Society

Answer : Mahatma Gandhi entered National Movement with some ideals and techniques which he developed in South Africa and used during India’s freedom struggle. He never compromised on his ideals, thoughts and principles. He even handled pressure of his fellow men and faced death but never gave away his ideals which are very much relevant even today.

TRUTH: He called ‘Truth’ as God and always adhered to it - (My Experiment with Truth).

Relevance: Politicians makes big promises to voters during election but forget when they come to power. So, they need to be responsible for their statements and speak truth for a true democracy in practice.

SATYAGRAHA: It means to request for truth. Gandhiji used this weapon against his opponents by requesting them to fulfill demands.

Relevance: Today people have forgotten this and they try to pressurize or threaten to make their demands fulfilled like-Boycott of elections in J&K.

NON-VIOLENCE: He used to believe in non-violence to fight his war but his non-violence was not of cowardice. When Britishers manhandled women during a protest and men didn’t do anything to protect them, Gandhiji told them that, to save honor of women they could have taken even violence. He never compromised and in spite of intense pressure from fellow workers, took back Non-Cooperation movement when Chauri-Chaura incident happened in UP.

Relevance: Today, we can see everywhere violent clashes destroying public property and deaths, etc. as during Sardar Patel Andolan, Farmer protest, etc. where non-violence could be practiced to place demand before authorities, without destroying state properties.

SECULARISM: He used to believe in unity of all religion and always opposed partition of India and Pakistan. He travelled in riot areas to calm the situation despite threat to his life.

Relevance: When instances of hate speech, communal violence have increased, there is need to put Gandhiji ‘Secularism’ as an ideal to follow.

FASTING: To win hearts of opponents by injuring and putting pain on you, which will force them to change their heart and have sympathy towards others.

Relevance: Today, groups and individuals put demand by boycotting work or indulging in violence but very less people do fasting for the same.

When world is falling apart by violence, terrorism, protectionism, racism, etc. it is apparent to look for ideals preached and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi to secure a peaceful and tolerant world.

Answer : In Indian context, communalism is ignorance which provokes disrespect towards religious faith of people who migrated to Sub-continent (disrespect to time). Communalism is basically an ideology which consists of three elements:-

• A belief that people who follow the same religion have common secular interests i.e. they have same political, economic and social interests. So, here socio- political communalities arises.
• A notion that, in a multi-religious society like India these common secular interests of one religion are dissimilar and divergent from the interests of the follower of another religion.
• The interests of the follower of the different religion or of different ‘communities’ are seen to be completely incompatible, antagonist and hostile.

A Historical Background of Growth of Communalism

• Growth of communalism is ancient, initiated during Delhi Sultanate. But, British Policy of “Divide and Rule” added political and economic flavour to it.
• Rise of socio-religious movements in 19th century changed the thinking of people, that, “By religion they can achieve political freedom. Formation of INC was on secular lines, but Sir Syed Ahmed Khan refused to join it because of leverages British wished to give AMU.
• During Swadeshi Movement, British pressurize Nawab of Daka to help crush movement, Nawab saw his power and rights on his subjects will increase if Bengal was partitioned, he supported British, but ultimately Hindu-Muslim unity won.
• Rise of Muslim League in 1907, provided a communal legislation – Morley-Minto reform 1909. This Act was root cause of partition.
• During Khilafat Movement, Congress accepted different electorate for Muslims. This step paved a way for rise of separatism.
• The Akali Movement also gave rise to communalism in Punjab.

Communalism can also be a consequence of relative deprivation as deprivation makes groups to fight for limited resources. For example, in case of Assamese and non-Assamese, deprivation of the native groups led to movements throughout the state.

Deprivation makes it easier to influence a group. Rather than self-introspect they blame others for their condition. It causes them to support anyone who can help them marginally move above their misery.

According to former Vice President of India H. Ansari, relative deprivation towards Muslims is the biggest causes of communal tensions.

Long-Term Remedy for Communalism

There is a need to initiate the process of de-communalization of the people at all levels, say, by exposing communal assumptions, by explaining to them the socio-economic and political roots of communalism, and by letting them know that what the communalists project as problems are not the real problem and what they suggest as remedies are not the real remedies.

Communalism of state and of the political elite in power has to be checked because it leads to inaction against communal violence and covert or overt political and ideological support to communalism by the state apparatuses, including the media under state control.

The ideology that economic development, industrialization, the growth of capitalism and the growth of the working class would automatically weaken and ultimately eliminate communalism should not be overplayed.

Answer : Globalization refers to the increased interconnectedness due to technological advancements leading to shrinking of time and space and flattening of the world. Though thought of as an economic phenomenon, it is now accepted to impact all spheres of life – political, social and cultural.

In its initial days, globalization was equated with westernization or Americanization which meant that the culture of the West was spreading across the globe. One could travel to New York and New Delhi and find them to be similar in almost all spheres including culture. Thus, globalisation was supposed to have a homogenizing tendency.

However, the relationship between globalisation and culture is a complex one. Globalisation has not been able to replace old existing cultures. Instead, evidence suggests that globalisation has strengthened them and even modified them.

• Indian cuisines traveling to the west. Indian food restaurants are now available all around the world. Indian curries and masalas have also become a part of our soft power diplomacy.
• Ancient Indian practices like yoga and Ayurveda being adopted around the globe. People are now looking for the most authentic experience.
• With the advent of e-commerce, global value chains and internet, local arts and crafts are famous across the globe. Top hotels of the world are buying hand-woven Indian designs sourced from traditional communities. Ikkat, block painting, etc. designs are gaining popularity world over.
• Traditional Indian forms of music and communities like the Manganiars are being studied in the Berkeley School of Music.
• Contemporary cinema, Bollywood has increased its fan following across the globe.

At the same time, local cultures are modifying western cultures. McDonalds serving a menu catering to Indian taste buds is a case in point. This phenomenon has been termed as ‘glocalization. Thus, it can be seen that the relationship between globalisation and culture is complex with each impacting the other. The above examples indeed prove that cultural specificities appear to be strengthened in the Indian society.

Answer : Women’s movement in India has a long and chequered history and it has to its credit several successes like

• Abolition of inhuman practices like Sati and Child marriage by pioneering women’s activists like Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.
• Beginning of women’s education by pioneers like Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, Ishwar Chandra and others.
• Representation of women in political field, led by women leaders like Annie Besant and Sarojini Naidu, both former presidents of Congress.
• Formation of women’s organisations in the social sphere and percolation of principles like feminism into the body politic.

However, the aspirations of women of lower strata is said to have been inadequately addressed because

• Most of the women’s organisations catered only to rich, upper caste women.
• Women political leaders were the exception and not the norm and women were barely allowed positions of power, responsibility and promotion in political life.
• Women’s issues were looked at with the lens of caste, community and religion.
• Many of the issues of lower strata women were not solved by women’s movements including female infanticide, sexual assault and harassment, dowry and even Sati, which was made famous in the Roop Kanwar case in Rajasthan.

However, the women’s movement has brought about some positive changes as well in addressing the issues of women of lower social strata like

• The special treatment given to women in the Constitution, including equal voting rights was a product of women’s movement especially the pressure built up after women were granted separate representation by the British.
• Issues of women’s rights have been a part of agenda of various women’s movements and have led to passage of far reaching laws in post independent India like IPC for prevention of dowry (498A) and PCPNDT (Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Test).
• Women’s movements have also played a part in protecting tribal and vulnerable women for example in the Chipko movement of the 1970s and 80s which sought to protect the forest dependent women in the Kumaon hills.
• More recently, women’s movements have benefitted most vulnerable women by highlighting cases of sexual assault, modification of the adultery law (sec 497), raising issues like sanitation and female genital mutilation and reproductive health as well as women’s rights to pray at par with men.

Though there are many issues which are yet to be addressed, women’s movement in India has come a long way in ensuring that the poorest and most vulnerable sections of women to get their due in the struggle for justice, equality and women’s emancipation.

Answer : The ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ programme aims to transform these districts quickly and effectively.

The broad contours of the programme are Convergence (of Central & State Schemes), Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari’ Officers & District Collectors), and Competition among districts driven by a mass Movement. With States as the main drivers, this program will focus on the strength of each district, identify low-hanging fruits for immediate improvement, measure progress, and rank districts.

This program focuses closely on improving people’s ability to participate fully in the burgeoning economy. Health & Nutrition, Education, Agriculture & Water Resources, Financial Inclusion & Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure are this programme’s core areas of focus. After several rounds of consultations with various stakeholders, 49 key performance indicators have been chosen to measure progress of the districts.

NITI Aayog in partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh has created a dashboard for monitoring the real-time progress of the districts. District Information Officers underwent training on March 23, 2018 on how to enter data to the dashboard and generate MIS (Management Information System) reports. On April 1, 2018 districts will start entering data. Beginning May 2018, districts will be ranked based on progress made (‘delta ranking’) on a real-time basis. The dashboard will be open to the public to monitor the progress of the aspirational districts.

Using this novel scheme, target areas can not only be developed holistically, but could also be measured up to state and national level benchmarks. In addition, it improves the dovetailing of various government schemes and their associated funds for a common purpose, which is the development of all sections of the community within a transparent and open framework which ensures both efficiency and integrity of the scheme.

Answer : Caste system has been integral to Indian society. The institution of caste involves restrictions on feeding and social interaction, specially the sharing of food. These rules are governed by ideas of purity and pollution.

Following from the principles of hierarchy and restricted social interaction, caste also involves differential rights and duties for different castes and civil and religious disabilities and privileges.

The fight to undo the historic injustice inflicted upon the lower castes in India has continued for centuries. However, post-independence, many steps were taken to address the prevalent discrimination:

• Constitution provides Fundamental Rights giving right to equality, prohibition against discrimination, abolition of untouchability, etc. to individuals, while allowing the state to take affirmative action for social welfare and reform by reservation in govt. jobs and education.
• Land reforms helped in land redistribution, among the lower castes, thus reducing forced labor and exploitation especially in Kerala and WB.
• Introduction of Mandal Commission recommendations gave the lower castes especially OBCs education and employment opportunities and a new political assertive identity and many caste groups came to power especially in North India.
• The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 an Act of the Parliament of India enacted to prevent atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
• Implementation of Panchayati Raj System has empowered the lower castes and increased their decision-making power as well as participation in democracy.

The younger generation is more acceptable towards working, studying, playing, cooperating, and employing people from other castes. The growth of services sector which is a social leveler has compelled people to depend on people from different castes and religion for services.

Despite all the efforts caste system has been changing and exists in various forms:

• Inequality in terms of access to schooling/education and health leads to perpetual poverty and disempowerment of the disadvantaged sections.
• Ghettoization/residential segregation, especially of SCs/STs results in less social intercourse and thus, weakens social cohesion.
• Unequal access to basic amenities (water, sanitation) gives way to substandard life.
• Unequal income levels and wealth in longer term fuel social tension which if left unchecked, may threaten social and political stability of the country.
• Caste-consciousness of the members has been increasing. Every caste wants to safeguard its interests. For fulfilling the purpose castes are getting themselves organized on the model of labor unions.
• Attempts are also made to increase caste integration through the establishment of caste-based trusts and trust-units. These trusts arrange annual gatherings, get-togethers, annual dinners, occasional festival celebrations and they provide shelter to the needy members of the caste. They offer scholarships to the poor students of the caste.
• The occupational castes are making determined efforts to improve the economic conditions of caste members by establishing cooperative credit and industrial societies.
• Caste organizations collect regular subscription from the members, arrange annual conferences, discuss matters and issues affecting caste interests and caste solidarity and organize agitations and protest meetings against the governmental policies if they were to damage caste interests. In states like Bihar, some upper and lower castes have formed their own ‘sena’ (militant groups) to protect their interests.
• Khap-panchyat imposes its writ through social boycotts and fines and in most cases end up either killing or forcing the victims to commit suicide. All this is done in the name of brotherhood and its honor. It is due to the inherent weakness of democratically elected Panchayati Raj institutions, Khap panchayats have been powerful.
• Caste based politics especially in U.P and Bihar is also a consequence.

