Dark side of India

This is really picture taken while going from Rewari to Narnaul. When i asked to the lady that how many Km you walked to fetch this water the answer was 3 Km. This what my shining India is after 65 years of independence we are failed to provide the drinking water.
The boy in picture has yet to attend the school(Where is RTE).

Food wastage in India

 In thousands of person die of hunger and this is what is happening in India. Our food minister is making statement in Parliament that food waste figures  were exaggerated, on the other side Supreme Court commissioners on food have reported to the apex court that as much as 50,000 metric tonnes of grains have already gone bad.
The court commissioners dubbed negligence by officials as `genocidal' and recommended responsibility and accountability be fixed at the highest level in Central and state governments.

The commissioners have warned that this is just a third of the 1.37 lakh MT of wheat lying in the open since 2008-09 in Punjab, and the entire lot could have become unfit for consumption as Food Corporation of India (FCI) norms allow grains to be exposed to nature for only a year.
In Haryana, too, 31,574 MT of grains have been lying in the open since 2008-09.
Another 27.38 lakh MT of grain are lying in Punjab. While 18.90 MT of grains are wrapped in polythene, and gathering dust for the past two years.
The commissioners report that "a significant quantity of these foodgrains are likely to go waste if urgent measures are not taken by the Government of India to release these stocks to poor immediately."
The Supreme Court commissioners' statement comes in stark contrast to that of Pawar, who had earlier said in Parliament only 11,700 MT of grains worth Rs 6.86 crore had become unfit for consumption and reports of rotting grains were blown out of proportion.
When contacted principle adviser to court commissioners, Biraj Patnaik, refused to comment, stating the issue is sub-judice. A counter affidavit filed by the government to this report quietly skirts the issue of rotting grains completely.
Instead it talks of long-term arrangements to increase space for storage.
The apex court, in its earlier hearing, had asked why grains should not be distributed to the poor instead of being allowed to rot in the open.
The government claimed it cannot increase allocation of grains to the state under the PDS as it is not able take ad-hoc decisions while the new criteria is being developed by the government.
Pointing to continuing deliberations under the National Advisory Council (NAC), the government has admitted it currently makes allocation of foodgrains to states on the basis of decade-old population figures. But it has refused to increase allocation, saying it would wait for the National Food Security Bill to come through and NAC to formally make its recommendations to the government.
The court commissioners note that: "Ironically, the allotment of food grains (rice and wheat) made by the Union government to the state governments as well as through open market sales is lower in the current financial year than in the last financial year."

Dismissal State of education in India

Even though we like to boast about of IIM (A) ranking 11 in the world and IIT standing no were among top 100 institutions, we easily forget about millions of uneducated children in India. India was able to withstand world economic crises just because of its large consumer base, and had we been able to convert this large population into a educated productive mass  we  could have easily become the power house of world. But the rulers of India have always thought of them as a vote bank who if become educated will ask for privileges  of  normal human beings. Now lets see the status of education in India. A person is called educated if he/ she is able to read and write his/her name. Even after this 30% of world uneducated people are from India's 2.4% of land mass.

 Why is it so, even though India is fast developing as super power with impressive industrial growth and economic development,it is falling behind on human development index.The education scenario is alarmingly dismal at the grass-root level.India’s education program is falling behind other nations.It is a country with population already touching one billion while only one third will be able to read.Due to various social and economic problems India’s education programme is besieged with many problems.Of the biggest victims are those living in the rural areas.Allocation of government funds and the conditions of the destitute rural schools contribute to the low quality of education by rural children.Many children living in rural areas receive a level of education which is very poor.Overall enrolment in primary and middle schools are very low.50% of the children living in these areas leave school before the 5th class.These children leave school for many reasons – lack of interest,working in the fields where hours are long and pay is low.A large percent of dropouts are female children.Forced by their parents most girls perform chores and tend the family at home.These are some of the reasons why female literacy stands low in India.As these children grow into adults,many are still illiterate by the age of 40.These uneducated adults are also reluctant to send their own children to school.This creates a vicious circle where whole section of the community remain uneducated.A large number of teachers refuse to teach in rural areas and those that do are usually are under qualified.In recent years the number of qualified teachers has increased because of increased efforts by the government and civil society groups to improve general education and professional training of teachers.Those who refuse to teach in the rural areas cite distance and lack of interest by students as problems.Many teachers lack enthusiasm due to their meagre salary.Another obstacle faced by the schools is that obtaining more teachers because of state guidelines that approve of high student-teacher ratio.Lack of books and learning materials seem to be a widespread problem.The use of high-tech devices such as computers are very rare.Most of the rural schools operate without toilets,drinking water facility and electricity.The distribution of government funds is major hinderance to the educational system.According to a recent study,30% of the total educational funding goes toward higher educational institutions.This is an important factor as the percent of students enrolled in these institutions are much lower.Lack of education has resulted in growth of unemployment,poverty and substantial increase in the growth of population.Illiteracy has proven to be a major handicap.It has percolated through various systems affecting the India’s growth.India needs policy changes in the way we look into the education system in the country.Government should ensure that the funds should reach where they are meant for and not get exhausted in the pockets of few.

