetarian during the Navaratri festival. In the field of music, one can see the growth of popularity of ‘Bhangra pop’, ‘Indi pop’, fusion music and even remixes.
• On the other hand people adopt the other culture and mix it with indigenous one, for example Kurta with Jeans, Food habits like drinking cold drinks while eating. It is also true that dominant culture (culture of developed countries) replace the indigenous ones. Impact of this process can be felt in India also where not only metropolitans but also rural scenarion of clothing has witnessed a shift towards western outfits.
• Another view point is that there is no cultural synthesis. Actually it is developed countries' culture either dominating or it is a strategy often adopted by foreign firms to enhance their marketability.

Answer : Violence against women has many forms as, female feticide, Rape, Sexual Harassment and Abuse, Domestic Violence and Dowry Deaths, Prostitution, Pornography and Misrepresentation of Women in the Media, Second grade treatment in all aspect of life (Compromise in education, early marriage, forced marriage, limitation over labor, etc).

• Marriage - The Government of India has banned polygamy for all the government servants. Monogamy has been accepted in the laws of other religions except Islam.
• Age at Marriage- The special Marriage Act fixed the minimum age of marriage at 21 years for males and 18 years for females.
• Dowry - Under the Dowry Prohibition Act now court is empowered to act on its own knowledge or on a complaint by any recognised welfare organisation on the dowry murder. Anti Dowry Cells are also established some important urban centres to tackle this issue effectively.
• Sati - The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act 1987 declared the practice of sati unlawful.
• Rape and Indecent Representation of Women - The Criminal Law Act also amended to provide protection to the rape victims from the glare of publicity during investigation and trial. It also introduced change in the definition of rape to remove the element of consent.
• Sex-Determination Test - In recent years there have been several agitations against the sex determination test. It is important to note that in Maharashtra and in several other states prenatal sex determination test has been declared illegal.
• Work - According to the Equal Remuneration Act 1973, man and woman are to be paid equally for doing the same or similar work. The Act also forbids discrimination on the basis of sex at the time of recruitment and after. Although there are laws against many of violence but not properly implemented as well as accepted on social level. Root cause of discrimination lies in social structure in form of Patriarchy and gender roll.

Answer : Feminist scholars have identified four perspectives on women and development— Women in Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD), Gender and Development (GAD) and Women, Environment and Devel-opment (WED).

• Feminist scholars have differentiated between “sex” and “gender”. Sex as referring to the biological differences between men and women and gender as indicating the vast range of cultural meanings attached to that basic difference. The argument is that there is nothing “natural” about the sexual division of labour.
• Only the actual process of pregnancy is biological, all the other work within the home that women must do—cooking, cleaning, looking after children and so on (in other words, the whole range of work we may call “domestic labour”) — can equally be done by men. But this work is considered to be “women’s work.”
• This sexual division of labour is not limited to the home, it extends even to the “public” arena of paid work, and again, this has nothing to do with “sex” (biology) and everything to do with “gender” (culture). Certain kinds of work are considered to be “women’s work”, and other kinds, men’s, but more important is the fact that whatever work that women do, get lower wages and are less valued.
• Feminists point out that this “feminisation” of teaching and nursing is because such work is seen as an extension of the nurturing work that women do within the home. The fact is that it is not a “natural” biological difference that lies behind the sexual division of labour, but certain ideological assumptions.
• So on the one hand, women are supposed to be physically weak and unfit for heavy manual labour, but both in the home and outside, they do the heaviest of work— carrying heavy loads of water and firewood, grinding corn, transplanting paddy, carrying head-loads in mining and construction work. But at the same time, when the manual work that women do is mechanised, making it both lighter and better-paid, then it is men who receive training to use the new machinery, and women are edged out. In other words, the present subordination of women arises, not from unchangeable biological differences, but from social and cultural values, ideologies and institutions that ensure the material and ideological subordination of women. The GAD framework thus emphasises gender relations in both the labour force and the reproductive sphere. GAD expects the state to play an active role in providing support for the work of social reproduction—childcare facilities, maternity leave etc.
• Women, Environment and Development
• This perspective arises from eco-feminism, which draws parallels between male control over nature and over women. Eco-feminism argues that masculine oriented scientific and industrial systems that have relentlessly exploited natural resources, have brought the planet to the verge of ecological extinction.
• The very notion of “development” implies the control and conquest of nature, thus putting in place unsustainable lifestyles and bringing the earth to the brink of ecological disaster.
• This perspective is not just a critique of current models of development, but questions the possibility of unlimited exploitation of the earth’s resources, arguing for an alternative way of life and recognition of traditional ways of life that were closer to nature and more sustainable.
• The processes of environmental degradation and appropriation of natural resources by a few have specific class/gender and locational implications. That is, it is the women of poor, rural households who are most affected by these processes, and who participate most actively in ecology movements. “Women” as a category cannot be posited as a homogeneous category even within one country, let alone across the Third World.

Answer : It has been observed that the problem of poverty in India is mainly a problem of rural poverty. According to the latest official estimates of poverty based on the Tendulkar Committee poverty line, as many as 29.8 per cent of the population, that is, 350 million people were below the poverty line in 2009–10. Out of this 216.5 million lived in rural areas.

• It has been said that the urban poor of India are only an overflow of the rural poor into the cities and that essentially they belong to the same class as the rural poor.
• The primary reason for rural-urban migration is economic, and the rural poor migrate to the cities in search of employment rather than better employment opportunities. A large number of rural poor migrate to urban centres due to lack of work in villages and growing opportunities of employment in towns and cities.
• Most of these people are engaged either in low income self-employment activities or low paid unskilled or semi-skilled jobs in the unorganised sector of the urban economy. The rural poverty is carried over to the urban areas by the channel of rural urban migration. This is very evident in slums and squatter settlements, environmental deterioration, substandard housing and low levels of health and nutrition of the urban poor.
• Social and cultural factors also play an important role in facilitating the migration of the rural poor to the urban centres. The rural migrants depend upon kinship, caste and regional networks not only for decisions with regard to the choice of destination but also for their early and easy adjustment to the the urban poor maintain their linkages with their families in rural areas by visits and remittances. They go to their villages during harvesting, festivals and other ceremonies like marriage and death.
• In time of difficulty or unemployment they fall back on the traditional but scanty, sources of income available in their villages. Most of them continue to maintain their roots in villages.

Answer : Secularism, along with a commitment to the ideals of democracy, equality and freedom was among the fundamental principles that inspired a large section of our people to fight against British colonialism. After independence, these values were enshrined in the Constitution.

• Secularism has become essential for modem democratic nation-states to ensure a strong sense of identification with the polity based on a common sense of identity, where being a citizen takes precedence over all other identities like family, race, class and religion.
• Communalism on the other hand accepts religious identity above all identities, it not only accepts religion as supreme identity but assume its conflict with other religions. There is sense of superiority over other religion and in fact conflict of interest too.
• Communal politics works on the belief that each religious community is distinct from the other in its religious, cultural practices, lifestyles and value systems which become the basis of differences in socio-economic interests between these communities. In the absence of shared interests it is only distrust and suspicion that tends to define the relationship between different communities.
• Secularism is only option to stop communalism or communal politics as it encourage electoral politics on the basis of development, strengthen democratic institutions and establish equal worth of all communities and discourage mobilization on the basis of religious identity.

Answer : National integration is a process of developing the different parts of the national social system into an integrated whole. In an integrated society, social institutions and values associated with them have a high degree of social acceptance. However, linguism, communalism, social inequalities and regional disparities are some of the factors, which threaten the ideal of national integration in India.

• Linguism: India is a multi-linguistic nation. Language has become, specially since Indepen-dence, a powerful source of political articulation. For instance, in the South, parti-cularly in Tamil Nadu, language sentiments have been propagated among the people for getting power within state politics.
• Communalism: Broadly defined, commu-nalism refers to the tendency of any socio-religi-ous group to maximise its economic, political and social strength at the cost of other groups.
• Social Inequalities: In every society, there is a system of social stratification. Social stratification refers to inequality in society based on unequal distribution of goods, services, wealth, power, prestige, duties, rights, obligations and privileges. Take for example, the social inequalities, created by the caste system. Being a hereditary and endogamous system, the scope for social mobility is very little.
• Social privileges and financial and educational benefits are by and large accessible to only upper caste groups. Processes of change like democratisation, westernisation and moder-nisation, have helped to broaden the accessibility to privileges to a wide range of people.
• Regional Disparities: The unequal develo-pment of different regions of India has negatively affected the character of national integration. The unequal development has become the major cause of many social movements after the independence - Ethnic affinity, Fundamentalism and Radicalism.