How Casteism can be removed?

• Emotional and intellectual appeal to economic determinism, as was advocated by Karl Marx. This could counter casteism amongst the poor people.
• Awareness about Constitutional values, ethics, ill effects of casteism, etc. by debates, nukkad natak, puppetry, etc.
• Promote and incentivize inter-caste marriages as is already done for marrying a SC/ST woman in some parts of India.
• Evaluate the existing customs, rituals, etc. on the touchstone of Human Rights. Here judiciary can play a positive role but with due respect to religious feelings.
• Awareness about steps and ideas already existing like Ambedakar’s Annihilation of caste, Lohia’s Beti and Roti, etc. This will also help in shaping mass opinion.
• Implement laws and agreements like ICCPR, Protection of human rights, Prevention of atrocities against SC/ST, etc. with full letter and spirit.
• Dalit capitalism, check on extra judicial bodies like Khaps, etc.
• Economic empowerment of Dalit through education and ownership of land and capital.

Answer : India dreams to develop into a superpower but a third of the world’s poor still lives here. India is one of the fastest developing economies in the world but also home to the largest number of malnourished children. Majority of India lives in villages and at the same time rural India is facing the hardship of poverty much harder than urban India.

Reasons why India is still a Poor Country

• Corruption: India, if not completely but is almost synonymous with the word corruption. Numerous scams in the recent years explain the saga of corruption. Almost all the government departments are affected from it. Corruption is regarded as one of the biggest reasons of poverty in India. Corruption in the Public Distribution System (PDS) is the worst of its kind.
• Economic Policies: It is believed that economic reforms started in early 1990s are responsible for the down fall of rural economy in India. It also led to the agrarian crisis. Because of high debt, poor farmers are left with no other choice than to commit suicide.
• Mismanagement and Faulty Development Model: Much of the funds raised or allocated to the anti-poverty schemes are consumed in administrative cost. So, the entire chain that is formed to help the poor does not allow this to happen.
• High Population Growth Rate: Ever increasing population is not a direct cause of poverty but it is an effect.
• Ever Increasing Economic Inequality: India’s growth model for sure has benefitted the businessmen but failed when we see that near about 213 million Indians go hungry every night. Rights of organized as well as unorganized workers are being violated. According to Oxfam report, one percent of Indians own 58% of country’s wealth.
• Lack of Small-Scale Sectors: Majority of economic policies and reforms are not friendly towards small scale industries. So, these policies are making and creating bureaucrats but suppressing entrepreneurs.
• Insurgency and Violence: These issues in LWE Areas, North East and Jammu Kashmir hinder development in terms of roads, hospitals, schools, business opportunities and good governance as these areas lack security against anti-social elements.
• Social Reasons: The issues like communalism, gender discrimination, caste discrimination and apathy towards poor among people also become hurdles in eliminating poverty and empowering citizens.

Thus, it can be said that India needs multi-pronged strategy encompassing political will along with economic and social reforms favoring poor.

Answer : The term Secularism has different connotations in India and West. The concept of Secularism has evolved differently in these societies.

Secularism is one of the core principles of Indian Constitution and is highlighted by Articles 25 to 28. Indian Secularism over a period has demonstrated equality and democracy as part of secularism and is based on equal treatment to all religions as ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhava’. Whereas, in the West, secularism is defined as: not allowing religion into public space.

The protection of minority religions by state, organizing peaceful processions like during ‘Ram Navami, ‘Pir’, etc. providing holidays on major religious festivals of all religions, providing reservations to weaker sections which include religious minorities, allowing to establish, administer and develop educational and religious institutions of minority religions, etc. are examples of state intervention in religion.

India is an old civilization with inherent secularism that absorbed many cultures over the years and this ability helped in its continuing till today as a vibrant one and is responsible for the emergence of equality of religions concept instead of western secularism concept which is very recent one - emerged post-Westphalia treaty.

Religion is a private affair in West and states do not sponsor religious processions like in India. It is harmony that is behind Indian concept of secularism and is a must for a diversified culture and for peaceful society.

The recent incidents like Charlie Hebdo attacks, many Muslims from UK, France, etc. joining the Islamic State shows their feeling of alienation, discrimination, lack of opportunities compared to majority that is making them to take extreme steps.

India with second most Muslim population has shown much resilience in restraining from such IS activities and is a perfect example that Indian secularism is much more than mere religious aspect but peace, harmony, unity in diversity which is eternal and inevitable for the world in modern day.

• Scheduled Tribes (STs) are various officially designated groups of historically disadvantaged people in India.
• The terms are recognised in the Constitution of India (Article 366 and Article 342) and the various groups are designated in one or other of the categories.

The following are the two main initiatives by the State addressing discrimination against Scheduled Tribe population in India:

1. Schedule Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006
2. Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015

Schedule Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006

• It is a key piece of forest legislation passed.
• It has also been called the Forest Rights Act, the Tribal Rights Act, the Tribal Bill, and the Tribal Land Act.
• The law concerns the rights of forest-dwelling communities to land and other resources, denied to them over decades as a result of the continuance of colonial forest laws in India.
• There are many Rights given to the Schedule Tribes through this Act. These include: Title rights, Use Rights, Relief and Development Rights, Forest Management Rights

Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015

• The Parliament amended the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 to tighten provisions to ensure speedier justice to SCs and STs.
• The new provisions now provide for an increase in the existing quantum of relief from between Rs. 75,000 to Rs. 7,50,000 to Rs. 85,000 to Rs. 8,25,000, depending on the nature of the offence.
• It also provides for admissible relief to SC/ST women for offences of grievous nature, on conclusion of trial, even though they may not have ended in conviction.
• Other important provisions include completing investigation and filing a charge sheet within 60 days and provision of admissible relief in cash or kind or both within seven days to victims, their family members and dependents. For the first time, there is provision of relief for rape and gang rape.
• No medical examination will be necessary to seek relief for non-invasive offences against women such as sexual harassment, gestures or acts intended to insult the modesty of women.

Answer : Tolerance means the disposition to tolerate or allow the existence of beliefs, practices or habits differing from one’s own. Indian society promotes the idea of ‘Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam’. Tolerance promotes love and it is rightly said that tolerance had been the basic feature of Indian society.

The statement, “Indian society is tolerant”, may be analysed as follows:

• Most Indians are tolerant persons.
• All Indians, irrespective of caste, color, creed, or sex, have equal rights, duties and opportunities both in theory and in fact, though the ideal may not be perfectly realized due to human limitations.
• The word “kshama” which has been used in the Gita and other works means endurance while the derivative “sahanashilata” means the trait or character of endurance.
• The word “kshama” as used in modern Hindi means forgiveness.
• The expression “sarva-dharma-samana-bhava” has been coined in some quarters for secularism in the highest sense.
• Toleranceis a wider concept than “equal respect for all religions”, since tolerance applies to much that is not religion, say, art, literature, manners, morals, and taste, etcetera, or even opposed to religion, like Marxism, Freudian psycho-analysis, and Nihilism, etc.
• The Jaina doctrine of Anekanta-vada and the Hindu approaches of Adhikara and Ista-devata capture the spirit of tolerating plural truth-claims in all walks of life.
• Indian history does not point to any massacres, forcible mass migrations, religious bans, forced conversions.
• The movements of reform or spiritual renewal, like Jainism and Buddhism, which were roughly contemporaneous, were based on free exchange of ideas and challenging the authority of the Vedas.
• It is significant that this challenge was made in the name of reason, the right of free enquiry and the ethic of large-hearted tolerance, and further that this challenge was met by the Vedic orthodoxy, not by the sword, but by the pen.
• The vast cultural diversity of India in the form of different languages, religions, cults, laws, marriage and inheritance customs, manners, food habits, all testify to, and are explainable only on the basis of, a widespread tolerance rooted in the concepts of Anekanta-vada, Adhikara, Ista-devata or Ista-marga.
• In the same way, when we see in medieval India apart from few cases the society largely remained tolerant and people lived together in love and brotherhood. There are also examples of rulers like Akbar promoting Ibadat Khana and Tipu Sultan giving support to Sringeri Temple.

Relevance of Tolerance and Love in Indian Society in present times

• The Constitution and the Government are perfectly secular which gives liberty to all Indians to possess their faith and belief. India is a multi-diverse society promoting pluralism all the time.
• Presence of Civil Society organisation to such a large extent which feel no fear in criticising the wrong policies of Government and also the tolerant attitude of Government in promoting their participation.
• Terrorist organisations like ISIS failed to gain foothold in our country due to the reasons of tolerant attitude of Indian society cutting across all the lines of different religions.
• Issues like Nirbhaya case against gangrape or ‘Not in My Name’ campaign against cow vigilantism had attained participation of different people irrespective of religion and diversity. It shows that people criticise vociferously any intolerant attitude.
• Although we have many communal organisations that have the propensity to promote animosity and intolerance but they never gain the acceptance of people.
• Largely, the national political parties promote tolerance and love as their political agenda to avoid non-acceptance by the society.

Hence, we could see that how tolerance and love is binding the Indian Society together against the turbulence of Religious Fundamentalism and Communalism and this process should go on if we are aspiring to have a unity and integrity of the Nation.

• The period of nineteenth century is also called the period of renaissance which encouraged societal reformation. Among various issues that were raised, women issues attracted the most significance.
• By nineteenth century there were several evil social practices like Sati (burning of widow on the funeral pyre of her husband), child marriage, ban on widow remarriage, polygamy, etc. Which were a matter of debate.
• During the British rule, the spread of English education and Western liberal ideology among Indians and spread of Christianity and missionary activities, resulted in a number of movements for social change and religious reform in the nineteenth century.

The broad objectives of these movements were:

• Caste reform
• Improvement in the status of women
• Promoting women’s education
• Attack on social practices whose roots lay in social and legal inequalities

In the earlier phase of the social reform movement during nineteenth century, the initiatives came largely from male reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy. The issues that were taken up by them were:

• Sati
• Ill treatment of widows
• Ban on widow remarriage
• Polygyny
• Child marriage
• Denial of property rights to women
• Need to educate women
• The Brahmo Samaj attempted to remove restrictions and prejudices against women, which had their roots in religion.
• These included child marriage, polygyny, limited rights to inherit property and seclusion of women. Education of women was seen as the major instrument to improve women’s position.
• Keshab Chadra Sen stressed the need for educating women at home and government support was sought for this purpose.
• The radicals like Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Jyotirao Phule and Lokhitvadi Gopal Hari Deshmukh attacked the caste system, which they said was responsible for the subjugation of women.
• Similar movements began, within the Islamic community in the late nineteenth century.
• People like Begum of Bhopal, Syed Ahmad Khan and Sheikh Abdullah in Aligarh and Karmat Hussain in Lucknow spearheaded a movement to improve women’s education.

Answer : Religiousness / Religiosity

• Religiosity can mean “piety” or “the state of being religious”
• The propensity of the people towards certain religions may be called as Religiousness. Religion binds the people of similar faith together
• It promotes a proper social order and harmony through preaching certain values like compassion, love, tolerance, etc.

As a practise it was thought that religion would be limited to personal affairs but due to its interaction with politics and victimisation of people in the name of religion, Religiousness has taken the shape of Communalism.

The difference between Religiousness and Communalism are as follows:

Religiousness

• Practising what is good in faith
• It promotes love tolerance and compassion
• Religiousness appreciates the idea of liberty and is the essence of all faiths invented by men
• Religiousness makes one social and a responsible citizen of the country promoting the ideals of Liberty and Secularism

Communalism

• Practising what separates and creates hatred with others
• It promotes animosity and self-centred parochialism
• Communalism promotes conservatism and is the absence of acceptance of the beliefs of other religions.
• Communalism makes one anti-social and goes against the idea of Common brotherhood and mutual harmony.

One Example

• Hindus have always appreciated tolerance, patience and calmness of the cow. Thus, cows stood for the goodness of Hindu religion and considered a representative of Dharma. Also, a cow’s affection to its calf is a beautiful thing and Vedas greatly appreciated this bonding.
• Although there were few allegations against certain organisations like Arya Samaj for communalisation of Cow but this was never being a dominant pattern.
• But these days Cows have become a symbol of communalism with many people especially minorities like Muslims and Dalits have been targeted and killed on the suspect of carrying cow meat.

