World Population Awareness

India: Mayel Lyang Sut Lom - Sikkim Threatened by Damming of Rivers

Mayel Lyang Sut Lom (Voices from the Hidden Land) is a 20 minute documentary showing the campaigns of the Lepcha community in Sikkim, India, against the construction of large dams in their homeland. The film shows the Lepchas struggle against the damming of the Teesta River and the destruction of the Dzongu region.

Dzongu, on the banks of the Teesta, overlooks the sacred Khangchendzonga the worlds third highest mountain and is home to red pandas, snow leopards, and the famous Khangchendzonga National Park. The Lepcha are waiting in apprehension for the harbingers of development the giant bulldozers, the heavy cranes, the polluting crushers. The film asks whether the dams being built in the name of development will destroy the Lepchas culture, identity and socio-economic fabric. It questions whether the construction of dams on the Teesta will leave the Lepcha homeless and disconnected from their mountains and hills, their sacred rocks and springs, their forests and streams. The film seeks to uncover who loses and who benefits from this kind of development.

Demographic Dividend Can Become a Liability for India

Under the Indira Gandhi government, a policy error pushed for population control through a programme of coercive sterilisation. The reaction to that policy created the concept of coalition government in India, and resulted in a population explosion which ended up creating the demographic dividend a couple of decades later.

From this demographic dividend came a young, educated, eager- to- work population that has powered Indian IT companies to the global top league, pushed India's automotive sector to world scale volumes, and helped build the steeland- glass symbols of India's growing economic might in our mushrooming cities.

But if the factors which make having a younger working population such a great competitive advantage — energy, drive, ambition — are not channelized productively, they can explode into anarchy and destruction.

For example, in England this summer, riots flared into an orgy of mindless violence and looting. Most of the rioters and looters were youth with little or no role to play in the sustaining of Britain as one of the world's largest economies.

In 2008, Jet Airways, caught in the unexpected turbulence set off by the global financial meltdown, tried to sack 1,900 staff, most of them fresh recruits meant to man the cabins of its growing fleet. The sacked staff took to the streets and approached a rabble- rousing political party. For the first time, India saw smart, educated, middle class boys and girls take to the street to voice their anger. Fortuitously, since that recession didn't last too long.

But now things may be worse than 2008 and an estimated 611 million Indians were under the age of 25 as of 2010. These post- reform children do not understand shortages or lack of services or infrastructure. But they are young, and youth is the age of rebellion. So far they did not really have anything to rebel against. But hand them a concept they can relate to — and the idea of rebelling against an amorphous, anonymously evil idea like corruption is something young people can easily relate to — and they can explode.

The Great Indian Paradox

Can India's impressive economic growth keep pace with the needs and demands of a still rapidly growing population?

Its population has reached the 1.2 billion mark, and by 2025 is projected to surpass China at 1.4 billion. Despite a continuing decline in fertility rate, India's population may not stabilize until 2050 or later.

Being the most populous nation is not as important as whether or not India's population growth will overtake its ability to feed its people, and whether its continued prosperity is sustainable.

India's per capita availability of cereal grains was 423 grams per day in 2000, but only 407 in 2009. And in recent months, India - like many other nations in Asia - has been fighting a furious battle with food inflation.

While India's grain reserves remain ample, domestic food prices in India have increased at a double-digit rate, straining the budgets of the urban poor, many of whom live on less than $1.25 a day. Many experts believe that the current rise in food prices is a sign of an emerging and chronic global food crisis.

India's farmers face falling water levels, declining runoff from melting glaciers, loss of farmland to urbanization, the effects of climate change, and the ever rising price of fuel and fertilizer.

A lot depends on the welfare and status of women and girls. If girls can be kept in schools longer, if the age of marriage can be delayed, and if girls and women can be given the access they want to family planning and reproductive health services, then India's future is more promising.

But the treatment of girls and women in rural India, particularly in the north, while improved in recent decades, still has a long ways to go. Now couples are often electing to abort girl fetuses, skewing the sex ratio. And between birth and age four, girls die at a rate that is about one-third higher than boys.

Experts are hopeful that by raising public awareness, enlisting the support of news and entertainment media, and working at the community level to cultivate the leadership of women, rapid gains can be made.

If India's quest for continued prosperity is overtaken by a global food crisis, it's not just India's urban poor that will suffer, the whole world will suffer. And much depends on whether India-and the rest of the world-can continue to improve the welfare and status of girls and women.

As Indian Growth Soars, Child Hunger Persists

Even after a decade of economic growth, child malnutrition rates are worse in India than in many countries, and stand out as a paradox in a proud democracy.

China reduced child malnutrition, and now just 7% of its children under 5 are underweight. In India, the comparable number is 42.5%. Malnutrition makes children prone to illness and stunts physical and intellectual growth.

Economists and public health experts say malnutrition rates point to a central failing of the poor. Hunger was not enough of a political priority. India's public expenditure on health remains low, and in some places, financing for child nutrition remains unspent.

Ignoring the needs of the poor altogether does spell political peril in India, helping to topple parties in the last elections.

India's sluggish and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy has only haltingly put in place simple solutions such as iodizing salt, or making sure all children are immunized against preventable diseases.

India runs the largest child feeding program in the world, but it is inadequately designed, and has made barely a dent in the ranks of sick children in the past 10 years.

The $1.3 billion Integrated Child Development Services program finances a network of soup kitchens in urban slums and villages.

But providing adequate nutrition to pregnant women and children under 2 years old is crucial and the Indian program has not homed in on them adequately. Many women here remain in ill health and are ill fed; they are prone to giving birth to low-weight babies and not to be aware of how best to feed them.

At one nursery the teacher was a no-show. At another, there were no children; instead, a few adults sauntered up with their lunch pails. At a third, the nursery worker said that 13 children and 13 lactating mothers had already come to claim their servings, and that now she would have to fill the bowls of whoever came along. "Otherwise, they will curse us."