Answer : On one hand economically capitalism talk about Private ownership, free market, non regulation, less intervention of state and government, on the other hand Communism supports social ownership, controlled economy and use of soviets for redistribution.

• Capitalist accept individual as unit of society and structure of society is webbed around Individual with equal moral worth on the other hand communism accepts class as basic unit of society and entire structure should consider class as a foundation for structural formation.
• Role of state and ideology according to capitalism is essential on the other hand communist denied the role of state (state as an instrument of exploitation) and ideology (false consciousness). Capitalist are nationalist in other words they accept world as combinations of nation states on the other hand communist are internationalist they accept state as imperial and colony.
• Capitalist talk about democracy, public participation on the basis of equal political rights on other hand communist firmly believed that without Economic equality democracy become tool in hands of capitalist class and equal political rights has no meaning. The political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy (Capitalist Economy) with publicownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society is communism.
• Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Technically it is against capitalist mode of Economy, Polity and social organization but it is much more than that. In fact presents a different model of economic, political and social organization.

Answer : characteristics distinct from those of neighbouring areas”. The states in India also form distinct regions. Further, there can be sub-regions within a state like the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh, Vidarbha region in Maharashtra, etc. Thus, region is a relative term, the meaning of which changes with its usage. Region generally implies that it is socio-culturally distinct and that it is sufficiently unified to have a consciousness of its customs, traditions, values and ideals.

Regionalism can be defined as a phenom-enon in which people’s political loyalties become focused upon a region. In other words, it implies people’s love of a particular region in preference to the country and in certain cases in preference to the state of which the region is a part. Thus the phenomenon of regionalism is centred around the concept of region.

Regionalism is a multidimensional phen-omenon. Its bases are varied. Generally geographical, historical, cultural, economic and politico administrative are bases of regionalism.

• Geography: Usually people relate their regional identity to certain specific geographical boundaries. After independence integration of Princely States resulted in the merger of small states into new big states. The loyalties of citizens were torn between old territorial boundaries and new territorial structures.
• Historical and social bases constitute the bedrock of the politics of regionalism.
• History: It supported regionalism with cultural heritage, folklore, myths and symbolism. The most striking example is that of Dravida Kazhagam (DK) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and Telugu Desham (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh. But history cannot be considered as the only basis of regionalism. Economic and political factors have combined with history to generate regionalism.
• Language: Language is perhaps the most important mark of group identification. Language expresses the shared life, thought structure and value patterns of people. It has the capacity to unite the people together and make them work to improve their common destiny. In this sense linguistic homogeneity strengthens a positive movement.
• Caste: An important example of the caste factor providing impetus to linguistic regional ism can be seen in the case of Tamil Nadu.
• Tamil regionalism gained ground as a result of non-Brahmin movement. Non-Brahmin castes of Tamil speaking region had been able to provide a powerful united thrust against Brahmins who had earlier enjoyed unquestioned dominance in economy, society and polity.
• Religion: Religion like caste does not play a significant role except when it is combined with dominance and linguistic homogeneity as in Punjab or fed on a sense of religious orthodoxy and economic deprivation as in Jammu and Kashmir.
• Economic Basis: Economic factor is the crux of regional politics. India is a developing country. The resources are limited while the demand for resources for the development of various regions is unlimited or disproportionate to resources. Economic policies have led to regional imbalances and wide economic disparities among various regions resulting in discontentment among them. It may be recalled that most of the demands for constituting new states were primarily based on allegedly unfair and unequal distribution of development benefits and expenditure in multi-lingual states. The erstwhile movements for a separate Uttarkhand state in the hill districts of U.P., a Jharkhand state carved out of parts of Bihar and the demand for a state of Bodoland comprising a part of Assam may be counted as examples of this type.
• Politico-administrative Basis: The politico-administrative basis of regionalism is also important but politics as such does not create regionalism. It only accentuates regionalism.
• Politicians take advantage of the situation of regional discontentment and unrest. They convert it into movements for strengthening their individual and factional support bases.
• It is a known fact that fighting within Cong-ress gave rise to Telangana agitation. Regional political parties like TDP (Andhra Pradesh), DMK (Tamil Nadu), Akali Dal (Punjab) have been surviving because of regional sentiments.
• Regionalism is not significant merely as a disintegrating force. Regionalism is not opposed to national integration. Both can exist together in a creative partnership. Both are in favour of development. Regionalism stresses the develo-pment of a region and national integration for the development of the nation as a whole. If we want to reconcile the competing claims of regionalism and national integration the political system of the country should remain federal and dem-ocratic.

Answer : Based on the recommendation of Pranab Sen Committee, new definition will serve as a guideline for Slum Census, 2011. Any compact housing cluster or settlement of at least 20 households with a collection of poorly built tenements, mostly temporary in nature with inadequate sanitary, drinking water facilities and unhygienic conditions will be termed slums.

• Slums come about because of, and are perpetuated by, a number of forces. Among these are rapid rural-to-urban migration, increasing urban poverty and inequality, insecure land tenure, and diminishing prospects in agriculture, globalisation – all contribute to the creation and continuation of slums.
• Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) for the slum dwe-llers and the urban poor envisages a ‘Slum-free India’ through encouraging States/Union Territories to tackle the problem of slums in a definitive manner.
• Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was launched by Gove-rnment of India in December, 2005 for an initial period of seven years with a central outlay of Rupees 50,000 crores. 63 cities having million plus population, are designated to be eligible for investment under this Mission based on the priorities indicated by the State Governments.
• Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP): This Submission of JNNURM focuses on integrated development of slums through projects that provide shelter, basic services and other related civic amenities to the urban poor.
• Scheme linked Urban Reform Measures – The scheme envisages implementation of reform measures besides extending funding support for basic services and shelter development that benefit the poor in urban slums. The main thrust area of reforms under the scheme is to bring about improvement in urban governance so that Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and parastatal agencies become financially sound with enhanced credit rating and ability toaccess market capital for undertaking new programmes and expansion of services.

Answer : The SCs, STs, minorities and women form a large chunk of the population of India. Their demographic presence is however, not found in their development at present. The level of deprivation is higher among these classes as compared to other classes in India.

These classes have largely been neglected in the development process. They have been marginalized. These classes are marked by under performance and under participation in the society and economy on several fronts. Their average achievement with regards to positive parameters is less than national average and worse than national average in case of negative parameters.

Following positive and negative socio economic parameters make it very clear:

• Negative Parameters: Poverty, unemp-loyment, malnutrition and incidence of disease, school dropout ratio, infant mortality, etc.
• Positive Parameters: Literacy, life expectancy, school enrolment, access to basic minimum needs of life such as electricity, water, etc.
• The state of freedom and human rights of these groups is also appalling. These classes are often victims of discrimination, forced labour, indebtedness, insecurity, etc. Women of these classes in particular face both social and economic discrimination. They are often victims of domestic violence, rape and other abuses.
• Until and unless this vicious circle is broken and these segments of society are included in the development process, it will remain a pipe dream only. These classes need special attention regarding poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, literacy and health. Only then the agenda of inclusive growth could be realized.

Answer : Poverty in India has been caused by multiple causes. Despite many government’s programmes for poverty alleviation, the poverty ratio has been falling at the rate of about 1 per cent per annum against our plan target of 2 percent fall in poverty per annum. The poverty ratio remains close to 40 per cent of the population. It is being pointed out that ineffectiveness of poverty alleviation programmes is one of the main reasons for high poverty ratio in India. Ineffectiveness in the poverty alleviation and welfare programmes has been caused by institutional factors to a great extent.

Following examples clearly indicate that institutions associated with delivery of development and welfare programmes are not performing well-

• Leakages and corruption in MNREGA, TPDS, National Rural Health Mission.
• Corruption and delays in infrastructure dev-elopment programmes.
• Ineffective implementation of employment and housing programmes.
• Wrong targeting and designing of subsidies and poor monitoring and evaluation
• Multiplicity of programmes, etc.