Answer : How it opened the avenues of Employment?

• IT industry provides huge employment in the fields of information generation and processing that turns out to be the boon for the young educated minds taking qualitative education from colleges and universities.
• Information technology hubs help in the generation of better economic activity and also the standard of living which helps in the development of other ancillary industries like consumer goods which promotes employment in these areas.
• People are not only able to get the employment but also a qualitative work with better earning facilities not only within countries but also moving abroad and earning huge amount of money like the example of TCS or INFOSYS etc.
• Huge employment opportunities in the IT sector also promote the requirement of more engineers or managers for which need of more colleges and universities become pertinent, which promotes the requirement of qualified teachers and faculties.

How it promotes other challenges

• The IT hubs have become overcrowded creating slum like conditions and thereby creating challenges for the urban local bodies to provide public services.
• Other governance problems also emerge like transportation services, efficient sewage and water facilities.
• There had also been the issue of regionalism where the local people start opposing the entrance of other state people.
• IT sector jobs are skill specific that require high level knowledge which is not in abundance in our country.
• There is also the issue of intra- regional inequality within the cities which creates a dichotomy between urban sub-centres and other peripheral areas.
• The new challenges like disaster management as in the case of urban flooding in Chennai and women safety are emerging particularly in IT hubs.

Conclusion

Hence, we could see that IT hubs have the propensity to go in either ways which could be both useful as well as challenging for cities. The aim of the government should be to promote a balanced urbanisation so that the real purpose of the cities as the sustainable engines of growth could be achieved.

• Explain why it is necessary to liberate poor from deprivation to eradicate poverty.
• Give examples supporting the statement.

The notion of poverty has undergone significant changes in recent years. These have been due to the constraints and insufficiencies of a notion based solely on income terms. The uni-dimensional approach estimates poverty from an indicator of the household’s economic capacity, such as family income adjusted by equivalence scales, and a threshold defined as a percentage of average or median income. The generalized dissatisfaction produced by the use of strictly income-based criteria has given rise to the development of new approaches and measurement procedures that are based on a multidimensional deprivation view of poverty.

Measures of deprivation are not the same as measures of income – they relate to how people live. Deprivation is the consequence of a lack of income and other resources, which cumulatively can be seen as living in poverty. The relative deprivation approach to poverty examines the indicators of deprivation, which are then related back to income levels and resources. A lack of or non-participation in these indicators like diet, clothing, fuel and light, home, amenities, housing and housing facilities, security of work, family support, education, health, social relations were seen as an indicator of deprivation. So it becomes essential to liberate people from deprivation to eradicate poverty.

Poverty line by the group is also based on Independent survey conducted by ‘Center for monitoring Indian Economy’ (CMIE). The results under this survey are remarkably close to those we get through NSSO survey. Confirming adequacy of NSSO data and group’s methodologies. CMIE considers maximum income required to meet consumption expenses of a household. If Income is above consumption expenses then household is above poverty line otherwise (if not able to save anything) it is below poverty line. CMIE conducted survey on 150000 households.

Again National Urban and Rural poverty lines were converted to State specific poverty lines by using Fisher Index. This gave us poverty ‘ratios’ in states and state’s poverty ratios was weighted average of rural and urban state poverty ratios.

As per these estimates the 30.9% of the rural population and 26.4% of the urban population was below the poverty line in 2011-12. The all-India ratio was 29.5%. In rural India, 260.5 million individuals were below poverty and in urban India 102.5 million were under poverty. Totally, 363 million were below poverty in 2011-12. It also noted that there was substantial drop in poverty ratio from 2009 levels.

Answer : There are certain communities which have their own distinct culture and religion and are excluded from the traditional social structure. These communities are called Scheduled Tribes in the Constitutions as they are included in the list or schedule prepared by the government.

Provisions in the Indian constitution for their upliftment:

II.B - Educational, Economic and Public Employment-related Safeguards

• Art. 15 Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth
• Art. 16 Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment
• Art. 19 Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech, etc
• Art. 46 Promotion of Educational and Economic interests of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections
• Art. 335 Claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to services and posts

II.C- Political Safeguards

• Art. 330 Reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the House of the People
• Art. 332 Reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assemblies of the States
• Art. 334 Reservation of seats and special representation to cease after sixty years
• Art. 243D Reservation of seats (in Panchayats)
• Art. 243T Reservation of seats

II.D - Agency for monitoring safeguards

• Art. 338A National Commission for Scheduled Tribe

Article 23 which prohibits traffic in human beings and beggar and other similar forms of forced labour has a special significance for Scheduled Tribes. In pursuance of this Article, Parliament has enacted the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. Similarly, Article 24 which prohibits employment of Children below the age of 14 years in any factory or mine or in any other hazards activity is also significant for Scheduled Tribes as a substantial portion of child labour engaged in these jobs belong to Scheduled Tribes.

Other specific safeguards have been provided in Article 244 read with the provisions contained in Fifth and Sixth Schedule to the Constitution.

Answer : QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE

Across major indicators on quality of life such as water supply, public transportation, parks and public spaces, sewage and solid waste treatment, Indian cities are lacking behind. Also quality of urban services isn’t commensurate with the needs of growing urbanization which is now around 31% but expected to grow to 50% by 2030.

Urban life in India is characterized by many challenges such as –

• Poor housing with a number of slums dotting the periphery of cities
• Poor hygiene and open defecation prevalent in many areas due to lack of public toilets and sewage system
• Air pollution and rising GHG levels due to construction and industrial activities air quality has deteriorated in many cities
• Poor sewage and solid waste management resulting in landfills have been overwhelmed with waste leading to poor air quality and risks of fire hazards
• Weak urban infrastructure, systemic problems that cause bottlenecks and delays
• Low internet penetration and ICT technologies resulting in inefficient delivery of services

Smart City Mission aims at developing the entire urban ecosystem with institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure for comprehensive development. In synergy with AMRUT, it includes – smart solutions towards providing affordable housing, efficient urban mobility, assured water and electricity supply, sanitation and solid waste management, affordable housing, robust IT connectivity and ICT technology, health and education, e-governance and citizen participation, safety and security of citizens, economic activities and livelihood opportunities.

OBJECTIVES OF SMART CITY PROGRAM

• Improving the quality of life by providing robust infrastructure and a clean and sustainable environment
• Applying smart solutions to urban problems and application of ICT to municipal services and infrastructure to make them better. Eg. Safe city project with city-wide intelligent video surveillance network in real time or online systems of monitoring water quality
• To set examples to be replicated both within and outside the Smart City and catalyze the creation of similar Smart Cities.

STRATEGIES

• Pan-city initiative: It envisages application of selected Smart Solutions to the existing city-wide infrastructure. Eg. Applications in transport sector like Intelligent Traffic Management System and reducing average commute time or cost to citizens Area based approach: It is a step-by-step based on three models of area-based development: Retrofitting; Redevelopment and Greenfield.

Answer : Roots of regionalism is in India’s manifold diversity of languages, cultures, ethnic groups, communities, religions and so on, and encouraged by the regional concentration of those identity markers, and fueled by a sense of regional deprivation. For many centuries, India remained the land of many lands, regions, cultures and traditions.

There are various reasons for its emergence of Regionalism in Indian Politics such as

• Firstly, the administrative policies and decisions as well as the developmental plans taken at the national level may not satisfy all people of the country and these people, who remain dissatisfied, may feel that their interest are not properly safeguarded.
• Secondly, India is still not free from ethnic, racial and religious orthodoxy. Sometimes the Regionalism in Indian Politics emerge on these ethnic, racial or religious grounds
• Sometimes the Regionalism in Indian Politics are formed on language issues as well.
• Sometimes the Regionalism in politics helps to safeguard the minority interests.eg, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha
• Sometimes the internal conflicts of the big national parties may pave the ground for the rise of the regional political parties. That was how the Congress party was divided into several small parties like Congress for democracy, Congress (J) etc.
• The regional political parties formulate their policies and programmes on the basis of the regional demands, grievances and interests of the people. Naturally they pin with them the confidence and loyalty of the people..
• The general decadence of values, too much centralization of power, dictatorial role of the leaders, negligence to the regional leadership etc. in the national parties have not only weakened their status but also facilitated the rise of numbers of regional political parties both big and small, in India.

But uneven development in different parts of the country may be considered as the prime reason for regionalism and separatism. There are certain regions which are economically more developed. But there are certain regions which are economically more developed. But there are certain regions which are economically backward even after independence. No effort has been made for regional balance in matters of industrial, agricultural and above all, economic development. This disparity has caused the feeling of relative deprivation and thereby the demand for separate states.

Following suggestions may be given for the elimination of regionalism:

1. Development of Transport and Communication: Transport and communication network should be improved so that people of a region may find it easier to visit other regions and develop friendly relations with people therein.
2. Removal of Regional Imbalance: Uneven economic development and regional imbalance has been the main cause of disgruntlement among the people of a particular region for regionalism. Hence, effort should be made to distribute the national resources in a planned manner to mitigate the problem of regionalism.
3. Economic Development of Deprived Regions: Top priority is to be given on economic development of those regions where people have developed the feeling of relative deprivation. So that they can be drawn into the national mainstream.
4. Acculturation: The cultural distinctiveness of regional groups delimits the interaction between- different groups. Frequent cultural contacts should be promoted to break the regional barriers and to develop the nationalist spirit.
5. Abolition of Regional Parties: The regional parties which play a dirty role in exploiting the regional feelings of the people should be banned.
6. Proper Education: Education can play an important role for the promotion of national integration. It may be construed as a powerful agent for doing away with the separatist tendencies among the countrymen.
7. Appeal through Mass-Media: Mass media, particularly electronic media are powerful agents of social change. Hence, extensive effort should be made to encourage feelings of nationalism among the people through mass media communication.

Answer : Poverty is the term used to describe when a person is unable to meet their basic needs mainly due to economic constraints. The basic needs of a person are clean water, adequate food, shelter, health, and education. When a person does not have these basic needs due to economic constraints, they are considered to be living in poverty.

Population and poverty both depends upon each other. Population in various ways leading towards the poverty:

1. Increasing number of population will leads to the resource crunch in the country, so people will not have sufficient livelihood materials for their survival. So they will suffer from poverty.
2. Sustainable development programmes of the government will not work in proper way that is in welfare manner because of insufficient input and large number of beneficiaries. That all leads to low per capita income and people will continue to live in poverty.
3. Chances of Social instability will increase due to insufficient resources that lead to the poverty and social conflicts which cost will bears by the lower strata of the society.

Poverty in various ways leads to the population:

1. People who live in poverty, they suffer from various health related issues like heinous deases, lack of nutritional food that leads to high infant mortality rate. So people tend towards more children.
2. In clutch of poverty, people need more workforces for more earning. So for more hand they produce more children that lead to population increment.
3. Education is not accessible to poor people because they are indulged in bread earning activities. So without education they less aware about the consequences of huge population and its control measures.

Poverty and Population both are vicious process and they are rotate in cyclic manner. Without solving the problems of one another cannot be controlled. In recent time it emerges as a big challenge for the developing nations. And all world community is working on the platform that reduces the poverty and population.

Answer : Gandhiji was born in a merchant class Hindu family. He approached the problem of untouchability from humanitarian perspective and wanted to erode it out from the fabric of the society. Whereas Ambedkar identified himself as the victim of that corrupt practice and stood to protect other dalits from the fallout of this inhumane practice.

Gandhiji called untouchables as ‘Harijans’ meaning son of the god. He believed in four fold division of the Hindu society that is four varnas viz. Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. He wanted to see the upliftment of untouchable, but not by abolishing the castes as such. He was of the opinion that untouchability was a moral crime. He emphasized upon change of heart on the part of caste Hindu’s for the social assimilation of the untouchables. He went to the extent of declaring himself untouchable by choice to identify himself with the untouchables and to represent their problems. In fact in the year 1920 Gandhiji said “Swaraj is unattainable without the removal of the sin of untouchability as it is without Hindu-Muslim unity. In 1921 he said, “I do not want to be reborn. But if I have to be reborn, I should be born an Untouchable”.