None of the centers had a scale to weigh children and to identify the vulnerable ones. The nurseries were largely missing the needs of those most at risk: children under 2, for whom the feeding centers offered a ration of flour and ground lentils, containing none of the micronutrients a vulnerable infant needs.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development acknowledged that the program had yielded some gains in the past 30 years, but the impact on physical growth and development has been "rather slow." The report recommended fortifying food with micronutrients and educating parents on how to better feed their babies.

India remains home to more than a fourth of the world's hungry, 230 million people. Anemia is on the rise among rural women of childbearing age in eight states. Women are often the last to eat in their homes and unlikely to eat well or rest during pregnancy.

Childhood anemia, a barometer of poor nutrition in a lactating mother's breast milk, is three times higher in India than in China.

Serious rates of hunger persisted across Indian states that had posted enviable rates of economic growth in recent years. In the capital, which has the highest per-capita income in the country, 42.2% of children under 5 are stunted, or too short for their age, and 26% are underweight. rw

With the Right Technology and Policies, India Could Help Feed the World. Instead, it Can Barely Feed Itself

India's arable land is second only the US, its economy is one of the fastest growing, and its industrial innovation is legendary. But its output lags behind potential. For some staples, India must turn to already international markets, exacerbating a global food crisis.

This country is growing faster than its ability to produce rice and wheat.

India's growing affluent population demands more food and a greater variety.

Farmers, subsisting on small, rain-fed plots, are poor, and inflation has soared past 11%, the highest in 13 years.

The Green Revolution introduced high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat, expanded the use of irrigation, pesticides and fertilizers, and transformed the northwestern plains into India's breadbasket. But since the 1980s, the government has not expanded irrigation and access to loans or to advance agricultural research. Groundwater has been depleted at alarming rates.

Changes in temperature and rain patterns could diminish India's agricultural output by 30% by the 2080s.

Family farms have shrunk in size and a mounting debt is driving some farmers to suicide. Many find it profitable to sell their land to developers. Many are experimenting with high-value fruits and vegetables but there are few refrigerated trucks to transport their produce to supermarkets.

An inefficient supply chain means that the farmer receives less than a fifth of the price the consumer pays. One farmer has seen the water table under his land sink by 100 feet over three decades. By the 1980s, government investment in canals fed by rivers had tapered off, and wells became the principal source of irrigation, helped by a policy of free electricity to pump water. In Punjab, more than three-fourths of the districts extract more groundwater than is replenished. Between 1980 and 2002, the government subsidized fertilizers and food grains for the poor, but reduced its investment in agriculture. Today only 40% of Indian farms are irrigated. The summers are hotter, the rains more fickle. India raised a red flag two years ago about how heavily the appetites of its 1.1 billion people would weigh on world food prices. For the first time, India had to import wheat and in two years it bought about 7 million tons.

Today, two staples of the Indian diet are imported in ever-increasing quantities, but could supply food to the rest of the world if the existing agricultural productivity gap could be closed. But some farmers make more money selling out to land-hungry mall developers.

For years a farmer could sell his crop to a private trader, but for many it was easier to go to the nearest government granary, and accept their rate.

For years, those prices remained low, and there was little incentive for farmers to invest in their crop. After two years of having to import wheat, the government offered farmers a higher price for their grain: farmers not only planted more wheat but also sold much more of their harvest to the state and the country's buffer stocks were at record levels.

The country would not need to buy wheat on the world market this year, but how long it will remain the case is unclear.

From one quarter comes pressure to introduce genetically modified crops with greater yields; from another lawsuits to stop it. And from another pleas to mount a greener Green Revolution.

A British research institution, said: "This time around, it needs to be more efficient in its use of water, energy, fertilizer and land." rw

India;: Sustainable Growth

By 2050, some 6 billion people will be living in towns and cities. Never before has the world witnessed such rapid urbanization nor such a swift rise in the numbers of people migrating.

Migration and urban growth are linked, because the majority of people on the move do so for economic reasons. And when these movements towards the growth centers intensify, such towns and cities can also be places of great misery.

Here, the foremost concern is the infrastructure, which stems from the excessive size of most of the urban areas beyond its holding capacity. This is leading to overcrowding, traffic congestion, lack of adequate housing, mushrooming of slums and settlements, lack of civic amenities, disease and squalor.

Surrounding green belts are slowly being devoured by concrete jungles and pollution. Further the psycho-social malignancies arising from the pressures of living in a survival of the fittest scenario, exacerbated by the loss of traditional social support systems, manifest in the high crime rates, psychotic disorders and racial and social tensions.

Appropriate policy must be put in place so that there can be a balance between the economic rationale for growth and sustainability. As a result of the non-availability of amenities and employment opportunities, the government policy should focus on ensuring that urban centers are well planned to absorb further growth while encouraging other growth centers to develop.

One long term solution is on improvement of rural infrastructure, the neglect of which accentuates the urban exodus. Municipal authorities have to keep pace with city growth.

Policy makers need to wake up or the process of urbanization will become insurmountable. A holistic approach to urban and peripheral area planning with a long greater stress on rural development which will obviate the need for people to migrate to urban areas.

The Central government has allocated huge funds including the urban infrastructure Development Scheme for Small & Medium Towns, which aims at improvement in a planned manner. For all this to materialize the State government and the concerned departments must ensure that funds are utilized properly. rw

Water side story

If you live in one of Delhi's colonies where shortages happen every year, it will shock you to learn that there is no aggregate shortage of water. It is not as if with increasing population, Delhi's water requirements have risen so high that supply can't match it. According to Kokil Gupta, who works in the Water Resources Policy and Management Division of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), "It is more a case of mismanagement of available resources both at the supplier and users' ends."

Secretary of State Clinton to Deliver Major Speech Renewing U.S. Support for Universal Access to Reproductive Health Worldwide

In a speech to mark the 15th year of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce the U.S. Government's renewed support for and dedication to reaching the ICPD goals and other related UN agreements, including the Millennium Development Goals, in the next 5 years.

The speech will occur on January 8, 2010, having been postponed due to extreme weather conditions in Washington DC. Please follow the headline link or go to www.icpd2015.org for a live streamed broadcast at 3:00 pm. A transcript and video of of the speech will be posted on this site following the event.