Thus we can say that institutional problems and poor governance has exacerbated poverty in the country. It is not the outlays in the budget on these programmes which are important. We must try to ensure the desired outcomes by making good institutions to plug leakages and ensure good governance. Only then we can make an effective assault on poverty.

Answer : It is not right to say that interaction between cultures is dangerous. There are changes in society and culture due to increased interaction in the globalization era, but such interactions work both ways- they mark progress as well as mixing and in some instances pollution of the culture.

Globalisation has a tremendous imprint on society and culture. As the world gets more and more integrated and interaction increases between different nations and culture, there is immense possibility of learning and growing together by adopting good practices of each other.

The Eastern societies can learn from the West how to give more freedom to women to participate in political and economic life and how to give importance to commercialization and material progress; the West can learn the values of kindness, compassion, sacrifice, spiritual unity between human beings and conducting economic activities for need and not for greed and profit. In fact interaction between the societies through information technology, tourism and education has led to beautiful synthesis in the past between different cultures. Good values, morals, democracy, arts and culture etc. all have imprints of such positive interactions. Therefore it is not right in the first instance to see social and cultural interaction with suspicion. Interaction between cultures does not always lead to suppression of the one by the other.

Nevertheless there are certain notable points which need caution. The cultural values differ between different societies- the manner they dress up, the manner by which men and women conduct their relationship, the content and quality of entertainment, the definition of decency and privacy etc.

The dominant economy and society is mostly seen as a role model to emulate. In America the poor black enclaves try to emulate the dress codes, language, values, etc of the rich white enclaves. At global level, there is tendency to give more value to foreign goods, style and living. The younger generation often confuses westernization as modernity.

The new dressing sense, free mixing of men and women, breaking of religious restrictions, celebrating New Year’s Day or Valentine’s Day may tease the cultural fundamentalists. There is a marked imprint on food habits as well. People shift from indigenous food to foreign food, often processed ones, which may not be as healthy and nutritious. Increase in consumption of non-vegetarian food and the consumption of alcohol and other drugs for pleasure and partying etc. may be disturbing for the local population.

The art and culture and entertainment often go western and depiction of women may be at conflict with local sense of decency. The impact of pornographic literature and depiction of women in advertisement of products and in media may be at conflict with local standards.

A society has an urge to have its own identity and culture. Say for example we may think about Indianness or Indian culture. However, this will not be possible by fighting with other cultures. It needs to have an education system that is able to counter the bad effects of foreign culture on our youth and which breeds sense of pride for our culture and history. It is also necessary to appreciate that other cultures offer variety in clothing, dressing up, foods, entertainment, celebration, festivities, etc. There is nothing bad in interaction with other cultures and celebration of variety of life. However, local values, language, entertainment, festivals should be seen as mark of our Indianness, our own identity. We need to have some symbols of our Indianness intact for example, the concept of greeting or Pranam, Yoga, respecting mother, father and teachers as representatives of God, etc.

Opening our windows to foreign culture with caution is a preferred option rather than remaining closed. If we progress economically and our society remains immensely creative and assimilative, culture grows rather than receding History is evidence to the fact how the architecture, sculpture, literature and music of India has evolved over a long period of time due to such interactions. Globalisation, therefore, can be seen as an opportunity as well as threat- it depends how do we interact with the foreign culture.

Answer : It would be outlandish to claim that the diversity of India is the inherent cause of disintegration of the country. The variety of language, culture, caste, creed, and ethnicity are fault lines, which have the potential to be misutilised by vested interests or petty politics, but today India has come a long way. It is not possible to sink the national dream called India which is integrated by rule of law, non-discriminating constitution and led by role models from all the parts of the country and folk heroes and their anecdotes of bravery and patriotism.

• The diversity of Indian society can be observed along ethnic, religious, social classes, economic classes, linguistic groups and different cultures. It is one way of looking on India.
• The other way of looking on to India is to see its history, geography, society and culture for finding common threads. Somebody said that India dances together with the tunes of Monsoon. India lights up in Deepavali, the festival of lights. The Himalayas, the Ganges, the Cauvery are the pride of all Indians. The concept of Sidhha Peeths of the Hindu religion scattered throughout the country binds the country together. Different dance forms are equally respected in all the parts of the country. The Hindustani and Carnatic classical music are loved by all educated Indians, so on and so forth.
• It is an old country, which has reasons on the basis of shared history, culture and even geography to be bound together. And today India has a dream for tryst with destiny when the whole country would see India as world power. This is why when the Indian teams win cricket or hockey matches or a gold medal in the Olympics the whole country rejoices and feels the pride. That India celebrates the harvest season together and rises together in wars and disasters are evidences that show that India is not a nation in making as the imperialist historians believed, but it is already a nation.
• The diversity of India has, nevertheless, been used by vested interests; narrow politicians and regional chauvinists for divide and rule policy. But the three wings of our Constitution i.e. legislature, executive and judiciary have not allowed anybody to use these dividing lines for disintegrating the country. There is public outrage also on any effort by anybody to divide this country or attack this country. Be it the issue of natural disasters, wars or terrorism, the country has always shown a united face. It is not to say that there is no contrast or conflict, but the general feeling in India is inclusive and not dividing. The institutions and people of India also feel and behave in the same way. It is, therefore wrong to say that the seeds of disintegration of India lie in its diversity. The diversity has been greatly reconciled by progress of democracy and economic development and it will continue to do the same.

Answer : Energy is considered to be an important factor for the social and economic development of societies, and the usage levels of energy is an indication of the economic prosperity of nations. The growth rate of GDP is likely to be the main driver of the demand for energy.

• The tie between energy supply, population, and the economy goes back to the huntergatherer period. Hunter-gatherers managed to multiply their population by using energy techniques which allowed them to expand their territory from central Africa to virtually the whole world, including the Americas and Australia. Later the agricultural revolution starting about 7,000 or 8,000 BCE was next big change and the next major breakthrough was the industrial revolution using coal. Later oil, renewable and non renewable energy resources increased economy.
• This shows Energy has become a major source of improvement in the standard of living, and also plays an important role in the technological and scientific advancement. But to cope with the increasing energy demand and rapid economic growth in this region, the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth should be investigated in order to make appropriate energy policies.

Answer : National Policy on Urbanisation: The main objective of the urban policy is to develop an urban rural continuum replacing the existing urban-rural dichotomy. The national policy gives first priority to urban housing in which both public and private sectors have been invited to contribute.

• A major change in national policy has been noticed towards the slums. The national policy puts greater emphasis on the improvement of slums rather than on their demolition or removal.
• Under Sites and Services Plan economically weaker section of the urban society have been provided low interest loan facilities to purchase house plots and construct houses.
• Under the Urban Land Ceiling Act 1976 the State Governments have been authorised to fix maximum ceiling for urban land.
• The urbanization policy puts greater empha sis on the development of infrastructural facilities in small, medium and intermediate towns so that these could attain the status of growth centres in rural hinterland.
• Under the urban policy incentives have been given to industrial houses and entrepreneurs to establish new industries in small, medium and intermediate towns so as to bring down congestion and pollution in big cities of the country.
• Urban policy makes obligatory even to small, medium and intermediate towns to prepare their master plans and control the haphazard growth of the urban settlements.
• Under the national policy the management of all the towns and cities has been entrusted to local bodies which would be working under the guidance of the respective State government.
• In national urbanization policy there is a plan to divide the country into urban regions so as to provide greater opportunity for the solution of local and regional urban problems.
• In national urbanization policy enough provision has been made for research and policy formulation on urbanisation and urban development.

Answer : Globalisation leads to greater exposure and interaction with the rest of the world. It brings new ideas like democracy, gender equality, human development, good governance. Besides opens new markets, brings capital and new technology, leads to increase in production and productivity, income, standard of living.

However, globalisation is not an unmixed blessing. It has certain fall outs at international and national levels. At international level it increases dependence of developing countries on developed nations, it also increases inequality between them due to size , capital, technology and other asymmetries, the overarching role of international organizations lead to shrinking of states, also a ground for neo-imperialism is built with the help of finance capital, technology, MNCs and TNCs.