In contrast to Gandhiji, Ambedkar wanted to remove the Untouchable out of the Hindu community, whom he preferably called ‘Dalits’. He was of the opinion that untouchability and Hinduism were inextricably interwoven. Ambedkar believed that equality will not be attained with considering all varnas being equal. In fact he wanted to secure equality in terms of economic, social and political spheres. One of the most important contributions of Ambedkar was that he advocated for action from below that is, emphasis on political organization as indispensable to secure justice and basic human rights. He was also clear that, as Hindus, the untouchables could not be treated at par with the rest upper castes. He therefore advocated that they should adopt different identity by converting in another religion.

The differences between Gandhiji and Ambedkar were visible in the second round table conference in 1931 as well, where Ambedkar wanted reserved seats and separate electorates for the untouchables, whereas Gandhiji did not even wanted to hear the concept of separate electorate. But later on Gandhiji approved the demand for reservation.

In the year 1932, Gandhiji organized a group called The Harijan Sevak Sangh which included many of the untouchable amongst its board members, the purpose of the organization were to open out public wells, roads, schools, and cremation grounds to the untouchables. It can be concluded that though Gandhiji and Ambedkar adopted different approaches but the role played by them for the social emancipation of the downtrodden were complementary to each other.

Answer : In tribal societies of India, women generally enjoy better status in comparison to general society specifically in relation to the scheduled castes. Most of these tribal societies are matriarchal and follow matrilineal system i.e. in these societies decent is traced through the mother or the female ancestress. Tribal women enjoy much higher rights with respect to participation in decision making, occupations, inheritance of property and control over family. Women are the custodian of the family property and property is inherited through female line i.e. daughter inherits from mother and males are generally debarred from inheriting property. In addition to this, women control the religious and ceremonial life of the family. This signifies how well they are placed in the familial structures. Barring some exceptions, females enjoy equal status and freedom with their male counterparts in all aspects of social life.Although in tribal societies too, son preferences are common but they do not discriminate against girls by female infanticide or sex determination tests. This is partially due technological backwardness as majority of these tribes remain in difficult terrain where development has not taken place, so no scope of usage of these technologies.

In contrast to these, the sex ratio amongst the scheduled castes of India is unfavorable and tilted towards male. This could be attributed to the patriarchal society, wherein women rights are subordinated to those of their male counterparts. Further, the status of women amongst SCs is not as high as compared to STs and is mainly determined on the basis of various taboos attached to women. In addition to this, females are discriminated in every sphere of social life and one can find emphasis on status and hierarchical social ordering. The illiteracy and backwardness of the SC also add to the suppression of women rights as they follow outdated customs and practices prescribed under various religious scriptures that treat women as polluting. There is lesser scope of reasoning aiding to the rigid social structures that does not allow liberal practices to be followed. Further, SC in India by and large follows Hindu religion. Under this religion almost all the rituals are male centric, i.e. from the birth to the death and even after the death, all the religious duties are ought to be performed by the male members, but such a practices is not prevalent amongst the tribes. So, we can conclude that socio-religious practices have contributed to the male preferences. It is these reasons that have caused unfavorable sex ratios amongst the SCs of India compared to the STs.

Answer : Migration has become a universal phenomenon in modern times. Due to the expansion of transport and communication, it has become a part of worldwide process of urbanization and industrialization. In the last four decades, following trends emerged in International labour flow from India with the changed destination and occupations of the labour.

First, persons with professional expertise, technical qualifications and skills migrate to high-income developed and traditionally migrant receiving countries like USA, UK, Canada, either as permanent immigrants or to take up temporary employment. It indicates that the preference for industrialized countries amongst Indian labour is still prevalent. Another noticeable phenomenon is that, the immigrants from India to the industrialized nations such as USA, UK etc. is for a temporary period that is they return after some time. This is in sharp contrast to the earlier periods (decades preceding to the period under consideration) when immigrants usually settle in these countries. Another salient feature of international labour flow from India in recent years is that the destination of Indian migrants, especially high-skilled migrants, has diversified considerably. Significant numbers of Indian professionals are now heading towards new and emerging destinations in continental Europe, East Asia and Australasia. In terms of occupational groups, health and medical services are reported to have grown significantly over time in relation to other sectors and occupations.

Second, unskilled, semi-skilled and professionals migrate as contract workers to the high income countries in the Gulf (mainly to the GCC countries). Such labour flows, especially to the GCC countries, have attained substantial dimensions in the past four decades. In recent years such flows are also directed towards the high income countries of South East Asia such as Malaysia. Third, professionals, young IT professionals, migrate to the newly emerging destinations like continental Europe (Germany, France and Belgium), Australasia (Australia and New Zealand) and East Asia (Japan and Singapore).

Another dimension to the labour outflow of India is related to the center of origin of semi-skilled and unskilled migrants. Within India migration originates from a number of states.

As far as state wise distribution of immigration is concerned nearly 16 states contribute to the process of emigration with varying degrees of importance. In terms of relative shares, three states - Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh - together contributed to about 60 per cent of those who have obtained emigration clearance. In terms of the share of these prominent states, there has been a decline in Kerala’s contribution whereas the shares of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have registered considerable increases. This could mean that larger numbers of people who are migrating from Kerala are now engaged in skilled/professional activities whereas there are larger outflows of unskilled labourers who require emigration clearance from states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Following trends of migration within India have been observed: Less developed states like UP and Bihar and politically disturbed states in northeastern region including Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Assam were the outmigrating states than the rate of in-migrants. The prosperous states like Maharashtra, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Goa were the hot destinations for migrants from Bihar, UP, Orissa, Rajasthan, etc. Generally, most of the inter-state migrants were moved to the neighbouring, relatively more developed states or to distant metropolitan cities. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa were the states in western zone which received highest number of migrants. Maharashtra was the main destination for migrants from UP, Karnataka and Gujarat, while Gujarat was preferred by the Maharashtrians, followed by UP and Rajasthan. Migrants from Karnataka, Maharashtra and UP migrated towards Goa. Another significant zone of net in-migration comprised the states of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi in the northwest region marked by a high degree of agriculture industrial growth, expansion of urbanization and growth of metropolitan cities. There were four streams of migration as rural to urban, rural to rural, urban to rural and urban to urban. The metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Ludhiana remained the alluring centers for migrants having rural background in the last four decades. But with the launch of MGNREGA scheme in the first decade of 21st century, migration of unskilled labour from backward states like UP and Bihar have dropped significantly. This is complemented by the development of these states as well.

Answer : Globalization impacts the everyday lives of women in India. India today, a country where women are becoming more prominent, yet increasing numbers, women are fighting long-standing prejudices. Women still faces enormous pressure to conform to social mores - conforming to traditional roles within families. Though women have made great strides in the corporate world in the last three decades, women from all income classes are still too often discouraged by family members from having careers that infringe too much on family life. .

Globalization has opened up broader communication lines and brought more companies as well as different worldwide organizations into India. This provides opportunities for not only workingmen, but also women, who are becoming a larger part of the workforce. With new jobs for women, there are opportunities for higher pay, which raises self-confidence and brings about independence. This, in turn, can promote equality between the sexes, something that Indian women have been struggling with their entire lives.

Women in the urban settings have become more independent and self-sufficient. The lower middle class is experiencing a shift in the way family relations worked. Traditionally women stayed at home taking care of domestic needs and children. Now most of the women are setting out of their private spaces to earn a living.

Globalization has had negative implications for Indian women. Women are suffering two fold. As women in developing countries move into the work force, their domestic responsibilities are not alleviated. Women work two full time jobs. One in a factory, where they are paid next to nothing, the second is in the home where they are paid nothing. In India, development for poor women has meant the migration of men to cities, higher prices for commodities, poorer job opportunities. The mixture of corporate capitalism and Western culture models is dissolving family and community social controls as witnessed by higher rates of family violence, rape, divorce, and family breakdown.

The roles of women in India have been changing and they are now emerging from the past traditions into a new era of freedom and rights due to globalization. Women have made great strides in the corporate world but still the patriarchal nature of Indian society stops from having careers that infringe too much on family life. They have dual roles to play - as unpaid servant at home and as paid servant in an organization. It is widely felt that earning power allows them to voice their opinions on bigger decisions.

Today Women are more practical and rational than earlier. Indian women have never been as expressive and independent as she is today. Today’s women no more feel that a career would be at the cost of neglecting the family and children. The Indian woman is also spending a lot more money on her personal appearance.

Answer : The contemporary movement for the social emancipation of dalits can be traced back to the later part of the 19th century, when Jyotirao Phule established Satya Shodhak Samaj to attain equal rights for lower castes. The main issue around which these movements have been revolving are abolishment of untouchability. These movements project the indignities, agonies, humiliation, and overall sufferings of the sudras, and particularly the untouchables. Dalits being deprived of education and freedom of occupation and subjected to stigmatised manual labour, it brings virtual economic slavery to them.

These movements can be classified into reformative (reforming the caste system and solving the problem of untouchability) and alternative movements respectively (attempts to create an alternative socio-cultural structure by conversion to some other religion or by acquiring education, economic status and political power). Later, B.R. Ambedkar emerged as the all India leader to champion the cause of dalit identity and social upliftment. He launched anti-untouchability movement in the 1920s in Maharashtra.

In Independent India, a leader in Bihar namely Babu Jagjivan Ram coming from dalit community rose to become the deputy prime minister of India. He also formed Khetmajoor Sabha and Depressed Class League. Then in the early 1970’s a radical dalit movement emerged in the Maharashtra known by the name of the Dalit Panthers. Later in the 1980’s, in North India a new party emerged under the leadership of Kanshi Ram, this party advocated for social advancement of the dalits and later the leader of this party i.e. Mayawati became the chief minister of the Uttar Pradesh. Further very recently, first global conference on Dalit rights was held to increase awareness about injustices faced by nearly 260 million people across the globeincluding people in India on the basis of being born in castes considered untouchables.

These movements have raised the pride consciousness in the Dalits way of life. What emanated from all these movements was leveling of the castes and struggle against the upper caste domination. All these movements have gradually accorded political power in the hands of dalits thus making acting as a precursor for their socio-economic development. In pursuant to the rising political weightage and bargaining power of dalit community, the government of India and the various state governments have introduced legislative interventions, including reservations in education, employment and panchayati raj institutions, all these have changed the dalit landscape. Although dalits are climbing the economic ladder but it is very slow and the economic parity with upper castes is long to be achieved. So, we can conclude that the contemporary movements have raised the level of awareness within the dalit community and they are now assrting their identity, but it will be an exaggeration to believe that these movements have in any manner contributed to the annihilation of castes.

Answer : A smart city is equipped with basic infrastructure to give a decent quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment through application of some smart solutions. Every state in India will at least get one smart city. The purpose of these smart cities is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to smart outcomes. Area based development will transform existing areas, including slums, into better planned ones, thereby improving livability of the whole city.

Now as we know India constitutes more villages than cities, so the overall growth and development of the nation depends on the performance of villages. Taking this fact into account, the Government launched Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission to set up 300 rural clusters across the country by 2019-20. These clusters would be developed by provisioning of economic activities, developing skills and local entrepreneurship, and providing infrastructure amenities, thus it will develop smart village cluster. The country can make faster progress and prosperity if smart villages come up in a big way. It will be the most effective way to bridge rural-urban divide. The rural-urban divide is creating desperation among villagers and a large percentage of school dropouts in villages were “disgruntled jobless youths”, who had an inclination towards criminal activities. Over 44 percent of the rural youths discontinue education due to financial constraints and lack of facilities. Employment in villages is largely in agriculture sectors, while industrial employment is less than four percent.

Smart villages will also help towards the sustainability of smart cities. Development of smart villages will stop the exodus of people towards cities in search of better jobs and livelihoods thus overburdening them both in terms of resources and space. Also, this migration poses various urbalization challenges which may pose a big threat for the success of smart cities concept in India. So it is required to develop robust agriculture for retaining the people lessening the burden on cities.