Is this shining India?

Is India is the country only for “rich”? There are 49 thousand slums were estimated to be in existence in urban India , 24% of them were located along nallahs and drains and 12% along railway lines and about 57% of slums were built on public land, owned mostly by local bodies, state government, etc.

In 64% of notified slums, a majority of the dwellings were pucca, the corresponding percentage for the non-notified ones being 50% and for 95% slums; the major source of drinking water was either tap or tube well. Only 1% notified and 7% non-notified slums did not have electricity connection and about 78% of notified slums and 57% of the non-notified slums had a pucca road inside the slum.

Youth and children are tool of Indian future because one third of youths are Indians who can change the society in the future. India has 420 million kids. That’s more than the US and UK combined, but in India today, one out of every two children under 3 years of age is malnourished.

Half of all Indian children are not in school. India has 420 million kids. That’s more than the US and UK combined. One in four Indian girls is sexually abused before the age of 4. 52% of girls aged 6-10 are out of school. 48% of boys aged 6-10 are out of school.

There are thousands and thousands of children in the slums who have never gone to school and they do not have any basic training, no proper shelter and no sanitation. More than 40,000 children are reported missing every year.

More than 7o million people don’t have access to safe drinking water. More than 18 Lakhs people are infected by tuberculosis (TB) every year. Mainly due to poor sanitation more than 3 Lakhs children die annually. More than 18% youths commits suicide every year.

Do we fast progressing nation? In what way? Is this shining India?

Reach of safe drinking water in India

भारत के पास विश्व की समस्त भूमि का केवल 2.4 प्रतिशत भाग ही है जबकि विश्व की जनसंख्या का 16.7 प्रतिशत जनसंख्या भारत वर्ष में निवास करती है। जनसंख्या में वृद्धि होने के साथ-साथ प्राकृतिक संसाधनों पर और भार बढ़ रहा है। जनसंख्या दबाव के कारण कृषि के लिए व्यक्ति को भूमि कम उपलब्ध होगी जिससे खाद्यान्न, पेयजल की उपलब्धता पर प्रतिकूल प्रभाव पड़ रहा है, लोग वांचित होते जा रहे हैं. Here is what Experts say about India.

Figures compiled by WaterAid disprove the government's claims of providing safe drinking water to over 90% of population. India has yet to do more to reach the Millennium Development Goals in this sector as millions continue to suffer from contaminated water-borne diseases.

New Delhi: Over 37.7 million people in India are affected by water-borne diseases due to contaminated drinking water supply and an estimated 1.5 million children die of diarrohea each year, according to newly available statistics.

Compiled through collaboration between the government and the international non-governmental organisation (NGO) WaterAid the new figures belie official claims that 94% of rural and 91% of urban populations now have access to safe drinking water.

According to WaterAid the difference is that until now there has been no mention in official statistics of the quality of water supplied to these populations, or of its sustained year-round supply.

Lizette Burgers, chief of Water, Environment and Sanitation at UNICEF says that in spite of India’s efforts at reaching water to millions, “increasing populations, bacterial infections and other problems have resulted in significant difference in effective coverage.”

Without sanitation

According to UNICEF statistics over one-third of the world’s population that lives without access to sanitation live in India.

“The greatest problem for water quality in India is from human and animal faeces,” said Burgess. “The world is looking at India to see what it does for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in this sector,” commented Burgess.

India is committed to the MDG in the water-sector to halve, by 2015, the numbers of its people without access to safe drinking water.

Depinder Kapur of WaterAid - India says the organisation got alerted to the issue of contaminated water-supply from their ‘extensive engagements’ with various communities across India.

Kapur said in WaterAid’s experience the main sources for India’s polluted water-supply remain open defecation, lack of sanitation, over-exploitation of groundwater resources and chemicals leaching into water sources.