India has reaped positive benefits from globalization—

• India has learned from mature democracies and developed societies.
• The process of democratization through political process as well as economic development.
• Concern for human rights and women and child rights, inflow of foreign capital and technology has led to expansion and diversification of industrial sector.
• Poverty and chronic unemployment have gone down, overall living standard has improved.
• Completion has led to rise in quality of the products through increased R&D and innovations.
• Consumers have more choices.
• India’s exports have increased.
• Indian companies have also spread their marketing and manufacturing bases to other parts of the world.
• Globalisation has led to regional imbalance between rural and urban India.
• Globalisation has led to sectoral imbalance between agriculture sector and industry and services.
• Globalisation has not produced symmetric opportunities, inequality has increased at both inter personal and inter regional levels.
• Globalisation has led to increased presence of MNCs and TNCs grabbing a major part of Indian market, leading at times to closure of local industry and influencing government’s policy decisions.
• Consumerism has increased and concern for sustainable development has suffered.
• Globalisation is influencing the culture; western life style is overpowering the local culture, identity of Indians and their value system is under pressure

Answer : The importance of government policies cannot be undermined even if a country adopts the policies of liberalization and globalization. The industries of a nation need enabling and good macroeconomic policies for their growth and diversification. The government needs reforms in its fiscal and monetary policies to offer incentives to industries for investment, R&D and promotion of exports. The competitive advantage of industries of a country depends on the fiscal environment of the country, especially its tax structure and expenditure policies.

• A good tax structure has a larger base, lower rates, simplicity, etc. Industries have an incentive to invest with lower corporate taxes, lower excise duty and customs duty. They can reap competitive advantage also by availing sufficient and cheap credit at lower interest rates. Industries also need basic infrastructure like roads, rail, ports, airports, and power etc. for their logistic needs and transport of their finished products to markets. This requires investment through enhanced public expenditure as well as PP models.
• The policy of liberalization makes more space for private enterprise. This leads to increased competition between public sector and private sector on the one hand and among the private enterprises on the other. Competition between firms and enterprises leads to optimum production with efficiency, that is, minimization of cost and maximization of production, productivity and profit. Thus competition is one of the methods of increasing efficiency in the economy.
• Globalisation integrates the national economy with the world economy. This integration leads to increase in trade and investment on the one hand and free flow of factors of production such as labour, capital and technology. This process also leads to optimum use of resources and increases consumer’s welfare. The countries specialize in the production and export of those commodities and services in which they have comparative advantage. They import commodities from those countries which have comparative advantage in producing those commodities.
• This competitive advantages and comparative advantages cannot automatically arise from market. They need private initiatives on the one hand and enabling conditions through government policies on the other. The government policies in India were reformed after it embraced the New Economic Policy in 1991. The tax reforms in India led to reduced tax rates, rationalization and simplification of taxes, which improved competitive advantage of industries without eroding government’s revenue. Corporate sector is today the largest contributor to tax proceeds. The removal of licensing requirements and reservation for the Public Sector led to higher growth in the industrial sector. Liberalization of foreign investment increased investment in India through both the automatic route and official or FIPB route. Further the incentives offered to export houses, star trading houses and creation of SEZs along with relaxed rules for import of raw materials, machinery, equipment, technology and other capital goods enhanced India’s exports. Thus the development of a nation’s industry is increasingly gauged by the Government’s policy that influences the competitive advantage of an industry by influencing the national environment in which it operates.
• In fact China, despite being a less open economy than India and marked by huge presence of state enterprises has performed well because of its robust infrastructure, fast clearance system, easy acquisition of land and certainty in government policy regime. Thus China’s industrial growth is higher with higher exports than India. China also attracts more foreign investment than India. Today India needs labour reforms and robust infrastructure along with enabling monetary and fiscal policies to enhance industrial competitiveness. The dialogue between government and industry needs to be friendly and constructive.

Answer : Geo-political unity: When the unity of a country served by a single political authority is rendered by its geographical position, it is called geo-political unity. For example India's geographical unity is marked by the Himalayas in the north and the oceans on the other sides and politically, the same constitution and the same parliament govern every part of it.

Geo-cultural unity: Geo-cultural unity, also known as temple culture, is the unity of the country manifested in the network of shrines and sacred places. For example: The whole of India is covered with religious shrines and holy rivers from Amarnath caves in the north to Rameshwaram in the south, Jagannath Puri in the east to Dwaraka in the west.

(b) Supra-state regionalism, Inter-state regionalism and Intra-state regionalism

• Answer: Supra-state Regionalism: This implies that more than one state are involved in the issue of regionalism. It is an expression of group identity of some states when they take common stand on the issues of mutual interest vis-a-vis another group of states. However, rivalries, tensions and even conflicts do take place among a few states belonging to a group. Example: Hindi speaking belt and non hindi speaking states
• Inter-state Regionalism: It is related with state boundaries and involves overlapping ofone or more state identities, which threaten their interests. River water disputes and other issues like the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute can be cited as examples.
• Sub-regionalism: It reflects a notion of deprivation or exploitation of one part of the state atthe expense of another. The important examples are a Vidharbha in Maharashtra, a Saurashtra in Gujarat and a Telangana in Andhra Pradesh (now separated) can be seen from developmental perspective also i.e. regional disparity uniting the subregion of a state.

(c) Primary urbanization, Secondary urbani-zation, & Sub-urbanization

• Answer:Primary urbanisation: Urba-nization which results from forces arising within a country as aspatial expression of a region's culture e.g. the wave of urbanization in the UK which resulted from the industrial revolution.
• Secondary urbanisation: The process of seco-ndary urbanisation works in the industrial phase of the city, and is characterised by heterogenetic development. The general consequence of secon-dary urbanisation is the weakening of suppression of the local and traditional cultures by states of mind that are incongruent with the local cultures.
• Sub-urbanisation: Sub-urbanisation means urbanization of rural areas around the towns characterised by the following features: A sharp increase in the ‘urban (non-agricultural) uses’ of land and Inclusion of surrounding areas of town within its municipal limits, and Intensive communication of all types between town and its surrounding areas.

(d) Gender and Sanskritisation

• The term sanskritisation was coined by M.N. Srinivas. It may be briefly defined as the process by which a ‘low’ caste or tribe or other group takes over the customs, ritual, beliefs, ideology and style of life of a high and, in particular, a ‘twice-born (dwija) caste’.
• Sanskritisation suggests a process whereby people want to improve their status through adoption of names and customs of culturally high-placed groups.
• Lower castes are more liberal, permissive and progressive despite their lower social status. They have liberal and positive attitude especially towards the position of women but tend to become conservative by the process of sankritization. Since sanskritisation results in the adoption of upper caste rites and rituals it leads to practices of secluding girls and women.
• The process of Sanskritization, to which women of affected castes also aspire, has adversely affected women’s position in both labour process and domestic spheres (leading to a shift from ‘bride-price’ to dowry, for example), and so amounting in fact to their dis-empowerment.

Answer : The term `Scheduled Areas has been defined in the Indian Constitution as "such areas as the President may by order declare to be Scheduled Areas". Paragraph 6 of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution prescribes following procedure for scheduling, rescheduling and alteration of Scheduled Areas.

The provision of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution has generated a lot of interest in the affairs of welfare and development mostly in the areas predominated by the Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the central belt of India. Social activists and a group of bureaucrats and ex-bureaucrats are claiming that this Schedule is the panacea for all tribal discord. If the tenets of this constitutional provision are fully implemented the tribesmen will emancipate from their present state of plight and penury.

If the state administration is streamlined as per the provisions of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India, a lot of problems of the tribal communities could be eliminated. Rapid development of tribal communities could be assured if action is taken as per the Fifth Schedule.

The Fifth Schedule provides guidelines for the administration of the Scheduled Areas, flow of grants-in-aid out of the Consolidated Fund of India to the States for the Scheduled Areas for promoting the welfare of STs, functions of the National Commission for SCs and STs, Commission on the administration of STs, executive power of Union in giving direction to the States for the STs, appointment of the Back-ward Classes Commission, specifications of SCs and STs.