All these factors calls for more focus towards rural development, and developing smart village which will be self sufficient in all respects, appears to be more suitable solution towards sustainable economic growth. The development of rural India holds the key to the nations sustainable economic growth.

Answer : Patriarchy as an ideology is deeply embedded in several societies, culture and institutions as well as in the minds of men and women. Patriarchy is a concept discussed by sociologists and feminist as an institutional structure with male dominant or an ideology based on the power of men.

Patriarchy in India varies in degree depending upon the region, community, class, caste and religious grounds. So, study of patriarchy in India should be issue based and on specific context only. Here we analyse the impact of patriarchy on the position of middle class working women in India. Liberalization of economy encouraged the rapid expansion of rise of middle class and expanded urban amenities. Consequently, gave many opportunities for women to take up various positions in the job market for the middle class women. In a hierarchical society based on different class structure social analysts mostly concentrate on the issue of women either in high class or low class often ignored middle class women.

Working middle class women often subjected to various social pressures ranging from economic dimension to decision making. Power relation with the patriarchal society has become the recent subject matter for social analysis.

Though women got higher educational qualification and knowledge they often face male domination in the institutional structure by not having enough decision making power and in many cases women are not offered superior position in the organizational setup, mostly it is occupied by male. This is where feminist argue that patriarchy still exist in modern day too.

Most often women in the middle class are confined to only certain kinds of job mostly women centered institutions like role of teacher in school, tailoring work or conventional home based work in majority of family structure in society, since male do not want women to dominate them in family and social structure.

Middle class working women beyond their work in organization where they work, they also have to work in the unpaid domestic activity like role of housewives, taking care of children and domestic household works. Where these second shift of work for the working middle class women is because of patriarchal society has made these roles are confined to women and not of male. Apart from these they don’t have complete financial control of family income as it is mostly controlled by the male head of the family.

By way of engaging themselves in profes-sional activities Indian middle class women could have achieved some economic benefits and feel empowered but often they are not supported by their partners, families or external sources.

Answer : The sex ratio of India by 2011 census is 940 females per 1000 males and national child sex ratio (0-6 years) which decreased from 927 girl children per 1000 boys in 2001 to 914 in 2011 census.

The sex ratio of most prosperous regions of India have Chandigarh (818), NCT of Delhi (866), Madhya Pradesh (916), Rajasthan (926), Haryana (877) and Punjab (893) and their corresponding child sex ratio is also very low when compared to national average in states like Punjab (846), Chandigarh (867), Haryana (830), NCT Delhi (866) and Rajasthan (883).

The mentality and attitudinal problem at the level of society are directly responsible for occur-rence of such gaps in society leading various other problems in the form of violence, rape, foeticide, infanticide, marginalization, poverty and so on. The major socio-cultural reasons for this adverse decrease in sex ratio ranges from societal and family preference for son than daughter. Still girl children are considered as a burden to family in the so called prosperous region along with this male are considered as future and carrier of generation like grandfather to father and then to son, patriarchal society. Other reason for considering male child is they would look after their parents in their old age. Though dowry was abolished by law but it still persists in this prosperous region. So dowry is seen by male family as bringing asset to their family and makes them feel retain the property from female at the time of marriage.

The technological advancement and their ability to access make further impact on sex ratio, where this prosperous region have access to sex determination (pre-natal diagnostic technique), though it is banned in India they travel abroad to carry out female foeticide, where in this region, male is considered as privileged than female. In order to address the issue of declining sex ratio in this prosperous region can be achieved by changing the mind set and attitude towards girls. Firstly, family should value girls as an asset rather than burden to family. Secondly, gender equality should begin from family and home, by treating both male and girl child without any discrimination and finally at the community level, it should play an active role in advocating change in mentality of individual and family by accepting girls are part of their community.

Answer : Three to fourgenerations living under common roof is one of the cultural practices in traditional India. This cycle still continues in contemporary too. Elder male member lead the family with decisions pertaining to economic and social, shows India as patriarchal society. This joint family, existed in traditional India to contemporary is more driven by economic factors than the prescribed social values.

In the agrarian Indian society, land holding were belonged to elder male member of family which is a major source for income to family. So, other male members are under compulsion to live under joint family since they have no other source of income. Further, these male members are used as agricultural labourers by elders in order to minimize labour expense in agricultural activities and they also forced to live under one roof, if at all, land holding gets divided (between brothers) it provides less dividend to them to sustain their individual family (nuclear family system).

On the domestic front, there existed common kitchen for family to reduce unnecessary expenses and also women are deployed for both agri-cultural allied works along with their domestic work in their family. In the same way, in modern times joint family exists because of elderly members take responsibility of taking care of children and other domestic works in family system. Educated women are taking responsible for economic contribution to family as standard of living is increasing in globalised world.

As costing of living is increasing it creates an economic compulsion for joint family with increase in real estate and house rent. Further, in modern era it is not the elder male member lead the family rather earning male member leads family, still patriarchy continues in India. Thus, from the above analysis it shows that cycle of joint family from traditional to modern times exists, where economic factors outweigh social values.

Answer : In the recent years there is increasing feminization of agriculture in India. It is said that by feminization of agriculture there is increase in the role of women in agricultural activity or there is high proportion on women working in agricultural activity when compared to men.

Such feminization of agriculture has various economic and socio-cultural factors, when there is development of economy the contribution of agriculture sector starts decreasing in GDP indicator and consequently there is decrease in work force in agriculture make feminization of agriculture.

Social issue of migration is also contributing to feminization, where male member of the family migrate to urban centers for better earning make women in the household to take care either family plot of land or work as agricultural labourer in the region to take care food security of family and welfare of children. Major factor which makes agriculture women oriented is because of women lack access, control and ownership of land, further they are alienated from public services like training and limited access to technologies. On the other hand, the present structure of rural society makes it difficult to all family members of family to migrate to urban centers, since urban areas have limited access not only to income but also for human capabilities, social capital and physical asset.

Role of women in agriculture is further intensified by the factor that most of the households in rural areas are headed by women and along with this wages for women in agriculture is lower when compared to male counterpart in the field work of land preparation, cultivation, spraying pesticides, harvesting and marketing.

By feminization of agriculture women feel empowered with the ability to access economic benefit and manage their respective households in the absence of men.

Answer : Secularism means “not connected to only religion”, when it refers to nation it is said that ruling power separates itself from religion. The concept of secularism was initiated in the western countries during Renaissance period, where the power got completely detached from the control of church. In India, there were no concept of secularism existed before the British rule, since India is a multi-religious country here the concept of co-existence and religious tolerance was followed. With the advent of modern British education national leaders and Indian society came into contact with the western idea of Secularism.

India declared itself secular country at the time of independence where state does not have any religion and by 42nd amendment Act the word secular was inserted in preamble of constitution to ensure India is Secular country. The Indian constitution reflected the ideology of secularism by way of ensuring equality and not discrimination on the ground of religion. Further, it guaranteed Right to practice, profess and propagate any religion as Fundamental Rights.

The Indian view of secularism differs from the western view where state completely separates religion and politics. On the other hand, the Indian view does not separate government from religion; it endorses similar treatment to all religions. For instance France banned veil which Muslim women wear in public considering it as a religious symbol, on the other hand Indian government proactively facilitates Haj and Amarnath Yatra.

Indian society is not prepared the ground for secularism as western country did in medieval period through Renaissance, where new political ideology was taken place from the political thinkers made state to completely separating religion from polity. But in India still there exists some form of communal tensions sponsored by the British rule on the religion background. So State has to take necessary step to interfere in religious matter on Indian society, it can’t simply say state is completely separated from religion as in the western region.

The government in India has to selectively interfere in religious matters of Indian society because in India State does not follow any religion but it has the role to promote and protect all religion present in India. Such interference has produced mixed results, the Government has been able to interfere in some of the religious matters and mitigate effects of social evils rooted in religion, including discrimination on the basis of caste and gender. This has helped to improve the life of women and people from lower castes.

On the other hand, interference in some religious matters while leaving the others untouched has led to heart burning in those communities who think themselves to be at the receiving end. Religion, in India still serves as an identity for its followers and hence is a very sensitive issue. In these situations, the communal elements find it easy to whip up passions and create discord in the society.

Indian debate on secularism differs from western one, in western socio-cultural and economic development has made them elite social structure with modern ideologies. On the contrary Indian society is completely different from western concept because here social stratification is very high based on religion, caste, hierarchy and class with heterogeneous population but this is not the case for homogeneous western culture.

Thus it can be said that Indian secularism is peculiar secularism and it cannot be compared with other secularism concept. This secularism is more confined to the Indian society alone and cannot be generalized as it was done by western secularism.

Answer : The concept of individual owner-ship of land that is prevalent at present was not there in India in the ancient times. The State was not the ultimate and sovereign owner of the land; it had, only the right to a certain share in the produce of the land. In the middle ages, due to increasing demands of the State, the land revenue started increasing. During the period of British imperialism, it reached unbelievable levels. And it had to be paid in cash and even before the produce was sold in the market. As a result, the farmer got into the debt trap. As land became a saleable commodity, farmers began to lose hold over their land rapidly and it started getting concentrated in the hands of absentee landlords. Farmers became labourers. Coupled with the deliberate destruction of the domestic industry, this process resulted in great increase in the ranks of the labourers, accentuating in turn their exploitation.

The loss of fertility of land and the low prices of the agricultural products aggravated the problem. Thus the Bhoodan Movement was launched which was a voluntary land reform movement in India started by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 1951 at Pochampally village. The mission of the movement was to persuade wealthy landowners to voluntarily give a percentage of their land to the landless. However, this land could not be sold. In effect, landless labourers were being given a small plot of land on which they could settle, as well as grow some of food crops for their own consumption, and also would provide them incentive to remain in the village as a captive labour pool for the richer farmers and landlords.

The Government of various Provinces, passed Bhoodan Acts which generally stipulated that the beneficiary had no right to sell the land or use it for a non-agricultural purpose- including forestry. For example, under section 25 of Maharashtra State Bhoodan Act, the beneficiary (who must be landless) should use the land for agricultural cultivation to secure his own and family’s daily bread. If he/she fails to cultivate the land for over a year or tries to use it for some other non-agriculture activities, the government has the right to confiscate it.

Answer : “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan” was a slogan given to India by the Late Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965. It means hail the soldier and hail the farmer. Soon after Shastri took over the primeministership of India after Nehru’s death, India was attacked by Pakistan. At the same time there was scarcity of foodgrains in the country. Shastri gave the slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan to enthuse the soldiers to defend India and simultaneously cheering farmers to do their best to increase the production of food grains to reduce dependence on import. It became a very popular slogan. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri’s slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan reverberates even today through the length and breadth of the country. Underlying this is the innermost sentiments ‘Jai Hindustan’. The war of 1965 was fought and won for our self-respect and our national prestige.

Answer : Urbanization refers to an increase in the ratio of urban to rural population. The impacts of speedy urbanisation on society are:

1. People move from rural areas to urban areas to seek economic opportunities. For better basic services as well as other specialist services that are not found in rural areas. People, especially the elderly are often forced to move to cities where there are doctors and hospitals who can cater their health needs. Other factors include a greater variety of entertainment (restaurants, movie theaters, theme parks, etc.) and a better quality of education, namely universities. Due to their high populations, urban areas can also have much more diverse social communities. But coop sided urbanization, faulty urban planning, and urba-nization with poor economic base and without having functional categories leads to some basic problems in the field of poverty, unemployment, housing, transport, class conflict, social conflict (between majority and minority, ethnic groups, and racism), social and economic inequalities, crime and victimization, drug and alcohol addiction, broken family, personality and mental health, environmental degradation (water supply, sanitation, pollution of water, air, noise, etc.) and degradation in quality of urban life.
2. Urbanization has led to the breaking of joint families and the establishment of ‘nucleus’ families. People in the cities forfeit the ancient ideals of corporate living; they tend to become self-centered. They live in their own grooves and flats without having any social contacts with their neighbours, or other fellow beings.