The "Cairo Consensus" was reached in 1994 in Cairo, Egypt by 179 nations. It was agreed to achieve universal access to education, especially for girls; reductions in infant, child and maternal mortality, and universal access to reproductive health.

The 1994 ICPD was followed by the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women which established the Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2000 Millennium Summit, that established the Millennium Development Goals. These three conferences and their reinforcing commitments are the cornerstones of population and development policies globally.

The programs resulting from these conferences have improved and saved millions of lives through effective and affordable reproductive health programs, and has resulted in the growth of economies and preservation of natural resources.

Radical New Birth Control for Men 100% Effective

Men have had only two options when it comes to birth control, condoms or vasectomy, compared to women's many choices: pills, shots, patches, lubes, and tying their tubes.

However, now scientists in India have developed an injection for men called RISUG, or "reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance" that has so far proven to be 100% effective. It lasts 10 years and can be reversed with another injection with no side effects.

Having their partner assume the responsibility for birth control will help some women who suffer side effects of birth control: weight gain and loss, hormone imbalances, and frail bones, and others who have low fertility levels to start with, which is emotionally and physiologically draining if combined with a contraceptive that also lowers fertility.

Getting the injection is the difficult part, involving two needle sticks into the scrotum, the procedure taking about 15 minutes or so. A non toxic, positively charged polymer is injected into the tube that the sperm pass through on their way from the testicles. The polymer shocks (kills) the sperm, which have a negative charge.

Because the injection last 10 years, drug companies won't be making money from RISUG.

India is about to go into Stage III trials with RISUG, practically the last step before it can be used by anyone in India. Thanks to Bill Gates and a 100k donation from the Gates Foundation, we might get RISUG approved here in the US. The company in charge of trying to bring it here is Parsemus, and they are trying to see if RISUG can work on women, too. vp

The author suggests giving RISUG to adolescents: there would be less abortions, and less accidental pregnancies.

India: Average Infant Mortality Rate Down 30% in Past 10 Years

Surprising,infant deaths in India are down by 30% compared to a decade ago. The state of Tamil Nadu has reduced infant mortality by a whopping 46%, West Bengal by 37% and Maharashtra by 35%.

Infant mortality is measured as number of babies dying before they reach 1 year of age for every 1000 live births. The data comes from the Census office at New Delhi.

Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra appear to be doing well because of a better health care delivery system reaching down to the grassroots.

Among the factors that may have led to the sharp decline in West Bengal are a stronger mobilisational effect of the panchayat system, no female infanticide and availability of government hospitals.

Infant mortality has declined by only 23% in a decade in urban areas across India as opposed to a 27% decline in rural areas. Urban Delhi is unchanged for the past ten years.

Kerala still has the lowest Infant Mortality Rate among all Indian states.

Improved sources of drinking water increased from a mere 25% to 91%. Since water borne diseases are one of the biggest killers for babies this may have helped bring down the infant mortality rate.

Indian Ideas, Models

Bill and Melinda Gates, cochairs of the world's largest private foundation, are in India to talk about healthcare.

"India is a hotbed of innovation. The ideas and healthcare interventions we work on here can help solve world's problems, be it in Guatemala , Zambia or elsewhere," said Melinda Gates in Delhi.

"While India's economy is growing at a fast pace, the country is also home to half of the world's malnourished children" .. "notably in Bihar which has a population of 98 million and one of the worst affected by the burden of disease".

Since 2003, the foundation has invested more than $1.2 billion in projects aimed at improving public health and development outcomes in the country. In India, the foundation focuses mainly on women and child care, eradication of polio, malaria and HIV.

Mr Gates said the foundation is open to working with the government on its family planning services.

"Bihar has an immense capacity to innovate. If it were a country , it would be the 12th largest in the world. Some of the things we have done here can be taken to other regions as well,' Gates said. Even things like getting men to deliver vaccines on cycles and training women to deliver them to target populations have made immense impact on improving healthcare.

India: Arunachal Pradesh: Govt Slashes Family Planning Incentive by Rs 300

The incentive given to women for undergoing a family planning procedure has now been reduced from Rs 880 to Rs 580 now.

State health authorities said that the government's `population stabilisation policy' will now focus on sustaining the current fertility rate at 1.8 children per woman. "After having met the targets, the government's efforts are now directed towards infant and maternal mortality reduction.

The cash incentive for vasectomy (male sterilisation), however, remains unchanged at Rs 1,100. The considerably higher incentive for men, authorities said, has been left untouched to encourage more men to undergo the procedure, which accounts for only 4% of the total family planning procedures. Tubectomies account for 96%.

India: Grim Reality of Women Emancipation

While it is true that women are making strides in equality with their male counterparts, the growing incidents of dowry deaths, female foeticide, sexual harassment, rape and domestic violence speak volumes about the grim reality and the so-called women emancipation.

Every year, thousands are girls are forcibly pushed into flesh trade. Vijay Lakshmi, HIV/AIDS counsellor deals with the victims and try to make them aware about their rights to freedom.

Lakshmi believes that women empowerment has just remained confined to speeches and there is practically no support for the downtrodden sections.

In one case a girl was being tortured to work as sex worker. Lakshmi said: "After studying the case study of the girl, we asked her to leave the place where she worked as a labourer. She followed the suggestion and left the place for few months. Now, after a months, she is working as a salesgirl. Though she has faced tough times and is HIV positive, we encourage her to fight with the world."

Another issue is the the rising cases of female foeticide, where the unwanted daughters are being abandoned to beget sons. Baby girls are murdered in wombs.

ASHA workers in the rural areas playing their part to decrease the maternal and infant mortality rate. Two ASHA workers believe that nation cannot grow until the health of the women is attached importance. Hardly any man goes for vasectomy so women are forced to go for tubectomy. In villages, the women remain deprived of basic health facilities. The family members are least bothered about the pregnant woman who needs immense care.

There are laws against assaults against any woman, intending to outrage her modesty, domestic violence, and giving or taking of dowries.

India's Azad Concerned About Growing Population

At a recent Partners in Population Development (PPD) conference in Nigeria, India's Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said growing population is a matter of great concern.