The Fifth Schedule has many important provisions. The most important one is the declar-ation of an area as Tribal and Scheduled Area. The Scheduled Area has the following important components:

1. Report by the Governor to the President reg-arding the administration of the Scheduled Areas.
2. Appointment of the Tribal Advisory Council by the Governor.
3. Power of the Governor to regulate the appl-ication of laws of the State and the Acts of Parliament to the Scheduled Areas.
4. Power of the Governor to make regulations for the good governance of any or all Sche-duled Areas in a State.
5. The President may by order declare an area to be a Scheduled Area.

In a Scheduled Area the Governor of the State has been delegated immense powers. He/she has been empowered to supervise the general administration of the Area and make regulations for good governance. Such regulations may

(a)prohibit or restrict the transfer of land by or among members of the Scheduled Tribes in such Area;

(b)regulate the allotment of land to the members of the Scheduled Tribes in such Area;

(c)regulate the carrying on of business as money-lender by persons who lend money to members of the Scheduled Tribes in such Area.

The formation of the Tribal Advisory Committee (TAC) is an important component of the Fifth Schedule. The TAC is formed in every State of central India having Scheduled Areas. Besides, the President may direct formation of the TAC even in States having significant tribal population although there may not be any Scheduled Area. A TAC consists of not more than twenty members of whom as many as three-fourths shall be representatives of the STs in the Legis-lative Assembly of the State. Provided that if the number of representatives of the STs in the Legislative Assembly of the State is less than the number of seats in the TAC to be filled by such representatives, the remaining seats shall be filled by other members of those tribes. It shall be the duty of the TAC to advise on such matters pertaining to the welfare and advancement of the STs in the State as may be referred to them by the Governor.

Answer : Apart from terrorism, the most serious problem being faced by the Indian democracy is criminalization of politics. At times, the concern has been expressed against this obnoxious cancerous growth1 proving lethal to electoral politics in the country. Purity and sanctity of electoral process, sin qua non for a sound system of governance appears to have become a forgotten thing in view of the entry of a large number of criminals in the supreme legislative bodies at central and state level. Sri G.V.C Krishnamurthy, the election commissioner(as he then was) has pointed out that almost forty members facing criminal charges were the members of the Eleventh Lok Sabha and seven hundred members of similar background were in the state legislatures. Even the political parties out of the glamour of political power and consequent benefits do not hesitate in giving tickets to the criminals and do not object to their use in winning the elections. Thus, politicization of criminals needs to be checked by all means at disposal. This paper examines criminalization of politics and convictional disqualifications to restrict the entry of criminals in the elective system.

• The criminals help politicians in various ways. As a candidate, they win the seat. The intimidation of voters, proxy voting, booth capturing are the other devices which are carried on by them. In the first two general elections the situation was different but it changed and kept on changing with each subsequent general election and today it has become very grim threatening the very existence of the democratic polity in the country.
• The entry of criminals in election politics must be restricted at any cost. If it is not checked it, will erode the system totally. The dearth of talented persons in politics may collapse the country internallyas well as externally. A number of commissions and committees such as, the Law Commission of India, Election Commission, and Vohra Committee etc. have examined the issue of criminalization of politics but the menace is increasing day by day. The candidate should be asked to furnish detailed information in respect of civil and criminal matters against him on affidavit. And, if the information furnished make out a criminal case, he should be disqualified irrespective of the fact that he was not prosecuted and/or punished by a court of law. There is need of setting up special courts for trying the cases of criminalization of politics. Keeping in view the ever deteriorating standards of politics, it would be more desirable to try all cases of politicians by special courts. It will help maintain sanctity and purity of elections.

Answer : The National Commission for Women Act, 1990 constituted the NCW as a statutory body. The first NCW was constituted in 1992. The main functions include – safeguarding the rights of women, shedding the problems faced by woman and evaluating the status of Indian women.

• While addressing women - centric grievances, many a times a lot of overlap is seen between similar agencies like National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), National Commi-ssion for SCs, STs, etc. This further leads to confusion and shifting of responsibility. There should be clear demarcation. The departm-entalized linkages of NCW are seen limited on manpower (specialists) and infrastructure which further limits the grievance redressal.
• An important recommendation of Admin-istrative Reform Commission calls for combining the decentralized nodes of these human rights watchdogs and similar agencies so that, a strong decentralized arrangement could be provided with sufficient expertise. Another area of concern is shortage of specialists and less representation of civil society and stake-holders; this is an instructional challenge and should be dealt with effectively.
• Accountability of NCW is another area of concern, and at the same time they default on public disclosures like annual reports which need to be fixed. Accountability needs to shift form mere government to include citizens. Use of information technology can effectively lead to positive results in grievance redressal.

Answer : The Juvenile Justice (JJ) system is based on principles of promoting, protecting and safeguarding the rights of children. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 confers several rights on juveniles such as: Right to Survival; Right to Protection; Right to Development and Right to Participation.

Under the Act Juvenile Justice Boards have been set up in various districts by the State governments. Their purpose is to hold the inquiry in accordance with the provisions of the Act and make such order in relation to the juvenile as they deem fit.

The Act also provides for setting up of Child Welfare Committees and Children’s homes that shall take care of children in need of care and protection. Shelter homes are to be established to function as drop-in-centres for the children in the need of urgent support. The main purpose of a shelter home is restoration of and protection to a child deprived of his family. Also, the State Government or local authority may create a fund for the welfare and rehabilitation of the juvenile.

While such policies under the Act have a good intention, in reality they lack efficient implementation. Years after its introduction, many states have failed to incorporate the policies in their legislative apparatus or dispose the necessary measures to render the law. The infrastructure of the observation homes is often sub-standard and lacks a hygienic atmosphere. The home often provides clothes and food of low quality.

Another major problem is that the homes are mostly under-staffed and lack existence of trained counselors and psychiatrists. This in turn obstructs the proper reformation of a child based on his education, behaviour and crime committed.

Steps that needed to be initiated are as follow:

1. Ensure that effective interventions are available for multi-problem youth and their families before they encounter the juvenile justice system.
2. Reduce reliance on incarceration and other strategies that congregate juvenile offenders together. Instead, provide a full continuum of research-based, effective juvenile diversion options in the community as alternatives to incarceration.
3. Focus juvenile justice responses and interventions on individuals' actual risk factors for criminal behavior and their need, rather than the traditional approach of focusing simply on the crime committed.
4. Implement evidence-based rehabilitation and treatment practices for incarcerated youth, making sure that all youth involved in the juvenile justice system have access to evidence-based mental health and substance abuse treatment as needed, as well as to an appropriate public education. Support better and more effective family involvement by keeping incarcerated youth as close to home as possible.

Answer : Industrial revolution changes the nature of economic relation with not only East India Company but also with British government too. Although, the impact, occurred gradually, but it totally changed the nature of Indian agriculture. It destroyed the basic structure of Indian Agriculture.

• In the commercialization of Indian Agriculture, major crops were - Raw Silk, Cotton, and Pepper. Also India farmers were forced to grow specific crops like -Opium, -sugar cane, Tea, Indigo. Indian peasant lost their lands and become marginal farmers or wage laborers.
• Decline in food staple resulted in famines. The growth and export of commercial crops thus served to impoverish rather than to enrich India.
• With commercial agriculture a new set of dangers appeared. The crops were now going to distant markets. If the West Indian sugar crop was good, prices might fall in Calcutta, and the sugar factories in Azamgarh might pay the peasants less than they had promised, and maltreat them if 'they complained.

Answer : There is no doubt that Indian Constitution is the blue book for social empowerment. It would be amply clear by looking on to various parts of the constitution- preamble, directive principles, fundamental rights, special provisions for SCs and STs, protection of minorities, reservation of seats in the Parlia-mentary Elections, reservation of jobs in the government institutions, rules against exploitation of women, panchayati raj system, etc.

