THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 22 September 2018 (Pro-women, pro-poor)

Pro-women, pro-poor

Mains Paper: 1 | Society 
Prelims level: Socio-economic data
Mains level:  Role of women and women's organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

Introduction

• India’s performance in poverty reduction since the early 1990s has been remarkable.
• A constant criticism poverty -- social indicators like education and mortality has not been as commendable.
• Absolute poverty declined from 46 per cent in 1993/94 to only 13 per cent in 2011/12 (World Bank international poverty line of $1.90 PPP dollars per person per day).
• Socio-economic data has shown that improvement in indicators for women was not as good as that for men.
• The major component of SBA was to make India OD (open defecation) free by October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
• It depends not only on income but also on access to services.”
• Unfortunately, our reformers forgot his message as they proceeded to make India modern and prosperous but attempted to do so without improvements in sanitation.
• Simultaneously, PM Modi announced the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (save the daughter, educate the daughter) initiative (aka reform).

Important highlights of the Open Defecation initiatives

• Let us first recognise the boldness of the OD initiative.
• A taboo conversation word — defecation — was openly discussed.
• That close to 50 per cent of rural India was indulging in this practice came as a shock to most.
• Newspaper stories have emerged about the “fact” that : the building of toilets has been exaggerated,

do not have enough water, unused bathrooms being used for storage of grain.

• Academic analysts warned of a quick-fix; attitudinal change was required, and this was painfully slow.
• A few days ago, the UN released data for under-five mortality rates for 180 countries for the period 1990 to 2017.
• Apart from safety and dignity for women, open defecation has major implications for mortality, and especially mortality rates for children.

Why did the programme succeed beyond all calculations?

• Because it was a pro-poor, pro-female, campaign.
• Because it improved the safety and dignity of women.
• Because it was (shockingly!) very well administered.
• And because it was a high-profile PM campaign.

Way forward 

• It is not a stringent test because mortality decline is affected by at least four other important factors — income growth, technological advances (medicine and vaccination), improvement in water supply and education of women.
• The largest annual pace of decline for female under-five mortality (as well as for males) was observed during the 10-year period 1990 to 2000.
• The under-five female mortality rate has shown virtually no improvement for Sweden between 2010 and 2017 — a decline from the rate of 2.8 (per 100,000) in 2010 to 2.6 in 2017.
• This is only a decline of (log) 7.4 per cent, compared to over a 40 per cent decline for India.
• India achieves the rank of seven for female under-five mortality, a large improvement over the 15 rank just two years earlier!
• Yet another performance indicator is the pace of improvement in female mortality relative to that of males.

UPSC Prelims Questions: 

Q.1)  Consider the following statements regarding Darwaza Band campaign:
1. Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation is the nodal ministry of the campaign.
2. Its main focus is to provide clean water to rural households.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: A

UPSC Mains Questions:
Q.1)  Why did the Open Defecation program succeed beyond all calculations?

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