"More South-South cooperation and mutual understanding would help to redefine strategies in terms of introduction of newer contraceptives, technical protocols and also replicate the successful schemes in the area of population stabilisation," said Azad.

He said: "Kenya and India can engage with each other and work together - We will be glad to share our policy initiatives, schemes, products and expertise." Each country can learn from experiences of other countries as to how best to address the complicated issues which involve health, education, socio-economic development and individual choices.

Africa and India together constitute more than 2.3 billion, which is roughly one third of the entire world population. Kenya alone has approximately 41 million people and like India, its population is very young and growing rapidly.

India's population now stands at 1.21 billion. The Census shows that the decadal growth rate has come down sharply to 17.64 in the years' 2001 to 2011 compared to 21.54 in 1991 - 2001. Also 14 States and Union Territories out of 35 have already achieved the replacement fertility level of 2.1.

India has tried to persuade people to have small family sizes for the betterment of the health of the mother, child and the whole family, while providing family planning services at health facilities and easier access to contraceptives.

Azad said "contraceptives, both male and female, shall be delivered free of cost and door to door by the community health workers in high focus areas."

Institutional deliveries in India have been increased from 47% to 72%, resulting in a reduction in the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) from 254 in 2004-06 to 212 in 2007-09, and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) from 58 in 2005 to 47 in 2010.

The Partners in Population Development (PPD) partner countries are from Asia, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

India: RISUG - the Revolutionary New Birth Control Method for Men

A new contraceptive procedure for men, known as RISUG (for reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) is undergoing clinical trials. The new method does not have some of the drawbacks associated with a regular vasectomy. First, sperm would still be able to escape the body normally, which means there will not be the pressure and granulomas that sometimes accompany a vasectomy. More important, it could be reversed easily, with a simple follow-up injection.

In a vasectomy a white tube called the vas deferens, which sperm travel through from the testes to the penis, would be severed, cauterized and tied up the ends, and tucked it all back inside. With RISUG a nontoxic polymer is injected into the vas that forms a coating on the inside of the vas. As sperm flow past, they are chemically incapacitated, rendering them unable to fertilize an egg.

Ronald Weiss,a leading Canadian vasectomy surgeon and a member of a World Health Organization team that visited India to look into RISUG said "If we can prove that RISUG is safe and effective and reversible, there is no reason why anybody would have a vasectomy."

RISUG is not the product of some global pharmaceutical company or state-of-the-art government-funded research lab. It was developed by an Indian scientist named Sujoy Guha spent over 30 years refining RISUG while battling bureaucrats in his own country and skeptics worldwide. In study after study, RISUG has been proven to work 100% of the time. The procedure is now in late Phase III clinical trials in India, which means approval in that country could come in as little as two years.

RISUG is not available to Western men, although there is much interest. Thanks to a novel collaboration between Guha and a San Francisco reproductive health activist, RISUG could soon be on the road to FDA approval in the US.

India will soon surpass China as the world's most populous nation; in the poorest Indian state, women bear an average of nearly four children. Cheap to produce and relatively easy to administer, RISUG could help poor couples limit their families-increasing their chances of escaping poverty. In the developed countries, it would help relieve women of the risks of long-term birth-control-pill use and give men a more reliable, less annoying option than condoms. About half of all pregnancies in the US are unplanned.

The article goes on to describe Guha who turns out to be very interesting, and to describe more about the development of RISUG. You can read it by clicking on the link in the headline.

India: A Reproductive Health Communication Model That Helps Improve Young Women's Reproductive Life and Reduce Population Growth

Implementation of a reproductive health communication model called PRACHAR could result in 64 million fewer people being added to the population of India. PRACHAR is a reproductive health communication model found to be successful in delaying age at marriage and onset of childbearing, increasing contraceptive use for spacing of pregnancies, and generating the most positive impact on contraceptive use among the socioeconomically least advantaged. The model was developed and tested in rural Bihar, India.

Visit http://www.pathfind.org/site/DocServer/PRACHAR_Impact_-_Pathfinder_WP_Jan_2010.pdf?docID=18181 to see the report on the impact of implementing the model in the reproductive health and family planning programs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The Taboo India Hasn't Tackled

Only 35% of women in the south Indian state of Karnataka know that condoms can prevent HIV transmission. Taboos around condoms stand strong.

There are 2.5 million people in India who are HIV positive. Almost 40% of them are women. The government has suggested premarital HIV testing but these are short-sighted measures. What is required is for women to be able to negotiate safe sexual relations within marriage. Men are offended when their wives insist on it. Sexually empowering women is one way of curbing the disease. By now it is known that the female condom is one of the easiest ways to ensure this.

NACO runs a social campaign that sells the female condom at five rupees. It is a "boon" because it does not affect sexual pleasure and men are less averse to it. Some men reacted violently when asked to wear a condom. With the female condom firmly in place, these women no longer have to risk harm. But the campaign is limited to six states and elsewhere, the female condom is nowhere near as accessible as it should be.

Female condoms are not easily available at supermarkets and pharmacies. Women have to risk raised eyebrows by asking for them. Then they are out of reach for all but the most affluent. Female condoms need to be made part of everyday buying like other feminine hygiene products. rw

Use of Contraception Fairly High in Punjab

Contraception played an enormous role in fertility transition in Punjab. In spite of policy rigidities, socio-cultural barriers and programme deficiancies, contraception is at the core of the demographic changes. Its use among couples shot up in last three decades from 22% per cent in 1973 to 56% in 2006.
Punjab has done better in family planning programme performance, where acceptance of contraception is not limited to any specific group or groups and fairly well spread across various communities. Apart from Haryana (58%) and Himachal Pradesh (71%), Punjab (56%) is also recognised for higher use of contraceptive methods. Since the inception of the family planning programme, the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) has consistently remained higher in Punjab than the national average. Apart from awareness and desire to limit family size, the growth in CPR can be attributed to vigorous programme strategies, mainly tagged to incentives and disincentives to programme staff as well as the clients under target driven family planning programme. rw

India;: Let Men Do Their Bit

For 30 years, vasectomy has been taboo, and the burden of family planning has been on women. But modern vasectomy techniques are a success in the West. India needs to try them.