• The Preamble of our constitution at the outset makes a statement about the basic goals of our constitution like justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.
• Notwithstanding its non justiciable nature, the Directive Principles of State Policy as given in the constitution of India remain a guiding principle for the leaders and policy makers. DPSPs aim to create social and economic conditions under which the citizens can lead a good life. They also aim to establish social and economic democracy through a welfare state.
• The Directive Principles, though not justiciable, are fundamental in the governance of the country. It shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws. Besides, all executive agencies should also be guided by these principles. Even the judiciary has to keep them in mind in deciding cases. The State shall aim for securing right to an adequate means of livelihood for all citizens, both men and women as well as equal pay for equal work for both men and women.
• The State should work to prevent concentration of wealth and means of production in a few hands, and try to ensure that ownership and control of the material resources is distributed to best serve the common good. Child abuse and exploitation of workers should be prevented. Children should be allowed to develop in a healthy manner and should be protected against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment. The State shall provide free legal aid to ensure that equal opportunities for securing justice is ensured to all, and is not denied by reason of economic or other disabilities.
• The fundamental rights ensure that people enjoy all kinds of freedom as well as security against exploitation. People of India would not be discriminated against on the basis of caste, creed, religion and gender and they can freely pursue their faith, livelihood and business in any part of the country. They have the right to property and equality before law.
• The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. There is, however, provision of positive discrimination to help the weaker sections. The women would also be getting equal opportunities in all arenas of life, including right to franchise. It guarantees civil liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace and harmony as citizens of India. These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus.
• There is no doubt that Indian constitution if followed in true words and spirit is a blue book for social empowerment.

Answer : There is no doubt that one of the big reasons for increase in sexual abuse against women is their treatment in the market and media as a commodity and plaything that is meant for enjoyment and sensual pleasure. Women are one of the major ploys of advertisers. They are also considered major planks of entertainment. Their depiction in the market and media has a tendency to cross the limits of sensibility and decency.

• Competition between producers and need for promotion of their products needs advertisement. In advertisement women’s body is exposed deliberately to seek attention of the consumers. Women are allured by hefty payments to expose and show their nude bodies just to promote the products. Women are exposed even in case of the products, which have nothing to do with women.
• In media women are taken as a decorative presence either on the covers of the magazines or newspaper or a thing of entertainment, lots of unnecessary gossips about their personal lives, love affairs, marriages, breakdowns, permi-ssiveness, infidelity, etc. Their depiction on TV or in Cinema is for sensuous and sexual attraction. They are not treated as human beings but item/s (girls). Pornographic sites on the internet are highest earners. This all reflects a patriarchal mindset.
• Women become a commodity like any other commodity. Their body becomes marketing bait. They are paid for boldness, exposure, nudity and so on and so forth. This thrills and provokes the male society to cross the limits of decency and humanity. The uneducated males start believing that women are just beautiful bodies to be enjoyed. Even some of the educated people are swayed under the commodity and plaything kind of image of women created by the market and media.
• Market and media cannot be absolved of their role in inciting sexual abuse because they create attitude and mindset which fails to differentiate between women and other consumer goods that satisfy wants. The pollution of psychology regarding women among men and perception of successful women among women perpetuates this onslaught on dignity and freedom of women. Market and media are doing a great damage to social value system for their economic gains and viewership.

Answer : Though the Constitution of India guarantees equality of all citizens but the persons with disabilities have been in reality facing stigma, discrimination and neglect due to socio-psychological and cultural reasons.

• Though government runs many programmes for the disabled such as Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS), ADIP scheme, SIDPA (Scheme for Implementation of Persons with Disabilities), National scholarship schemes for students with disabilities, etc, much more needs to be done on both at legislative front as well as policy implementation to provide an environment of social acceptance to these people.
• To counter discrimination, the government must adopt a two pronged strategy incorp-orating—(i) service delivery and (ii) generation of public awareness about disability rights.
• Some substantial goals set for disability are: delineating clear cut responsibility between ministries/departments, ensure that each department shall reserve not less than 3% of their annual outlay for benefit of disabled, setup motion of mechanisms at various levels.
• Government has introduced the Right of Persons with Disability Bill which provides for better education, skill development, vocational training and self employment, such decisions seems to be positive initiative.

Measures need to be taken are:

1. Strengthening the institutional framework such as national and State-commissions for persons with disabilities as well as constituting central and state advisory boards for disability.
2. Health policies need to be realigned to suit their needs, insurance cover should reach them.
3. Motivating various employers within and outside government sector to employ the PwDs who can perform no of jobs like other employees.
4. Providing them with appropriate assistive device and appliances at low cost to increase their accessibility.
5. Including PwDs in the decision making process at various levels for better policy formulation.
6. Making all out efforts of comply with all the general principles contained in the UNCRPD.
7. Treaties like Marrakesh for the visually challenged need to be ratified and more such initiatives should provide relief to the disabled.

Answer : Retention of youth as a human capital forms on important part in the growth of any sector of our economy and so does it in agric-ulture.

There has been induction of modern techniques and mechanization in agriculture, but as a whole still the major component of productivity enhancement remains in the human endeavour, where the youth can majorly contribute.

Youth can be engaged in agriculture but majority of them have different choices to other sectors and areas due to the following major reasons:-

1. Low productivity and returns from the agricultural land that they own.
2. The poor youth who hardly own any land and work as informal workers elsewhere.
3. Urban lifestyle as well as better returns assured from industrial and services sector.
4. Decreasing size of land holding per person which further decreases productivity and diminishes returns.

Now, the government should constructively engage itself in young capital formation by taking major steps in agricultural sector:

1. Providing modern agricultural techniques to increase productivity so that more returns could be promised to migrating youth.
2. Agricultural reforms and land reforms, so that the youth can be engaged positively.
3. Opening up agri-centres, agri-universities, using IT to dispense information.
4. Building strong forward and backward linkages so that the youth have resources at their disposal and find a market for their produce.
5. Creation of robust infrastructure so that the base for agricultural activities is solid.
6. Skill development with respect to agricultural activities.
7. Inducing cooperative culture amongst youth.

However when a country develops, a certain percentage of youth will naturally migrate towards secondary and tertiary sectors which is a positive sign for the economy.

Answer : Communalism is a multi dimensional, complex, social phenomena. There are social, political, economic, cultural and religious factors which account for the genesis of communalism and communal violence. It has generally been seen that determining role in creating communalism is not played by religion but by non-religious forces. Seen in historical context, British imperialism used it as a divide and rule policy. The same has been continued by vested interests after independence using various factors. Some factors are discussed below:

A. Colonial Legacy

• British administration was interested more in exploitation of India and not in its welfare. Reaction to thiswas emergence and growth of nationalism posing a serious threat to contin-uation of colonial rule. It served the colonial administration to divide and rule. They, therefore,nurtured and promoted religious differences. They first projected social and cultural variations and then promoted political divisions by playing up rival social, economic and political claims of Hindus, Muslims, tribals and lower castes. The communal award, separate electorates, recog-nition of communal demands, etc., can be taken up as examples of this policy.
• Another factor was that the national lenders adopted the policy of bringing unity from above. Whenever there was a question of differences on certain issues concerning religion, only the top leaders, not necessarily representatives of communities were consulted. The national leaders thought that every community in India was homogeneous and well-knit and the communal leadership was the authentic spokesmen of the problems of the community.Masses were never taken into confidence. This method encouraged communal leaders to keep their communities in belligerent mood and make use of that to bargain their own positions. The real concern of these leaders was not welfare of their communitiesbut protection of their own vested power and political interests.
• As such, both the policies of British colonial administration and failure of national movement to counter that on a firm social and secular basis, helped consolidating communal forces. Most serious consequence of this was the partition of India and its aftermath in Independent India.

B. Communalism in Independent India

• At the time of independence, as a result of British colonial policies and other factors, there was an atmosphere of various religious, linguistic, caste and cultural groups having gone into narrow sectarian loyalties. In this situation, the partition of the country on religious basis and consequent violence had widened the communal situation.
• Various minorities were feeling a bit insecure and worried about their future position in independent India. The new government and the framers of the Constitution were very much concerned for unity and integrity of the country, sense of security to all its citizens, and maintenance of social harmony. Framers of the Constitution, therefore, rightly decided to establish India as a secular State. It meant respect for all religions and tolerance of all faiths, and State religion and support or favour to any religion by the State.

C. Socio-Economic Causes

• At the time of independence resources were limited and expectations were very high. In this situation planning was introduced to maintain a balanced development. But the planning could not achieve the desired goals as a whole. Soon, there emerged a competition for limited resources. In this competition the vested interests found an easy way to mobilize people on caste, communal and regional basis to demand better share. The propertied and ruling class found religion and religiosity most useful for reinforcing their hegemony, their ideological dominant people. Similarly, political parties and governments having failed to fulfill the expectations of people, used religion and tradition as diverting tactics.

