Socio-Economics Problems in India

6. How have educational and vocational programs for Indian women influenced birth rate and infant mortality? How have India’s population growth trends influenced access water and food production?

In terms of health, an example of an attempt in Mumbai is the Slum Sanitation Program, started in 1995 by an NGO, who built 330 new communal toilet blocks in the slums; due to health also being detrimentally affected by exhaust emissions from traffic, dirty water, cramped living spaces (increasing the spread of disease) and general cleanliness of homes, this has had little impact. Over all, it is evident that these attempts have not been greatly successful, potentially due to the lack of money preventing any major plans like complete rejuvenation which would solve the problems.

A problem that affects the daily life of more than a hundred million people is inadequate sanitation and a lack of proper sanitation facilities. For example, only 87% of Indians in urban areas have access to a sanitized latrine, while only 33% of Indians in rural areas have access to a toilet, (The Guardian). This statistic is alarming, as it increases the susceptibility to diseases such as

Sanitation, even in healthcare facilities, is a problem. In southeast Asia, 42% of healthcare facilities don’t have adequate toilets. In sub-Saharan Africa, 36% of healthcare facilities don’t even have soap

Around the 1950s, India was the first country to officially establish a family planning program. This program made birth control information to become more readably available. India's government saw big families leading to continued poverty, and poverty hindering economic progress. Just as with China, India saw foresaw that the country would not be able to feed the masses of people, and the country would eventually use up all of its resources and the population would ultimately breed themselves out of existence. Up until the 1970's, the government used no aggressive force to promote the use of contraceptives or sterilisations. They increased medical care and access to hospitals, and provided education for family planning. In the 1970's the government declared India to be in a "state of emergency". Medical workers went out into the slums and poorer regions of India and forcibly sterilised women. The medics were rewarded for how many women they were able to sterilise.

In the United States we forget the privilege that we have to be able to use a toilet. Rose George expressed the privilege in the quote, “He thought that I thought a toilet was my right, when he knew it was a privilege. It must be, when 2.6 billion people don’t have sanitation(George 2).” Why is it important to have sanitation you may ask, “ The disease toll of this is stunning. A gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts, and 100 worm eggs (George 2).” It is important because having sanitation system to help improve the health of the people in the society. In the book, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World Of Human Waste and Why It Matters, bring to light many issues in the world sanitation

Clean Water and Sanitation - Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all Targets.

Access to clean drinking water, piped directly into one’s household is not an option for millions households living in middle- and low-income countries. According to a 2015 World Health Organization (WHO) report, only 58 percent of the world’s population receives their drinking water from a piped connection which goes directly into their homes (WHO/UNICEF 2015). Households that leave their home to collect water rely on water sources that provide varying quality of drinking water. The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) defines improved drinking water sources as those constructed to provide protection from outside contaminants, specifically fecal matter (WHO 2012). However, having access to an improved drinking water source does not

Between 1990 and 2012, almost 2 billion people obtained access to improved sanitation. However, 1 billion people still resort to open defecation

India’s statistics are similar. According to the BBC “In 1961, for every 1,000 boys under the age of seven, there were 976 girls. Today, the figure has dropped to a dismal 914 girls. Although the number of women overall is improving (due to factors such as life expectancy), India's ratio of young girls to boys is one of the worst in the world after China. Many factors come into play to explain this: infanticide, abuse and neglect of girl children. But campaigners say the decline is largely due to the increased availability of antenatal sex screening, and they talk of a genocide”.

However, toilet provision has remained inadequate in most communities, which lack even rudimentary toilet access (Gershenson & Penner, 2009; Molotch & Noren, 2010). According to Kitchin &

In India, women are being manipulated to stop having children after their second birth. Officials claim that by regulating population and the pregnancies of women after their second child they will be able to empower women by offering them contraceptive choices and child care facilities. In reality, if women do not agree to be sterilized after their second birth they will be

Watch this TED Talk video by Francis de los Reyes:‘Sanitation is a basic human right’ and post a comment on the discussion forum in relation to the role of government in funding these sorts of projects.

First and foremost, the high birth rate in India is the main root of the overpopulation. The high fertility rate is due to the impecunious of the country. To counter this, the nations give birth to more children, hoping that there will be more income resources. Besides, the people count upon that the survivability of their children is low and thus they keep producing more children. Moreover, most of

Another area that needs consideration is the horrible condition of public toilets. The shortage of public toilets is a big challenge, hence people are compelled to use open spaces to answer the call of nature. The toilets that do exist are in such pathetic condition that one cannot use them.