India's most populous State, Uttar Pradesh, will account for 22% of India's population by 2026. Fertility rates here destined to take decades to reach replacement levels. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are forecast to jointly account for only 13% of the population increase during the same period.

Currently, 42% of India's population produces three or more children. Of 188 million couples requiring contraceptive coverage, only 53% cent are using contraceptives. The percentage of women having more than three children is 57% in Uttar Pradesh, 54% in Bihar and 49% in Madhya Pradesh. Almost half the girls there are under 18 at marriage.

There is urgent need to push up the age of marriage, delay the birth of the first child and widen the scope for spacing and limiting families. Vasectomy is a feasible way.

Unfortunately, any efforts to limit population are attacked by critics as an invasion of "human rights". Given the culture of the northern States, such goals are dumped as "unacceptable" and "impossible" and invariably shunned by many politicians.

The Millennium Development Goals do not envision family planning as the route to improving maternal and child health. This acts as a deterrent to organisations getting involved overtly.

Concentration on maternal and child health services has excluded men. Counselling on vasectomy is just not their business. In India, men have ceased to be the object of family planning ever since eight million male sterilisations were conducted coercively and haphazardly during the draconian Emergency period.

Even now horror stories of three decades gone by give shudders to politicians, especially in the Hindi belt. With no other terminal option available, millions of women have perforce to undergo tubal ligations having already borne the brunt of unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions.

The recent resurrection of the vasectomy programme comes as a welcome surprise. Madhya Pradesh has doubled vasectomies in the span of just one year from 7,000 to over 15,000. Haryana has shown higher and higher performance each passing year. Punjab has quadrupled the number of vasectomies in a matter of one year. Rajasthan has upped the vasectomy performance from just 1,700 during 2003-04 by almost five-times.

On October 6, in Vadodara, nearly 900 vasectomies were performed and hundreds of men had come willingly for this outpatient procedure.

At every health facility, ANMs and village women togged up in their best attire escorted the "acceptors" for vasectomy. Surgeries progressed speedily and while the patients waiting their turn, paranthas, enthusiastic counselling and a bag full of condoms were kept in readiness to complete the day's work.

Whether the carrot was the Rs 200 motivation money or the Rs 1,000 compensation for acceptors, an enormous response was evident. But India's annual vasectomy total remains less than a 10th of the pre-Emergency levels, despite hundreds of surgeons having acquired the Chinese non-scalpel skill.

In India, vasectomies are treated as the poor man's option. In some Latin American countries vasectomy has been presented as an alternative to female sterilisation. What is needed is for decision-makers to stop worrying about resurrecting the ghost of 1975 and understand that our population growth is having a detrimental effect on maternal and infant mortality. rw

India;: Compensation for Family Planning Hiked

Concerned over a decline of 4.3% in sterilisation, the Ministry has increased the compensation for the loss of wages to people who adopt family planning methods. This has been nearly doubled for vasectomy.

The compensation was revised on October, but sterilisation fell 4.3% during 2006-07 as compared to the previous year.

The compensation for vasectomy has been increased to Rs. 1,500 from Rs. 800 and tubectomy to Rs. 1,000 from Rs. 800 in public facilities and to Rs. 1,500 for both these interventions in accredited private health facilities to all in high focus States and below the poverty line, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the non-high focus States. rw

India's Maternal Deaths Tied to Teen Moms' Anemia

43 percent of adolescent girls in India are married off before the age of 18. Only Bangladesh, Niger and Chad have higher figures of adolescent marriages, according to UNICEF's report on The State of the World's Children 2011

The Centre for Health Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness (CHETNA), a nongovernmental organization working in the slum works to improve the health and nutrition of children, youth and women, including socially- excluded and disadvantaged.

"Girls in the age group 15-19 who marry early are most at risk of being caught up in a negative cycle of premature child-bearing, high rates of maternal mortality and child under nutrition," Karin Hulshof of UNICEF India said.

The UNICEF report, which focuses on adolescents, finds that despite its rapid economic growth, India has not been able to significantly redress gender disparity.

India: No Honour in Honour Killings

The United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, says an estimated 5,000 people are victims of honour killing across the globe, including about 1000 every year in India. Now the National Award-winning filmmaker Priyadarshan and producer Kumar Mangat Pathak are making a film on the subject, titled Aakrosh. The film releases worldwide on October 1, 2010.

This action-thriller is is a wake-up call for the Indian audience. In addition, the Central Government is introducing a Bill in the Parliament to provide for punishment to the honor killers. Starring in the film are Ajay Devgn, Akshaye Khanna, Bipasha Basu, Amita Pathak, Reema Sen and Paresh Rawal in the lead. Ajay, who plays an officer on special deputation to a location where honour killing is prevalent, says, "I'm happy to be part of this film. From time to time Indian filmmakers have been tackling socially relevant and current topics. For an actor, it is challenging to be part of such a film because such films are often a mirror for social crimes."

There has been no prior Indian film on the subject of honour killings.

A visibly disturbed Ajay sums up the issue saying, "There is no honour in honour killings". rw

India: Azad Announces Audit of Maternal Deaths

An audit of maternal deaths will be conducted soon in all states, said the Health Minister. "This year, we have taken another new initiative on a national level and that is the introduction of maternal death audits at the community as well as the facility level," he said. Availability of accurate data on maternal mortality was a major concern for policy makers.

"The lack of progress in improving maternal health presents itself a big global challenge," Azad said while inaugurating the three-day Global Maternal Health Conference in the national capital. rw

Brazil's Girl Power: Machisma - How a Mix of Female Empowerment and Steamy Soap Operas Helped Bring Down Brazil’s Fertility Rate and Stoke Its Vibrant Economy.

Not counting the stillbirth, the 3 miscarriages, and the baby who lived less than 24 hours. Dona Maria had 16 pregnancies and said she should have more than a hundred grandchildren by now, but only had 26. Her son José Alberto Carvalho has been studying the Brazilian demographic phenomenon that lowered their fertility rate to 2.36 children per family to the national average of 1.9, which is below replacement level and lower than the U.S. fertility rate.