Answer : Women organization are coming up not because to carve out new world for themselves but the main reason is to establish to the world that they are less than their male counterpart and prove they have sufficient strength and wisdom to run a successful organization.

In the era of globalization, women has benefitted a lot in terms of knowledge, awareness, exposure modern development and technological advancement make them feel they are no more inferior to male counterpart.

In order to make women’s organization free from gender bias role of male membership need to encouraged Because

• For efficient organization there is need of different skill set required from both male and female which provide different leadership approaches at different times as required.
• By involving male membership in organisation provide better understanding about women so that it not only address the issue of gender bias at the same time it also make the issue of sensitization of men towards women by understanding the problems and issue of women in that organizational setup.
• Having male member in the women’s organization would give male perspective to the issues which are pertinent to women since most of them are related to male and their attitude towards women.
• This will also help in formulating a gender neutral laws as sometimes men are also victimized by women.

Answer : Globalization is a complex pheno-menon which includes increased human inter-connectedness facilitated by new information technologies and huge volumes of trade, capital, people, cultures flowing across national borders, and an ever more integrated global economy.

The effects of globalization on the aged population are as follows:

Health sector has been thoroughly affected by integration of the world. Patent laws related to medicines changed. Globalization brought new opportunities for procurement of medical facilities and medicines but its effect has been limited to urban sector only.

Pension sector has become more integrated due to globalization. Countries across the world have introduced pension reforms which have helped elder people.

Dignity and self respect is important for ageing population. Due to migration of families the problem of dependence on younger hands for feeding has increased. This dependence has restricted ageing population to less resources and opportunities. However, globalization has helped them to procure this self respect in the form of global audience. People can now interact in more free way than they used to 20 years earlier. People are able to find opportunities which feed their need for self respect.

Emergence of internet has solved the problem of physical inability. Knowledge sharing has helped elder people to form self help groups related to particular problems. With the help of these groups they can integrate and interact in a more mature way. Social media sites have solved the problem of loneliness for aged people.

Answer : In the contemporary analysis of the development of Indian political system, region-alism has acquired through phases a distinct connotation and is used to indicate an agglomeration of all those forces which are generally considered to be “centrifugal” polarized to centralism and nationalism. It is therefore not unusual to find analysis of economic regionalism, linguistic regionalism and religious-regionalism included in the general frame of regionalism. Thus, in the Indian context, regionalism is a nebulous concept.

Regionalism in context of India is a vague concept and has both positive and negative dimension. Positively “It embodies a quest for fulfillment on the part of an area”.Seen in this perspective it constitutes a true expression of freedom and democracy and therefore it is not to be suspected and considered as an alibi for the balkanization of the country. Negatively regio-nalism in Indian politics is regarded as a divisive force which acts contrary to national unity and integrity and challenges the legitimacy of the state.

Regionalism in India is influenced by various factors

• Colonial Legacy: During British era, Colonial rulers re-interpreted the history and divided nation along the lines of Religion, Hindu-Muslim divide and created partition in the name of religion in India.
• Re-organisation of States: Post-Independent India had more than 550 princely states and several small kingdoms, India unified and reorganized based on the language criteria in 1953.
• Lack of Economic Development: Economic imbalance which is the main causal factor of regional consciousness of India. Telengana movement is the best example of this type of regionalism. Feelings of discontent in the backward and depressed regions of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, U.P. Odisha, M.P. and Rajasthan further support this argument.
• Language: Language is one of the most important components of regionalism in India. It has the propensity of unity as well as causing disharmony, emotionally frenzy and desta-bilization of the political system. Intra-state regio-nalism surpasses the bond of common language where economic grievances of a sub region take precedence over language as is illustrated by the Telengana issue.
• Regional political parties: The growth and development of regionalism has got much needed support from the regional political parties, which have proved to be major force molding the nature and texture of state politics in India. In fact, with the emergence of regional political parties, the Indian politics has got regionalized.

Answer : Parivarik Mahila Lok Adalat (PMLA) is a concept evolved by National Commission for Women (NCW) for redressal and speedy disposal of cases related to women under Legal Service AuthorityAct 1957. It has its roots in the traditional nyaya panchayats. It aims at amicable mutual settlement of disputes related to womenconcerning matrimonial disputes like divorce ,maintenance of wife parents and children, bigamy, motor accident claims, disputes relating to labour laws, compounded criminal cases by involving non-governmental organ-izations (NGOs). NGOs receive financial assistance from NCW limited to Rs.30, 000 to NGOs to organize PMLA.

Answer : The discrimination, abuse and socio economic marginalisation faced by millions of Indians belonging to denotified and nomadic tribes have their roots in the 19th century but this historical pattern of marginalisation and abuse continues over today and is a blight on India's human right record and its declared commitment to the equality and well being of all its citizens under both domestic and international laws.

Living in precarious conditions, India's denotified and nomadic tribes are subject to maltreatment and abuse by all and sundry. Highlighting there in him human existence, a convention held in the national capital brought together many of these communities to demand basic rights of food and shelter from the government as they have no address, no landholdings, no citizenship documents. In fact no identity proof of the usually available to other citizens. Their children remain out of school and women struggle for dignity. Even after more than 62 years of independence a large section of country's denotified tribes continue to remain out of census list, as they are not registered as primary residents. The last community wise census of the tribes was done during the colonial rule in 1931, since then only projections have been used to arrive at an estimate of their population. While some of these communities are classified as scheduled tribes, scheduled castes and other backward classes, others do not find mention in any of these categories. Some of these included pastorals and hunter gatherers like Dhangars, kathiawadis, entertainers, religious performers like Dombaris, Saperas.

With large scale infrastructure development growth in communication, transportation and a shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy these communities have been left with no choice but to shift towards alternate occupation. Sometimes they are even forced into begging. Competiting with sedentary communities for access to natural resources, their livelihoods are seriously threatened and many of them fall prey to child labour and trafficking.

Answer : With the increasing urban population the number of urban agglomeration and cities having a population one million increased from 23 to 35 in just one decade. These metropolitan cities provided home to about 37.81 per cent of the total urban population of India. Although India is one of the less urbanised countries of the world with about 28% of urban population living in town and cities but facing a serious crisis of metropolitan urban growth. Most of the population influxes in metropolitan cities are from small towns and rural areas causing slums development, overcrowding, chronic shortage of houses, environmental problems, traffic congestions, etc. The overpopulation influxes in metropolitan cities are caused by a variety of factors including economic, social and political. The major causes are search of better employment, education, poverty, lack of employment, educational facilities in other small towns and cities. The small towns and cities are also ill planned and consequently not able to generate employment opportunities and other facilities. As a result large number of peoples immigrating towards metropolitan cities. In rural areas lack of employment, poor infrastructure, stagnant agricultural activities and no growth in agriculture sector, also pushing rural people towards metropolitan cities in search of jobs. Consequently metropolitan cities have recorded the highest growth of population among all classes of towns and cities.

To counter this problem of metropolitan urban sprawl, a multi dimensional plan must be prepared to develop small towns/cities and rural areas. Infrastructure facilities must be provided in IInd and IIIrd class cities so that these cities become able to generate employment and other urban facilities like education, health care, entertainment, etc. Plan must be also made for comprehensive development of rural areas. Agriculture sector must be made as profitable sector. Development of agriculture and allied activities will stop the migration of rural population towards metropolitan areas. The facilities available at small towns/cities will absorb rural populations.

Answer : Rivers are natural geographical features which does not follow the man made boundaries. In India which is a ‘nation of nations’ having 35 different provincial boundaries. It is but natural that disputes arises a lot and post green revolution inter-State disputes have taken a particular form and mostly it follows from the inter-State riparian distribution issues.

There are 16 river basins in Northern India and 14 river basins in the Southern India. All of them originate in one state, flows through the boundary of other state and its mouth is in another State. And this is the root cause for the dispute. In this regard if we come to the major issues that is currently brewing and making inter-State relation vicious than the following comes to the mind:-

1. Krishna-Godavari among Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa
2. Yamuna-Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh
3. Cauvery-Tamil Nadu, Karnataka
4. Ravi-Beas-Haryana, Jammu Kashmir, Rajsthan, Punjab
5. Spillover of Bhakra-Nangal Dam-Haryana, Punjab

In the southern states the inter-riparian disputes takes a more complex form since the rivers show a steep change in their yearly regimen. South is also the kernel of paddy cultivation which requires lot of standing water. All this makes matter more badly and vitiates the political as well as the social milieu between the states.

Prominent among them is the Cauvery water disputes that have its own tribunal but the ground root realities are the same with no improvement. Originating from Tala Cauvery in Karnataka Cauvery flows through mostly dry area which also happens to be the rice bowl thus it is considered the most dammed river of the world. This makes the upper riparian state Karnataka as alleged by Tamil Nadu that it exploits the river to such an extent that Tamil Nadu gets nothing in return. Mostly during the Kuruvai paddy cultivation the scarcity of water affects the farmers of this region. Increased siltation and damming has also made the river to overflow its banks during peak season. Since the Southern states sees two monsoonal season this aggravates the flooding problem twice in a year. Then is the issue with the Mullaperiyar dam that is widely disputed between Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The problem is with the height of the dam on river Periyar. It is an earthen dam built by British government and though based in Kerala the benefits are given to Tamil Nadu as par the agreement that was signed then between the Travancore State and the British government. Further North River Krishna experiences the same inter-state dispute between Andhra and Karnataka while still further north River Godavari sees the same type of dispute between the inter-riparian states that are Maharashtra, Andhra.

In the Northern riparian states that has glacially charged rivers though the periodic regimen of flow still alters but not to that extent as it happens in the river of Southern states. So mostly the disputes deals with the extra utilization from the binding legal contracts into which the concerned States have entered themselves-into (mainly through tribunals that are legally an authority in themselves under Article 262 of Constitution). So in the Yamuna-Beas dispute the main concern is the potable water shortage for lower riparian states like Delhi and Haryana. Water charging plants like the one to be build in Sarita Vihar in Delhi is particularly affected by the rigid attitude of Haryana which in turn say that Punjab is not following the Justice Errawady panel. Moreover the water distribution between them is also based on older data when the monsoonal pattern was more regular with less deforestation and urbanization.

Main problem for the increasing complexities in the inter-State river dispute is the data that have become unviable as they are based on old parameters. Thus the upper riparian states say that they do not have water for their own consumption then how can they allocated it to other states. Rising demand of water with increased industrialization and urbanization further aggravates this situation.

Answer : It refers to the increase in the production of fruits and vegetables. Horticulture in India now contributes 30.4% of GDP of agriculture. There has been a phenomenal increase in the production of fruits and vegetables in India since 1950s, but still there is lot of potential which could be developed. It calls for research and the priorities are of genetic resource enhancement and its utilization, enhancing the efficiency of production and reducing the losses in an environment friendly manner. Horticulture also has tremendous potential in improving the per capita incomes of small farmers in rural areas

Answer : The Indira Gandhi National Tribal University has been established by an Act of the Parliament of India at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh. The jurisdiction of the University extends to the whole country and it is fully funded by the Central Government through the University Grant Commission. The university caters to the tribal’s long cherished dream of higher education.

The tribal people are rich in cultural heritage and skill of art and craft but they are still marginalized and neglected in respect to higher education as well as in other walks of life. In the present age of globalization, the tribes, who are the custodians of Indian culture in real sense, are far behind in the race of advancement. In order to rescue them from the present plight, it is important that more centers of tribal university should be open.

Such centers in densely populated tribal regions will help to provide avenues of education and research facilities. It will help to disseminate and advance knowledge by providing instru-ctional facilities in tribal art, tradition, culture, language, medicinal systems, customs, and forest based economic activities, flora, fauna and advancement in technologies relating to the natural resources of the tribal areas. Such centers will help to formulate tribal centric development models and publish reports which will help in planning and development.

The university has opened the first regional campus of University at Manipur in September 2009 and is committed to open more in other tribal regions.