Most serious victims

The most serious victims of this pollution are India’s rural villages, constituting nearly 70% of the country’s population.

Arsenic and fluoride contamination from over-used groundwater, wherein the water drawn hits rock-bottom, is another serious health hazard facing rural communities.

A newly emerging cause of anemia, especially among women and children in rural communities, is now thought to be related to fluoride contamination.

“One direct impact of this has affected women giving birth to low birth-weight babies, who in turn are impaired from this pollution with autism, impaired physical and mental growth and several other disorders,” says Dr. A.K. Susheela of the Delhi-based Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation.

A 2008 UNICEF report says that 43% of the world’s low birth-weight infants are born in India.

In support of argument Susheela said that while government of India, in its bid to check anemic pregnancy has been providing folic acid to pregnant mothers since 1970, no positive benefit has been noticed so far. She believes the reason is due to fluoride-contamination damaging intestinal inner walls and making them incapable of absorbing nutrients.

“We are adding to the disabled-child population in India without realising the causative factor,” says Susheela.

Fluoride in their water systems

Approximately 30,000 habitations in various parts of the country are affected by fluoride in their water systems and another 7,000 habitations are affected by arsenic. Both contaminants come from mineral rock sources, emerging due to over-exploitation of groundwater.

Human populations alongside the river Ganges running through northern and eastern India suffering from various levels of arsenic poisoning, according to well-established studies.

Dipankar Chakraborty of the School of Environmental Sciences at the Calcutta-based Jadavpur University, who first brought the issue to public attention about 20 years ago, blames the administration for not heeding to the serious public health-hazard in time.

“The crisis is in the administration’s poor management of water supply and can be solved by switching from groundwater sources to the rivers for water supply,” Chakravarty said.

Bharat Lal, director of the government’s Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission and the department of Drinking-Water Supply admits that the issue of water-quality has been secondary. “We are not monitoring the impact of the water, once access has been achieved.”

Lal said there was a serious lack of trained staff for arsenic and fluoride-testing at the district-level and points to unutilised funds given by the central government to various state administrations for water-quality testing.

“The government, municipal and village bodies, responsible for water-supply also abdicate the responsibility of monitoring whilst they supply,” said Lal.

 

where is shining India

Everyone was shouting from the roof top, "India economy is growing at the phenominal rate" and now every one is quiet. Dollar has reached almost at Rs 58, growth rate has come down considerably, inflation is killing poor people and middle class is grasping for the breath. This growth has taken place haphazardly, in the pockets of politicians, corrupt bureaucrats and shrewd businessmen. The average men were given lollipop of shining India.  This lollipop is prepared at the cost of  Air pollution, water pollution, garbage pollution and wildlife natural habitat pollution. Go to any city of India you will find filth spread all over the city and this filth is in from the wrappers of potato chips, plastic bags, gutka pouchs etc etc, air is heavily polluted, forests depleted.

Our great politicians have not taken care of the Indian culture and Indian mentality while planning the growth path for the india, they just copied the western pattern and filled their pockets and balloned their swiss bank accounts for next 20 generations to eat without considering will their 20 generation will see this planet habitable ?.

The problem of sanitation in India

           Lack of proper sanitation is a major concern for India. Statistics conducted by UNICEF have shown that only 31% of India’s population is using improved sanitation facilities as of 2008.It is estimated that one in every ten deaths in India is linked to poor sanitation and hygiene. Diarrhoea is the single largest killer and accounts for one in every twenty deaths. Around 450,000 deaths were linked to diarrhoea alone in 2006, of which 88% were deaths of children below five. Studies by UNICEF have also shown that diseases resulting from poor sanitation affects children in their cognitive development.
Without proper sanitation facilities in India, people defecate in the open or rivers. One gram of faeces could potentially contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1000 parasite cysts and 100 worm eggs. The Ganges river in India has a stunning 1.1 million litres of raw sewage being disposed into it every minute.The high level of contamination of the river by human waste allow diseases like cholera to spread easily, resulting in many deaths, especially among children who are more susceptible to such viruses.
A lack of adequate sanitation also leads to significant economic losses for the country. A Water and sanitation Program (WSP) study The Economic Impacts of Inadequate Sanitation in India (2010) showed that inadequate sanitation caused India considerable economic losses, equivalent to 6.4 per cent of India’s GDP in 2006 at US$53.8 billion (Rs.2.4 trillion).In addition, the poorest 20% of households living in urban areas bore the highest per capita economic impacts of inadequate sanitation. (Source wikipedia)