Brazil is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church and no official government policy has ever promoted birth control. Abortion except for special circumstances is illegal there.

The decline has occurred across every class and region of Brazil. Two children is typically the desired number. When a women is done having children, we might hear her say: "A fábrica está fechada," meaning the factory is closed.

About half the world's population lives in countries where the fertility rates have dropped to below replacement rate, about two children per family. In most of the rest of the world they've rapidly fallen except for sub-Saharan Africa.

Carvalho said "What took 120 years in England took 40 years here." Central to the reasons Brazil's fertility rate has dropped so far and so fast are tough, resilient women who set out a few decades back, without encouragement from the government and over the pronouncements of their bishops, to start shutting down the factories any way they could.

Many women under 35 have already had sterilization surgery because pregnancy accidents happen too easily, pills make you fat or sick, and children are too expensive, too much work.

Carvalho suggested a formula for quickly lowering a developing nation's fertility rate without official intervention from the government:

1. Industrialize dramatically, urgently, and late; force the country into a new kind of economy, one that has concentrated work in the cities, where the housing is cramped, the favela streets are dangerous, babies look more like new expense burdens than like future useful farmhands, and the jobs women must take for their families' survival require leaving home for ten hours at a stretch.

2. Make sure birth control is easily accessed: over-the-counter, without a doctor's prescription, if they can just come up with the money. Foster in these women a dismissive attitude toward the Catholic Church's position on artificial contraception.

3. Improve infant and child mortality statistics so there is no longer the need to have extra for insurance. Add a pension program, so that a big family is not needed to support them when they grow old.

4. Reward doctor for performing cesareans rather than waiting for natural deliveries and spread the word that a doctor who has already begun the surgery for a cesarean can probably be persuaded to throw in a discreet tubal ligation. Yes, the Catholic church would disapprove, but many women of faith felt in some matters the male clergy is perhaps not wholly equipped to discern the true will of God.

5. Introduce electricity and television. Depict the modern Brazilian family as affluent, light skinned, and small in evening soap operas, or telenovelas. One study found that the spread of televisions outpaced access to education, which has greatly improved in Brazil.

India: High Newborn Death Rate Linked to Child Marriages

The large number of child marriages on the Indian subcontinent is contributing to a high rate of maternal and newborn deaths. In South Asian countries, 22 mothers die in childbirth every hour and three newborns die every minute.

South Asia has more child marriages than anywhere else in the world. Nearly half of all women between 20 and 24 were married before they turned 18.

When children have children, their babies' risk of dying in the first year of life shoots up by 60% compared to an infant born to a mother older than 19. If that baby survives, he or she is more likely to be undernourished and uneducated.

Bangladesh hasd the highest rate of child marriage in the world with 53% of girls married before the age of 15.

This contributes to the cycle of gender discrimination, with poorer families being more willing to permit the premature marriage of daughters.

The report calls for enforcing the age of 18 as the minimum legal age of marriage and urges religious leaders to discourage child marriages. rw

India's Women and Girls Fight Second-Class Status

In India and the South Asian region, a woman's ability to bear innumerable children increases or diminishes a woman's position within the marital home and society. Her sexual autonomy remains restricted. This control over property and sex defines male power and the secondary status of women.

Even today, despite leaps in medical research and technology, thousands of women in the country to die during childbirth. More than 75,000 women die each year in India alone.

Inaccessibility to basic medical facilities is entrenched, social attitudes around the role of women as childbearers - and more specifically of male children - exacerbates the problem. Governments make and execute laws governing ownership, marriage and divorce, education, inheritance, employment and family leave, and innumerable aspects of life that directly impact the status of females relative to men.

And every woman in spite of her educational and social status in society is expected to play this pre-assigned role. By and large this choice is not available to most women. And the same is true of pre- and post- natal care.

Not only do women go through one pregnancy after the other but most are unaware of the health hazards for themselves and their children, not to mention the possibilities of infections from their spouses.

The concern surrounding HIV/AIDS in recent years has had the effect of opening the doors to information on other possible infections. Many women will be deprived of their children and thrown out of their matrimonial homes after having contracted the virus (frequently from their spouses). A recent judgment states that a positive mother cannot be deprived from bringing up her child.

In the poverty and illiteracy most women find themselves married off at a very young age, before they are able to understand the implications of the relationship, these young women are into their first - if not second or third - pregnancies. Many organizations have used sex-education as a tool to empower young girls, and women in delaying marriages and pregnancies.

The formation of the Coalition for Women Deliver, India in October 2007, is working towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One of them is to strengthen local partnerships while addressing high maternal mortality in the country. The problem remains the absence of skilled health workers and medical personnel.

The government is focusing on training auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM), especially in rural areas, to deal with emergency situations with the support of a functioning health care referral system. The preference for the boy child and the second-class treatment of girls is a reflection of attitudes which only get reinforced as the girl moves in to adulthood. From sex selective abortions to engineer a male child, to the manner in which daughters are treated these are all manifestations of this mindset.

The Women Deliver Coalition operates as an advocacy group whose primary role is to be neutral. In a path breaking attempt as an India-specific one-stop-shop on maternal health, they will host the creation of a public virtual domain that brings together information at policy and program levels on maternal health and build advocacy platforms across all sectors, linking developmental work to media and industry.

In communities where women's rights are on par with men's, women invariably have fewer children. Unfortunately, in many cultural contexts contraception is socially and morally criminalized. Girls brought up as equals and vested with choices over their fertility invest more for their children and less on having more children. And those families in turn reflect the health of communities they inhabit and societies they build. rw

India: Cultural Gatekeepers Can Be Agents of Change: UNFPA Report

In India, cultural gatekeepers can be used to end discrimination against girls, says UNFPA. The report is about cultural concepts of different countries which influence change and development. Malpractices like child marriage, sex selection or "honour deaths" are rooted in culture. However one has to understand the logic behind such a practice and then try and modify it.