Answer : According to 2001 census, 285.3 million persons or 27.78% of the total population of India is in urban areas. Though India is among the least urbanized countries in the world, there prevails an extreme variation in the states on urbanization status and trends. Some of the states like Kl, Mah, Tn, Gj and Wb are most urbanised with 38% of population living in urban areas whereas states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh are the least urbanized showing 17%, with extreme ineq-ualities.

There are several reasons for the spatial differentiations like the industrialisation, agricultural prospects, regional growth variations, educational and social developments existing in states and the inequalities between the densely populated few cities and less densely populated more second ,third level cities.

Even among the urban regions in the states, variation prevails on sex ratio, density and other demographic characters vary. For Example, Kerala with comparative social development cities are developing not because of industrialisation, which is the predominant factor for Maharashtra, Whereas Uttar Pradesh having agricultural economy and alluvial hinterland consist of vast urbanized population with more urban regions, but coming under the least urbanized state in the national perspective. There is extreme variation in intra-state urban pattern also.

The Union Territories especially Delhi and Chandigarh shows most urbanized status with 93.18% and 83.77% of total population, on the other hand Dadra & Nagar Haveli as the least populated state among UTs with 37.5% of total population.

Thus, spatial pattern of Urbanisation in India shows an extreme variable profile which is peculiar to Indian Demographic conditions, due to its economic and social developments and interlinkages provided by geographical, historical and cultural factors.

Answer : In 1991, the Indian economy was liberalized to make India one of the fastest growing economies in the world. For that an array of reforms was initiated with regard to industrial, trade and social sector to make the economy more competitive. The initiated economic changes have had a dramatic effect on the overall growth of the economy. It also heralded the integration of the Indian economy into the global economy.

Indian society was divided in many classes since time immemorial based on religions, castes, Kula, Gotra etc. many groups dissected Indian society. Globalization has many fold impacts on Indian society.

With the opening up of economy more foreign companies invested in India by which many educated and skilled people got high paid salaries in multinational companies (MNCs). Unexpected hike in earning capacity of this class gave way to consumerism in India.

Small and medium size entrepreneurial and industrialist class come into existence. Their expenditure capacity increased. But on the other hand, uneducated and unskilled class got no benefit of the globalization. They remained in their low wages earning society.

Gap between these two classes widened. Now, old classes based on caste, religion etc. started to dilute. But the economical gap divided the society into classes. The class of educated youth who got opportunities in BPOs and MNCs came among high earning employed class. While, educated but employed in traditional work remained middle class youth. To contrast with both of them, unemployed youth is yet a dark reality of Indian booming economy. New rich industrialists and entrepreneurs is a small but wealthy class in India. Thus, globalization just reshaped Indian classes of society but not wiped them off at all.

Answer : Urbanisation is increasing in India. In urban places population is also increasing. This is because of increase in migration from rural areas. People are migrating from rural areas to urban areas in search of employment or education. The people who are entering in skill jobs are good. But the life of the unskilled labourers is very miserable in the urban areas.

The unskilled labourers are included in the lower layer of the urban areas. Those people have to stay in the outskirts of the city or they will be staying in the slum areas. In urban areas living cost is very high compared to rural areas. Therefore, slums are increasing in urban areas. These slums are not having proper sanitation, no drinking water facility, no electricity. Not only that these will be made to vacate the place anytime.

In urban areas they are not having constant employment. Some of them are working in hazardous environment which affects their health. These people are more exposed to the polluted environment.

In rural areas people are there in their friendly environment. Cost of living is low. Most of them are employed in agriculture or allied work culture. They are not exposed to the polluted environment.

If we compare rural and urban poor people, the condition of rural poor people is better than the urban poor. No developmental programmes are reaching this urban poor properly. Most of the programmes are for rural poor perople. The rural poor are more benefited than the urban poor. Therefore, we can say that the urban poor are more deplorable than that of their rural counterparts.

Answer : Caste by participating in the modern political system is now exposed to divisive influences and a new form of integration resulting form a new scheme of universalist-particularist relationships.

Caste provides to politics on the one hand a structure of divisions and accommodations and on the other hand a cohesive element which absorbs tensions and frustrations.

Castes are able to influence each other to bargain for powers. The formation role of caste associations are also playing as important role in influencing voting behaviour. Even political parties are considering caste as a vote bank. This enabled the lower castes to be politically influential on the basis of numerical preponderance.

In selecting candidates for elections, political parties often giving consideration to the caste composition of the constituencies. Sometimes several castes are using politics in their attempt to better their conditions or to achieve their goals.

The mobilization of caste votes by caste leaders in all the States has become common. But, caste is not alone is the key factor in the voting behavior. Personal loyalty, ideological orientation, regional identifications are also influencing.

Answer : National integration is an essential theme of nation building. It brings adverse groups of a nation into a common body. The problem of integration is not unique to India, as a large number of new nations have faced the monstrous problem of integrating the nation from the plentiful of diversities, often conflicting interests. In India the problem of integration has its own structural, regional, economic, political and religious implications. Geopolitically India has its units. Structurally India has no monolithic structure in terms of diversity different levels of social evolution co-exist in India.

Most of the major religions of the world namely Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Budd-hism are found here. Indian society is pluralistic in character. It has a composite culture; it has diverse ethnic groups, religious, languages and regions.

Every Indian is integrated to the nation and at the same time he is loyal to differential group in which membership is held. It is unnatural and impossible to eliminate differential loyalties of people. There is always perennial fear that loyalties based on any one of them can always make appearance in political term from the ethnic groups. The feeling of ethnicity may always crystallize from regional loyalties. The regionalism can precipitate from sharing the same language.

In other words, the threats to integration are contained in the very nation of diversity. Loyalties substantiated on any basis, may demand separate region for them a state or they may show concerned for fission of the country.

Answer : The media along with art and literature must help the people in their struggle against poverty, unemployment and other social evils in contemporary India. The median today are largely acting irresponsibly and not serving the people in their struggle against poverty, unemployment and any other social evils.

In India, media was born as an organ of the people against the British rule. Media became powerful tool in the hands of the people. During that time only print media was present. But in the present centaury there arose many other types of media.

Today in India there is a total disconnect between the media and the mass reality. The mass reality in India has over 70 per cent of the people living in rural areas. The livelihood of these people is destroyed because of worst agrarian crisis. As a result many farmers committed suicide and millions of them migrated to the cities or towns in search of employment.

The average rural family consumes less than what it was consuming earlier. Indebtedness has doubled over the past decades. Cultivation cost has increased and farming income has collapsed.

Today, media instead of helping the mass to come out of their problems, it is giving values to other programmes. Take the example of cricket, it has become some much important to the media. TV channels are showing cricket day in and day out. One Roman emperor used to say: If you cannot give the people bread, give them circuses. This is now the condition in India.

Media instead of helping people in their struggle against poverty, unemployment and other social evils and to make India a modern, industrial and powerful state it is creating illusion of reality.

Answer : For the past 57 years in India, the democratic system has been working smoothly. In fact in India the Indian citizens enjoy their full freedom and understanding in voting power. However many a times voters put priority to the emotionally attached benefits also. Common mass vote is often influenced by the benefit issues related to the daily life, viz. price rise, unemployment, law and order system and any developmental issues. National security, war and peace related issues, economic development, the development in science and technology etc. are the issues which really influence the voters' behaviour in India. For a long time, regionalism has been determining the voter behaviour. The issues related to caste, reservation politics, issues influencing religious feelings have been possibly the biggest determinants of the voting behaviour for the past two decades. The voters are emotionally attached to the political parties and they vote in the name of the party only.

The ability and specialty and of course popularity of the candidate also influence the voters. In addition to all these, some incidents related to a particular place, sudden happenings, any pity feeling for anybody or any party are also main determinants in the voter behaviour.

Answer : The main recommendations of the Platform for Action (PFA) under the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference are mentioned below: There are four important parts of the Platform for Action: (1) The dialogue on the recommendation of the purposes. (2) Global framework, (3) Special area for awakening, and (4) Important aim and action.

Women empowerment was the main agenda in this Conference. In the conference the main recommendations of Vienna conference were asked to be implemented. In the recommendations, the demand for enough power and right regarding social, economic and political area was raised. In the recommendations it was also made clear that to fulfill the aims and objectives of the ‘Platform for Action’ a faithful trial and strong promises are necessary. For the empowerment of women a global framework has been constructed. Under this, it has been made clear that all the primary rules and activities are to be implemented within five years. Under this on the basis of population and development United Nations Conference was held, on the basis of environment and development, conferences were held. Admitting the usefulness of the conferences and cooperating with the rules and then implementation, necessary arrangements were made. Under the global framework (a) the economic condition of the women, (b) political empowerment (c) health and nutrition (d) reformations regarding labour etc. were shown as the future policies.

For the awakening under special sectors, the following sectors have been depicted: lack of property, insufficient and faulty education and training, worsening situation regarding health, violence against women, inequality regarding the economic sector, absence in law-making, inequality between men and women specially regarding power and decision-making women are lagging behind. Ignorance is seen regarding the human rights of the women, gender inequality among children, discrimination at employment places etc. prevail.

Important political objectives and activities – Those issues should be given importance which is related to women and the importance should be on finding out the solutions regarding the problems related to the women. Importance should be put on those women who are comparatively backward. Women empowerment issues, like the socio-economic situation of the women, affected by the nature etc. and cultural, linguistic and age-related areas were given the prime importance in the conference.

Answer : A lot of steps have been taken in India to get rid of child labour in India. In Article 24 and Article 39 of the Indian Constitution, child labour and exploitation have been abolished for the first-time. India has signed with the International Labour Organisation for the understanding regarding the abolition of child labour. To check the issue regarding child labour India has constituted a child labour commission. The Supreme Court has also issued a lot of directions regarding the child labour. Besides the Constitutional activities and lawful activities, the child developmental activities are also given importance and to determine them India is really trying hard. Wherever child labour is implemented, it should be noted that the children are treated well. In December 2006, by passing the Child Right Conservation Bill, India established full preparation to abolish child labour.

According to 1986 child labour abolition Bill, child labour was to abolish fully. In general developmental activities also, wherever it is possible, special attention should be given to the child welfare. Special plans and policies regarding child's welfare and development are to be carried on regularly. Especially in those states where till today child labour is prevailing the State Government as well as the NGO’s should take all necessary steps to stop child labour. In this context, the National Child Labour Scheme is worth mentioning under which for the abolition of child labour special schools were established and various welfare programmes viz. training for employment, giving health-related facilities etc. were main objectives. With the help of central government's economic support, till today, about 100 schemes like this are being run well. More dedicated awakening, mass awakening regarding child labour abolition is needed in India at present.

Answer : Economic backwardness challenge on Indian democracy

In India there is unequal development pattern without any uniformity in economic development is affecting Indian democracy. There is lot of regional variation where within country certain states like Kerala, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu have better development when compared to eastern and north eastern region. Because of this differential growth there arises economic backwardness resulting in poverty, under nutrition, lack of access to education, health infrastructure etc. In such circumstances, a citizen is not and cannot be expected to be able to participate in the process of democratic governance of the country. So, large section of Indian masses out of democratic process and so nation is not running as a true democracy, due to economic backwardness.

Here, economic backwardness has become a real challenge to our democracy. Development and Democracy are inter-related phenomena. Requirements of people can be known only if full democratic governance is implemented. Democratic nation pays equal attention to every requirement of all sectors of society or citizens, irrespective of their level, number and strength. After satisfying all basic requirements only developments can be achieved.

Democracy and Development

In the post-independence India, with the infant democracy the importance was given to economic development to move nation from growth stagnant to growth oriented for taking Indian democracy to next level. From the period of 1970’s till liberalization of economy it was no more economic development alone lead for better democracy so policy makers initiated social welfare policies. But in the contemporary India, there is rise of enormous social movements and raise voice against the functioning of ruling class on development and democracy of India.

Social Scientist argue that it is because of democracy India is not able to progress in development, by comparing China’s development model, which achieved development in two decades after liberalizing economy in the 1970’s but India is still struggling with the developmental arena though it liberalized economy in 1991.