D. Electoral Politics and Communalism

• Soon after independence, political parties and politicians rather than strengthening democratic traditions of competing on the basis of programmes and ideologies, started looking for easy ways of mobilizing voters.They found in religion and caste easy factors to strengthen their “vote banks”. The law in India does not debar political parties to be organized on the basis of caste or religion.The consequence of the above is that today, the marriage of politics and religion has led to the growing incidents of communal hatred.

Answer : The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) is a Multi-State Cooperative Society set up in 1987. It was created with the prime objective of providing marketing assistance and remunerative prices to Scheduled Tribe communities for their Minor Forest Produce (MFP) and Surplus Agricultural Produce (SAP) and to wean them away for exploitative private traders and middlemen and also to help its Member Societies in disposing of the stocks procured from tribals as per their mandate.

TRIFED undertakes the following four main activities under the scheme “Market Develo-pment of Tribal Products/Produce”-

(1)Retail Marketing Development Activity

(2)MFP Marketing Development Activity

(3)Vocational Training, Skill upgradation and Capacity Buildingof ST Artisans and MFP Gatherers.

(4)R&D/Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Activity.

TRIFED has taken a number of initiatives to promote tribal products. From a single sale outlet of TRIFED India in 1999 at Delhi now TRIFED has established 35 outlets of its own across India out of which 22 are its own and 13 outlets have been started on consignment basis in association with the State Level Organizations. TRIFED has been marketing tribal products through its own shops called ‘TRIBES India’ and through the outlets of State Emporia on consignment basis.

TRIFED undertook the following major projects/activities for the capacity-building of tribes.

• It trained the tribes with best practices of collection, drying, grading, storage and marketing of Mahuwa Flower for Mahuwa Flower Collectors in the State of Gujarat and Odisha.
• Tribal beneficiaries were provided Brood Lac for undertaking Lac Cultivation Activity in the State of Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
• Tribes in Malkangiri district of Odisha were trained with Dona Pattal making activity by using moulding machines.
• Tribes of Odisha and Sikkim were trained to develop and upgrade the skills to produce value added brooms based on market driven products for increasing their livelihood.
• TRIFED has sponsored a one year study for preparation of commodity profiles of 11 NTFPs and drawing up of their training modules to Tamilnadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore.
• TRIFED has undertaken training progra-mmes in 22 crafts for tribals in 17 states & 1 UT viz. Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

From the above initiatives undertaken by TRIFED a conclusion can be derived that role of TRIFED is extremely useful in the context of economic development of STs. Hence, the financial position of TRIFED is, therefore, required to be strengthened significantly. The Govt. of India may consider stepping up its investment in the share capital of the Federation.

Answer : Healthcare in India is a story of insufficient resources and poor outcomes. Investment is well below WHO guidelines in both qualitative and quantitative terms. Bed density is low (less than 1.5 beds per 1000 persons as compared to WHO guideline of 3.5), doctors few (less than 1.8 per 1000 as compared to WHO guideline of 2.5), and out of pocket spend high (86% as compared to an average of around 40% for low income countries). Rural India lags even further behind, with around 30% of the rural population having to travel over 30km for treatment.

• Significant inequality in access is worsened as the existing healthcare workforce is inadequate and under-utilised. With low salaries, insufficient incentives, lack of career growth, inadequate training and inconsistent policies, the majority of the medical workforce chooses not to practice in the formal sector. India’s regulatory system hardly keeps up with the very diverse set of medical practitioners.
• Meanwhile, infectious and chronic diseases continue to prevail. Health indicators continue to lag, healthcare spending is growing slower than GDP growth, out of pocket spending continues to be high, and infrastructure gaps remain substantial.
• Universal healthcare offers the one solution, by extending access to healthcare as widely as possible and providing quality care through minimum standards.
• In India government needs to play a stewardship role. By focusing on universal healthcare as a long term journey, with consensus on political backing and hard choices along with secured long term funding, universal coverage for good quality healthcare can be achieved. Patient interest can be kept as a primary focus by reforming such bodies as the National Rural Health Mission and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY).
• Private sector can help improve India’s healthcare infrastructure. But without faster accreditation, few private players will gain credibility, or raise standards, resulting in low customer satisfaction, longer hospital stays and poor governance. The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers needs to roll out incentives encouraging accreditation and make it a mandatory process.
• Public-private partnerships or build-operate-transfer or operations and maintenance contracting schemes can utilise private capital for provisioning healthcare services. With our growing population, the need for treatment of non-communicable and lifestyle diseases will increase, particularly in Tier 2 and 3 cities.
• Insurance coverage is also abysmal in India, with just around 25% of the population covered. To achieve universal access, a coverage ratio of around 75% needs to be targeted, with the remainder offered access through government payments via RSBY.
• Universal healthcare requires cheaper drugs. Capping drug prices has become contro-versial. But pharma firms are coming under pressure to lower drug prices across the world.

Answer : In recent times, there has been widespread debate on how education is the most effective means in impacting and re-orienting gender stereotypes and traditional gender roles; and on it’s role in changing traditional mindset in society.

Education certainly has the potential to play a key role in gender formation and change. Gender is a socially constructed and intersectional identity: it always intersects with social class, ethnicity and religion, culture, disability, sexuality, age etc. Education itself offers real opportunities to challenge gender stereotypes.

India accounts for 30% of the world’s total illiterate population and out of which 70% are women. As per 2011 Census data, women constitute 48% of the total population in India, with a total literacy rate of 53.7% as compared to 75.3% in males. The literacy rate among rural women is 46.1% as compared to 72.9% among urban women; which is still lower than literacy rates among than rural and urban men - that stands at 70.7% and 86.3% respectively.

Some of the broad constraints in educating a female are

• Access and retention in education
• Traditional Patriarchal Mindset and discrimination
• Undervaluation of female labour and stereotyping
• Sexual harassment and violence
• Reinforcement of gender discrimination in the present education system

To achive women-centric educational policy Government should focus on following issues:

• Compliance with the National Education Policy i.e. factors indicated on gender sensitivity be compulsorily implemented.
• Task force should be formed for change in syllabus to inculcate gender sensitivity and awareness of laws relating to the protection of women/human rights.
• Teacher’s education (D.Ed and B.Ed) text books should include textual material related to gender sensitivity.
• Gender/human rights training, should be imparted to teachers, concerned officials, staff, including education officials at the Block and District Education Offices, District Education and Training Institutes, supervisors and the members of SDMC.
• In the process of bringing about gender equality in an educational environment, the department of education should network and work in close contact with those institutions working on gender sensitive issues.
• Every school, including the ashram/madrasa and other centres of learning should have a counseling centre for adolescents.
• Infrastructure to be gender friendly

Answer : The practice of manual scavenging in India lives today in a milieu apparently antagonistic to its incidence as a country that has long been tagged the world's largest democracy having a progressive and protective constitution forming the fundamental law of superior obligation with an apex court performing the function of a sentinel on the qui vive and a system of laws intended to forbid and penalize acts of discrimination on the basis of caste.

Measures taken by government so far towards elimination of manual scavenging are: Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 -The Act does not prohibit dry latrines and manual scavenging in a direct fashion. It operates after State Government issues a notification fixing a date for enforcing the provisions prohibiting employment of manual scavengers and dry latrines in the specified area.

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 - it prohibits employment of individuals as manual scavengers by prescribing stringent punishment, including imprisonment up to five years and has provisions for rehabilitation of manual scavengers and their family members as well. Offences under the Act are cognisable and non-bailable and may be tried summarily. The broad objectives of the Act are to

(a)Eliminate- Insanitary latrines.

(b)Prohibit employment as Manual Scavengers and hazardous manual cleaning of sewer and septic tanks.

(c)Survey- Manual Scavengers and their rehabilitation.