Malegaon is a Muslim-dominated area. Immunisation of children was a major issue because mothers believed that this would harm their babies. When religious clerics were roped in to spread awareness, people came out and the immunisation level shot up.

In conclusion, it is suggested that approaches should be based on cultural knowledge because they provide viability to policymaking and enable the "cultural politics" required for human rights. rw

Cash Sop for Family Planning: No-Scalpel Vasectomy

The government has launched a no-scalpel vasectomy camp. The state health department has got good response in two districts where the camps are already over. All those undergoing the operation will be given Rs 250 as bonus, besides free medicines worth Rs 45. Those who bring in the person to get the operation will also be given Rs 40 as a mark of encouragement. In Bokaro, as many as 239 persons have done NSV in the three-day camp. In Ranchi, the response was tremendous. The operation does not involve use of scalpel, therefore there are no stitches. It takes 10 minutes and the person can resume work after two days and start normal sex after three days of the operation, but with condoms. He need not use a condom after three months or 20 ejaculations, whichever is earlier. There are no side effect. This is a new technique started in China. By a special pointed forceps a tiny hole is made above the scrotum and within two days the hole heals itself. At present, there are 32 surgeons performing the operation in the state, which took up the technique last year. rw

The lords of poverty

Salaries of a lakh or two are not rare in India. But when such salaries are in the voluntary sector, or NGOs, it's a matter of concern. In the last couple of years, three charities advertised for personnel for their Indian operations.

All positions offered over Rs 1 million per annum, and one even Rs 2.5 million. Surely, this is not the kind of millionaires we want to create, or the voluntarism that the land of Gandhi needs.

Indian recipients of such largesse claim they get only in the range of UK pounds 2,000-3,500 per month, the equivalent of a British schoolteacher's salary. However, to comprehend the real magnitude of this scam, other comparisons will be in order.

The sum equivalent to what top IT professionals make in India. It is over double the salary of the Indian prime minister and president combined. And yes, there are the perks â€" free housing, unlimited telephone use, foreign travel. On joining these charities, executives can expect a 300-600% jump in income.

Annual grants made by the agencies to some individual grass-roots NGOs are even smaller than their executives' telephone bills.

Many NGOs get all of Rs 2,00,000-3,00,000 a year, and for that they have to submit proposals, answer endless queries, and go through mid-term and final evaluations. On the other hand, the charity administrator is unaccountable, whether the project fails or succeeds.

India Population Grows to 1.2 Billion

India's population has reached 1.21 billion, making it home to 17% of the world's people, though growth actually slowed - from 21.5% per decade to 17.6% - for the first time in 90 years, according to preliminary figures released by census officials.

The South Asian nation is second only to China in number of people added: 181 million in the past 10 years, an increase equal to nearly the entire population of Brazil. UN projections show that India could overtake China by 2030.

The initial numbers show a decline in the number of children under the age of 6, but a continuing preference for male children over females in a country where female infanticide is still common and doctors are banned from revealing the sex of unborn children. Marrying off girls is very costly, involving elaborate dowries. Also Hindu custom dictates that only sons can light funeral pyres.

The overall sex-ratio showed a marginal improvement, with 940 women counted for every 1,000 men compared to 933 in the last census.

The literacy rate went up to 74% nationwide for people aged 7 and older, from about 65% in the last count.

$2500 Car Raises Tough Questions

Recently introduced by India's Tata, the Nano costs $2,500 and promises to improve the quality of life for the thousands of Indians who are starting to form a growing middle-class.

Up to five people can fit into a Nano - although there's no air conditioning, radio, power steering or electric windows. But it gets about 54 miles to the gallon.

As countries like India and China continue to post strong economic growth, individuals begin to prosper and the demand for cars begins to take shape.

Some have denounced the Nano as a source of further CO2 emissions in an over-polluted country. Why not invest in more public transport, instead of putting hundreds of thousands of cheap little cars on the roads of India?

But why should they not be entitled to the same conveniences that we take for granted?

There are about 18.5 million vehicles registered in Canada for a population of 32 million. The US has .8 vehicles per person.

We use around 53 billion litres of gas or diesel fuel. The governments we have elected have made limited progress with the formulation of a comprehensive environmental policy. Telling voters that they have to tighten their belts is never considered a popular tactic at the polls.

There's no question that people in India and China are as entitled to the consumer comforts that we've enjoyed for so long. The question is whether they'll learn from our mistakes - or merely be the victims of them. rw

India Heading for 2 Billion Population

India's population will almost certainly be near 1.8 billion by 2050 and could top 2 billion by the end of this century unless fertility rates decline more rapidly in India's largest and poorest states.

The possibility of India becoming the only country ever to have 2 billion people depends on the course of events in each of India 35 states and Union territories.

India passed the 1 billion population benchmark in 2000, and stood at 1.1 billion in 2007. The government has been concerned about population growth outpacing economic growth, and India was the first country to adopt a policy to slow population growth. Since the policy was first stated in 1952, the country's total fertility rate has declined from about six children per woman to about three, but fertility levels vary greatly throughout India.

The decline has been greater in its southern states, which have much higher rates of literacy and education. The southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu now have TFRs below two children per woman.

The large states of the north, the "Hindi Belt," are where about 40% of Indians live. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with about 93 million and 188 million people, currently have a TFR of about 4.3 children per woman.

The state and Union territory populations were projected under two scenarios. One assumed that states with a current TFR above "two children" would decrease to 2.1 and then remain constant. The other assumed the TFR decline would continue until it reached 1.85 children per woman.

The first scenario results in a population that would reach two billion in 2066-2071. By 2101, four states, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh would account for almost half of the country's population. Scenario B does not reach two billion, growth peaks in 2081-2086, after which it decreases.