With heterogeneous population having different religion, caste and class structure given rise to regionalism and personality cult development affecting nation’s growth because of democracy providing multiparty system.

Today in India, there is transformation in economy from regional player to global giant and there is mass awareness among the masses on democratic setup which is visible from high voter turnout in elections shows that people have faith in democracy and feel that this same democracy would provide their Socio-economic growth for attaining equal development and remove the economic backwardness from this society.

Thus, in order to achieve the agenda of inclusive growth for taking democracy and development to next level there is need of restructuring of society by providing greater opportunity for educational and employment opportunities.

Development is all about upliftment of social political, cultural, educational and economical levels of public life. Democratisation of a country can help and boost the process of achieving development. So, Democracy and Development should go together smoothly for better upliftment of Indian society.

Answer : India is facing the curse of child-labour. A large number of children have to work as child labourer in industries or other places of works like hotels, stalls, shops, etc. Laws have been made to abolish child labour from India. Various schemes and programmes have also been formulated to meet this end. But yet, it is a distant goal to be achieved. Moreover, if the child labour is abolished, India will have to face some consequences in socioeconomic fields.

In social field, they are required to be educated, If they have no work to do, their poor families will not be able to meet the requirements of life. Even to some families, starvation will be a result. Apart from this, children will require enough nutrition.

Activities for their upliftment will be a first priority. But the position does not appear that government will be able to provide food, clothes, shelter and education on its own, if children do not earn. Adult members will have to replace the children. Children are always low-paid. An adult cannot afford to work with such low payment.

On economic front, there are some protests from USA and European countries regarding child labour in India. After abolishing it, Indian export will grow. But earning amount of a family will be reduced. As children support their families, income deficiency will result in poverty. Employers of children will not be able to employ an adult person because of their inability to pay higher wages.

Even after working, some children afford their own food and education, this burden is then to be handled by their poor parents. Economic conditions of Government are not so sound to afford all these costs. This will result in higher cost of wages to small scale industries and small employers. All these seem to lead that perhaps, it is also not possible for India to abolish child labour immediately.

Answer : Gender equality is a great challenge for Indian society. Women’s lives are shaped by customs that are centuries old. “May you be the mother of a hundred sons” is a common Hindu wedding blessing. Apart from various traditional customary problems, various social constraints are also there. They are:

In patrimonial, male-dominated society of India, female have always been subjected to domestic expressions. They are psychologically dominated by male. This creates lack of confidence among them to face social challenge.

The origin of the Indian idea of appropriate female behavior can be traced to the rules laid down by Manu in 200 BC: “by a young girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house”. “In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent.”

They are not well aware of economical and political systems. So they cannot participate in such fields without proper training. It requires a long time. They are not aware of legal provisions favouring and protecting them.

If they come out of houses to participate in the mainstream of society, male would be unable to handle children and other household works on their part. Female are regarded as machines to produce children and satisfy sexual instincts of Male at night. This attitude is yet to be changed.

Answer : Right to Education Act making it mandatory for the Central, state and local bodies to provide free and compulsory education to all the children in the 6-14 years age group, but the real scenario of elementary education in India is pathetic. Below are some of issues which make free and compulsory education in India a mammoth task.

Inadequacy of Financial Provision: Due to over expenditure in defense, foreign debt, infrastructure development among others, and the expenditure for education in the central level comes down.““Poverty among Parents: Education in undeveloped areas still considered as a luxury because of financial constraints of the parents.

Indifference of Parents: An illiterate parent is generally averse to education. Again children from educated families climb the educational ladder more successfully than those from uneducated families. This develops antipathy in uneducated parents towards education.

Ineffectiveness of Teachers: Lack of effectiveness among teachers takes root at the time of teacher training. In spite of the known effects of teacher training on efficiency of teachers, most developing countries have poor teacher training programmes. Such training programmes in India are also farcical in nature.

Inertia in Administrative and Supervisory Machinery: The inertia prevailing among administrators and supervisors has its origin in a faulty recruitment system. The inertia prevailing in the system is responsible for ill-distribution of available resources. Such problems get further accentuated because of the multitude of languages and dialects.

Universalization of primary education is intimately connected with the development of living conditions of the people. When a significant number of citizens are below the poverty line, the attempts made to provide free and compulsory education to children in the age group 6-14 cannot be successful. There are, in addition, certain educational and administrative bottlenecks that have been decelerating the process. Efforts therefore are to be made for complete revamping of the system both at micro and macro levels, so as to make free education a reality and not a myth in India.

Answer : Gender inequality has adverse impact on development goals as it reduces economic growth. It hampers the overall well being, because blocking women from partici-pation in social, political and economic activities can adversely affect the whole society. Many developing countries including India, have displayed gender inequality in education, employment and health.

This situation leads to increase in number of unmarried men population. An additional problem is that many of these men are rural peasants of low socioeconomic class and with limited education. When there is a shortage of women in the marriage market, the women can “marry up,” inevitably leaving the least desirable men with no marriage prospects. A number of commentators predict that this situation will lead to increased levels of antisocial behavior and violence and will ultimately present a threat to the stability and security of society.

There is some empirical evidence to fear such a scenario. Studies shows that there is a clear link between sex ratio and violence as a whole, not just violence against women as might be assumed when there is a shortage of females. Gender is a well-established individual-level correlate of crime, and especially violent crime. It is a consistent finding across cultures that an overwhelming percentage of violent crime is perpetrated by young, unmarried, low-status males. There is also evidence that, when single young men congregate, the potential for more organized aggression is likely to increase substantially. According some studies, the sex imbalance also could impact regional and global security, especially because the surrounding countries of Pakistan, Taiwan, Nepal, and Bangladesh also have higher percentage of men.

A number of other consequences of an excess of men have been described, but there is very little evidence for causation. It is intuitive that if sexual needs are to be met this will lead to a large expansion of the sex industry, including its more unacceptable practices such as coercion and trafficking. It has also been suggested that a shortage of women may lead to a rise in homosexual behavior, not implying that the shortage of women will produce homosexuals, but rather that an increasing tolerance toward homosexuality, together with the surplus of males, may lead to large numbers of covert homosexuals openly expressing their sexuality.

On the other hand, there may also have some positive outcome of gender disparities. They are:

• Increase in the proportion of wanted girl child births, leading to less discrimination against girl children and lower female mortality.
• Reduction in birth rate may be beneficial in controlling population growth.
• As the number of women in a society decreases, so their social status should increase and they should benefit from their enhanced value. Ultimately, this may lead to more balanced sex ratios because couples will choose to have girls. However, it has also been argued that the increased value of women could have a negative side, especially in rural society; increased female value may not benefit the woman herself, but rather the males around her. Her father, husband, and in-laws all hold her value, so when her value increases her life is more controlled by them.

Answer : Funding on part of the government as a result of this globalisation has considerably reduced. In it now private companies and foreign agencies are being given due weightage. The standard of education has substantially been raised since private and foreign agencies are quite innovative and experimental in their attitude and dealing.

This globalisation has also made distant education available inside the country. The instant impact of it is that students who are diligent and meritorious lot but devoid of resources to avail of latest educational patterns through visiting foreign countries, would get this facility in India.

On the other hand, due to globalisation higher education becomes beyond the reach of poor students. Since educational level by these agencies has been elevated, the monetary require-ments to become admitted and study has also spi-raled.

By this globalisation Multimedia Tech. has come in vogue that is becoming popular due to its multi-dimensional approach and uses. It, being a technical concept, brings together text, voice, music, illustrations, pictures, video and anim-ation, in one composite CD-ROM. It has also facilitated and brought leverage in higher education. Another flipside of this globalisation is that it could erode our traditional values and ethos.

Answer : Policies for elimination of Child Labour: Various constitutional and legal provisions have been put in place to deal with the problem of child labour. Article 24 of the Indian Constitution provides that “no child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed in work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment”. In India, the first legislation for regulating employment of children in factories was passed in 1881. The factory act, 1948, prohibited employment of children below the age of 14 years. The child labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, is the first comprehensive legislation which prohibits employment of children below 14 years in organised industries and in certain hazardous industrial occupation listed in Part A and B of the schedule of the Acts. The National Policy on Child Labour was announced in 1987. The policy focuses on a legislative action plan; general development programmes for benefiting children whenever possible; project-based action plans in areas of high concentration of child labourers engaged in wage/quasi-wage employment. Apart from it, the Government of India is also a signatory to six International Labour Organisation conventions relating to child labour.

Child Welfare: The Department of Women and Child Development (DW & CD) was set up in 1985 as part of the Ministry of Human Resource Development to give the much-needed impacts to the holistic development of women and children.

The National Policy on children was adopted in 1974 to provide adequate service to children both before and after birth to ensure their full physical, mental and social development.

Two National Plans of Action for Children, one for children in general and the other specifically for the girl child, were adopted in 1992.

The various schemes and special bodies for child welfare were established. ICDS, Kishori Shakti Yojana, Balika Samridhi Yojana are some schemes for child welfare. NIPCCD and National Commission for Child Welfare were established. The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) provides a package of services comprising supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-up and referral services, pre-school non-formal education and health and nutrition education. Kishori Shakti Yojana aimed at improving the nutritional and health status of adolescent girls and promoting self-development, awareness of health, hygiene, nutrition, family welfare and management. The National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD) are an autonomous organisation functions under the aegis of the Department of Women and Child Development.

Answer : In a country like India where gender discrimination is a major problem, gender equality is something to question. But the Constitution of India does provide for equality. Besides, the Government of India has also undertaken number of initiatives to guarantee gender equality. The Constitution of India ensures gender equality in its preamble as a fundamental right but also empowers the state to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favor of women by ways of legislation and policies.

India has also ratified various international conventions and human rights forums to secure equal rights of women,” such as the ratification of Convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women in 1993. Women have been finding place in local governance structures, overcoming gender biases as a result of 33 per cent reservation of seat in local government.

The passing of Pre-natal Diagnostic Tech Act in 1994 also is a step in removing gender discrimination. This Act seeks to end sex- determination tests and female foeticide and prohibits doctors from conducting such procedures for the specific purpose of determining the sex of the fetus. The Government also announced the National policy for empowerment of women in 2001 to bring out advancement, development and empowerment of women.

The Government has also drawn up a draft National Policy for the empowerment of women which is a policy statement, outlining the state’s response to problems of gender discrimination.

Answer : The distinctive features of the 2001 Lokpal Bill are as follows:

1. The bill provides for the establishment of the institution of Lokpal to inquire into allegations of corruption against public functionaries including the Prime Minister, provided the offence committed is within ten years from the day the complaint is lodged.
2. The Lokpal shall consist of a chairperson who is or has been a Chief Justice or a Judge of the Supreme Court and two members who are or have been the judges of the Supreme Court or the Chief Justices of the High Court.
3. The bill provides for a fixed tenure of three years for the Chairperson and the members.
4. The chairperson and members shall be appointed by the President of India on the recommendation of a committee headed by the Vice-President of India and comprising the Prime Minister, the Lok Sabha Speaker, the Home Minister, the leader of the house other than the house in which the Prime Minister is a member and leaders of the opposition in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
5. To ensure independence and impartiality, the bill provides that the chairperson or a member of the Lokpal shall not be removed from office, except by an order made by the President on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. He can issue the removal order after an inquiry by a committee consisting of the Chief Justice of India and two other judges of the Supreme Court (next to the Chief Justice in seniority).

Answer : Globalization means increasing integration between different economics of the world. The economic gap between different nations is reduced. This is achieved by removing all restrictions between nations on the movement of: goods, services, capital, and technology. In other words globalization results in international division of labour. The present day world is experiencing the information technology revolution. Every nation must keep its doors and windows open to the outside world, i.e. it must take part in the international division of Labour.

On the other hand, internationalism is only in the same line as globalisation, but to limited field. Though internationalism is also a process among countries but it is not as wide as globalisation for ex: WTO agreements have effects of globalisation as it involves all economic players, whereas in SAARC, the agreement will affect internationalism as limited to some countries. Likewise NAFTA, G-8, APEC and other regional trade organization and agreements falls under globalisation.