Answer : India has traditionally been a rural, agrarian economy. Nearly three quarters of the population, currently 1.2 billion, still live in rural areas. However, India’s thriving economy is raising average income levels, driving rapid urbanization, creating an expanding middle class and increasing awareness of health insurance. More women are entering the workforce that further boosts the purchasing power of Indian households. However, nearly 400 million people in India live on less than 1.25 USD (PPP) per day and 44 per cent of all children are malnourished and the infant and women mortality rates are still unacceptably high despite earnest efforts by the government. There are considerable shortages of hospital beds and trained medical staff such as doctors and nurses, and as a result public accessibility is reduced. There is also a considerable rural-urban imbalance in which accessibility is significantly lower in rural compared to urban areas. Women are under-represented in the healthcare workforce.

• The Eleventh Plan sought to correct this imbalance by raising the share of Public Expenditure on Health (both Plan and non-Plan) in the Centre and States taken together from less than 1.0 per cent of GDP in 2006-07 to 2.0 to 3.0 per cent of GDP to be achieved over a period of time. The National Rural Health Mission launched in 2005 aimed at strengthening the healthcare infrastructure in rural areas, providing sub centres, primary health centres, community health centres, etc. The Plan also set seven measurable targets, reflecting the health status to be achieved by the end of the Plan period. These targets related to (i) Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), (ii) Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR), (iii) Total Fertility Rate (TFR), (iv) under-nutrition among children, (v) anaemia among women and girls, etc.
• Further, the Twelfth Plan must break the vicious cycle of multiple deprivations faced by girls and women because of gender discrimination and under-nutrition. This cycle is epitomised by continued deterioration in the sex ratio in the 0-6 year age group, revealed by the Census 2011; by high maternal and child mortality and morbidity, and by the fact that every third woman in India is undernourished (35.6 per cent have low Body Mass Index) and every second woman is anaemic (55.3 per cent). Ending gender based inequalities, discrimination and violence faced by girls and women must be accorded the highest priority and these needs to be done in several ways such as achievement of optimal learning outcomes in primary education, interventions for reducing under-nutrition and anaemia, and promoting menstrual hygiene in adolescent girls and providing maternity support. Also certain essential interventions outside the commonly understood ‘area of health’ need to be made, such as provision of sanitation facilities, including construction of toilets with water facility in schools, higher education opportunities and subsequent linkages to skill development. The effort to promote women’s health cannot be without participation of men; hence, imaginative programs to draw men into taking part in their health seeking behaviour and practices must be devised.

Answer : As poignant as economic impove-rishment and marginalization, are social disab-ilities arising on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. The Constitution of India envisions an egalitarian society and assures in its preamble social, economic and political justice and equality of status and of opportunity. The most potent fundamental right to equality is the fountain head from which principles of reservation for the underprivileged and the backward class spring. The Constitution therefore expressly provides that special provisions for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes shall not be considered as offending the equality principle. It is a reminder of the social and economic inequalities that fester our society and the conscious efforts needed to eradicate the scourge. The Directive Principles of State Policy set out an agenda to strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of the national life. Economic upliftment comes essentially through guarant-eeing an adequate share of participation and selection, with relaxation in criteria especially as regards age, educational qualification are important objectives realized through reservations. Significantly, it shall not be merely at the entry level into public employment but also in matters of promotion with consequential seniority to any class or classes of posts, which in the opinion of the State are not adequately represented. Unfilled vacancies in a year which are reserved for being filled up in that year may be filled by in any succeeding year or years without clubbing with the vacancies of the year in which they are being filled up.

• With the object of promoting educational and economic interests of backward classes and removing social disabilities attached to them and in order to bring them at par with the rest of the communities, the Constitution of India prescribes protection and safeguard for them. Within the constitutional framework, the Government stands committed to the welfare and development of its people in general and hitherto deprived sections in particular. The Preamble, Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles of the State Policy and various other Articles of the Constitution stand testimony to the commitment of the State. The State can do so either by way of affirmative action or preferential treatment, i.e. reservation, which seeks to offset systematic and cumulative deprivation. Such preferential treatment is available to ensure a share of power and opportunity to the historically disadvantaged to promote their advancement until they can hold on their own without it. Special provisions of affirmative action and preferential treatment incorporated in the Constitution may be classified into three major categories – Protective, Political and Developmental. So for as protective provisions are concerned, Articles 15(4) and 29 provide for reservation of seats for admission in educational institutions. Reservation of posts in government services is made under Articles 16(4), 320(4) and 335. Under the political provisions, Articles 330 and 332 provide for reservation in Parliament and State legislatures.
• With a view to fulfilling the constitutional obligations towards development, a number of development programmes have been designed and implemented by the government. All these are oriented towards providing social justice and empowerment to hitherto deprived and marginalized sections of the society viz. SCs, STs and OBCs The responsibility of implementing the schemes of reservation is shared by the Central and State governments. The Central Government is responsible for formulating the related policies and programmes besides coordinating and promoting implementation by the States. In order to ensure equal social status to the SCs, STs and OBCs, the Union and the States’ Governments have implemented the recommendations of various Commissions and Committees appointed for faming of reservation policies.

Answer : The cultural interpretation of women’s work is not socially well recognized, thus women became victim of economic agency of their own. Homemakers worked longer hour in their household work but they remain invisible in terms of economic recognition. Homemakers’ household work treated as unpaid and non economic work and which has no relation to per capita income. Revaluing household work time can make homemakers contribution visible in national economy as well as GDP. Greater recognition is being afforded to the household economy at the international and national levels in social policy and even within standard economics. For this, huge amount of population are staying outside of direct production process and their contribution is not valued in the GDP. It accounts the wastage of human resource. The recognition of homemaker’s contribution should be important and consider them as active participants of national economy to ensure women’s development as well as their empowerment. Revaluing household work time can make homemakers contribution visible in national economy as well as GDP.

• In families, income earning is usually the responsibility of males, while the remaining family members usually women and children are economically dependent. Women have no choice but to live in this dependent due to their educa-tional levels, the resultant lack of available emplo-yment opportunities, and a lack of social accep-tance of women earning a living. This problem is, perhaps surprisingly, particularly acute for lower middle class women. Women’s contribution to development is seriously underestimated, and thus its social recognition is limited. The full visibility of the type, extent and distribution of this unremunerated work will also contribute to a better sharing of responsibilities. We need to recognize that women’s household activities constitute important work; they do not grasp the extent of its economic value. Yet the value of unpaid household work performed by housewives is approximately US$69.8 to $91 billion per year, depending on the economic value assigned to the tasks women perform daily. There has been virtually no conceptual disagreement with the inclusion of household work time value in GDP, because it has a connection to our production. But the problem is that it’s terribly difficult to measure. To add their household work in GDP, we can value their household work time by opportunity cost approach. And it helps to ensure fulltime housewives get economic recognition as well as their empowerment.

Answer : India is in dire need of policy innovations to include into the development mainstream the lower castes, tribals and Muslim peoples. Social inclusion has been attempted through a policy of reservation, which has failed to uplift the minorities.

• Reservation has not led to particiaption. Reservation has not made any dent on the lives of the ultra-poor who happen to be these minorities. On the contrary, it has enshrined casteism constituionally and politically — something that was to have been outlawed once in for all. What was to be a transitional policy for ten years has lasted, in India, for nearly 50 years. More is being asked for by all to defeat its real purpose, namely to end social segregation through the practice of untouchability, and to provide access to public places like wells, schools, offices and temples to lower caste people.
• Reservation has compromised the principle of merit and competition to the detriment of quality and efficiency in the delivery of public service. It has led to unprecedented political patronage of the leadership of the poor, and to acts of extreme populism to manipulate electoral results. So pervasive has this mentality for quotas become in India that now even the upper castes are demanding reservation for reasons of their poverty – not backwardness— for access to public jobs, educational seats and appointments to political office. Now Muslim and Christian minorities too are demanding quotas on the principle of equity and equality before the law.
• Reservation does not provide social mobility, only social inclusion for those politically privileged amongst the SC. What began as means of granting favours to chosen sections of the public in British India’s broader policy of divide and rule has now created a Pandora’s Box of conflict, confusion and compromise over its purpose and objectives, and over its nature and scope. The widening of the social net of reservation to all backward communities (which India’s Mandal Commission estimated to be 52% of its population) to the extent of 49% of all governmental jobs and places in educational institutions have led to violent reaction by the forward castes that is unprecedented in the history of caste relations in India.