This state-based projection series uses national fertility rates and age structures, and PRB (Population Reference Bureau) believes it provides a more realistic scenario. The population projected for Uttar Pradesh ranges from 353 million to 364 million by 2051, and between 414 million and 480 million by 2101. The projected 2101 total for India ranges from 1.9 billion to 2.2 billion, depending on the assumptions for each state. rw

The Future Population of India: a Long-range Demographic View

Two scenarios of India's future population assume that fertility will decline continuously to the point where couples average two children each, the goal of India's National Population Policy 2000. One scenario assumes that states with higher current fertility will decline to the "replacement level" of 2.1 children. The second assumes that the decline will continue to 1.85 children, near the level observed in states such as Kerala. The first scenario results in an India of two billion population while the second and results in eventual population decline. Follow the link to the PDF and the complete article. rw

India;: Ways to Tackle Maternal Mortality

To check the maternal mortality rate in India, health experts have stressed changing the traditional treatment being practiced in villages.

Gynaecologists advocated the need to adopt advanced strategies practiced in some of the countries in Africa.

Lack of access of health care facilities are responsible for maternal deaths. Facilities in remote areas of countries like India have no specialist doctors and advanced treatment facilities.

Non-specialist doctors do major surgeries and fail to diagnose complications. Children's health is directly related to mother's health. We should introduce advanced facilities in our villages. rw

Is India Falling Into the Malthusian Trap?

India provided the final stage to re-enact Malthus theory on growth pattern between population and food grain production in the 1960s, when India was plagued by booming population growth and a diffident growth in food production.

Malthus was the first economist by training to teach at the college founded at Haileybury in England by the East India Company. The theories of Malthus, as propounded in an essay on the principles of population as it affects the future improvement of society, were sown then, centuries before the India's foodgrains crisis of the 1960s.

Over 200 years after his doctrine was published in 1798, the Malthusian theory has come back to haunt the Indian economy all over again. Agricultural production has dipped from 3.8% cent in 2006-07 to 2.6% in 2007-08. Between 1950-51 and 2006-07 the production increased at an annual 2.5%, which was ahead of the population growth of 2.1%. But during 1990-2007, foodgrains production dropped to 1.2% as population growth averaged 1.9%.

This disproportionate growth between foodgrains production and population growth does not fully explain the present crisis, which is beginning to assume global dimensions.

This is where the theories of David Ricardo, another classical economist of the eighteenth century, come in handy.

He developed theories which showed that economic development is not universal. Instead, he helped prove that countries do not develop at the same pace and that development often accentuates economic and social inequity.

The strident growth since the 1990s has nurtured a middle class demanding greater volume and better quality food.

The volume of food consumed by the burgeoning middle class and the upper crust has grown significantly. This would also have contributed to the crisis that is unfolding in the food sector.

There has also been a slower growth in the agricultural sector. This has been pronounced since 1996-97, mainly as a result of the acceleration in the growth of industry and the services sectors.

There was also a demand from a shift in cultivation from coarse to fine cereals. This shift seems to have eventually led to a fall in the area under foodgrains production, declining at an annual rate of 0.26% from 1989 to 2006. The poorest segments of society paid the highest price for this shift.

On a long-term basis, the consumption of cereals fell from a peak of 468 gm per day in 1990-91 to 412 gm in 2005-06. The consumption of pulses declined from 42 gm to 33 gm. For upper and middle class, any reduction in cereal consumption would have been more than made up by their increased intake of milk, eggs and meat. But no such shifts for the poorer segments. There is no doubt that the impact from decreased food consumption would have hit the poorest segment the hardest. The crisis in foodgrains production has been compounded by a surge in global demand and prices. Fast growing economies of China, Brazil and East Asia have precipitated the demand.

Several of the food surplus countries across the world have been shifting from food crops to bio-fuels. India was quick to seek to purchase foodgrains. But this proved insufficient and the UN sees more people going hungry in Philippines as rice prices soar. We will see growing reports of starvation around the world as a result of population growth combined with the diversion of food grains into biofuel production. rw

India Aims to End Poverty by 2040

India's Finance Minister said poverty could be wiped out by 2040, due to India's economic growth.

But he said that 25% of all Indians, or more than 250 million people, were living in poverty, on less than $1 a day.

The rapid economic growth in India could have widened the gap between the richest and the poorest.

But those at the bottom of the pyramid have seen improvement in their lives. More should be done to combat low life expectancy and high mortality rates.

India has become a world economic power, with growth over the past three years averaging 8%. Based on purchasing power, it is now the world's fourth largest economy.

However, income per head in India is $720 a year. rw

Low-cost Lamps Brighten the Future of Rural India

Innovative lights were installed by (GSBF), a Bombay-based nongovernmental organization bringing light to rural India. 100,000 Indian villages do not yet have electricity. The GSBF lamps use LEDs, four times more efficient than an incandescent bulb. After a $55 installation cost, solar energy lights the lamp. As many as 1.5 billion people light their houses using kerosene and consumes nearly 4% of a typical rural Indian household's budget. Indoor air pollution results in 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year. White LEDS produce nearly 200 times more useful light than a kerosene lamp and almost 50 times that of a conventional bulb. This technology can light an entire village with less energy than used by a single 100 watt light bulb. The technology, which is not widely known in India, faces some skepticism. In a scenario in which nearly 60% of India's rural population uses 180 million tons of biomass per year for cooking via primitive wood stoves, which are smoky and provide only 10-15% efficiency in cooking, there is a need for a clean energy source for domestic purposes. The Indian government launched an ambitious project to bring electricity to 112,000 rural villages in the next decade. The Indian government recognizes the potential of LED lighting powered by solar technology, but expressed reservations about its high costs. At $55 each, the lamps cost nearly half the price of other solar lighting systems and the founder of the NGO wants to set up an LED manufacturing unit and a solar panel manufacturing unit in India. If manufactured locally, the cost could plummet to $22, but they need $5 million for this. The rural markets in India can't afford it, until the prices are brought down. In a shanty town in Johannesburg, almost 10,000 homes spent more than $60 each on candles and paraffin every year and could afford to purchase a solid state lighting system if they have access to micro-credit. In villages the newly installed LED lamps are a subject of envy, as the grid has power cuts up to 6 or 7 hours a day. Constant blackouts are common problem due to old technology and illegal stealing of electricity. The lamps provided by GSBF have enough power to provide four hours of light a day. But that's enough for people to get their work done in the early hours of the night. rw