*Looking back to few facts before celebration of 15th August:*
- Recently released annual report by the UNICEF says that of a nearly 10 million children dying below the age of five every year, 2.1 million are Indians. - The numbers of Fortune 500 Indian companies are relentlessly growing along with the numbers of Indian Dollar billionaires – 52 by the latest count, holding combined assets worth 25% of our GDP but in the same time The United Nations Development Programme update for 2009 shows that 320 million Indians, almost 25% of the population, live in extreme poverty. The World Bank's global economic prospects show that 827 million of the Indian populations live on less than $ 2 a day. This is somewhat more charitable than the findings of Arjun Sen Gupta-chaired National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector according to which 836 million Indians (77% of the population) live on Rs. 20 ($ 0.45) a day. - Government's own Suresh Tendulkar Committee has, to its surprise, thrown up a figure of 37% of the population that still lives below the poverty line. A few more millions will be pushed below it with the recent deregulation of petro-product prices. Figuring at 66 out of 88 in Global Hunger Index, India lags far behind in respect of many indices (in some respects below sub-Saharan Africa), whether it is maternal or infant mortality rate or underweight or undernourished children. - Diseases India is the diabetes and TB capital of the world with 50.8 million diabetic cases and 21% of world's TB patients living in the country. Two persons die from TB every three minutes. Various estimates also state that 2.31 million people in the country are HIV positive making India the world's third worst-hit country in terms of the absolute number of people living with AIDS/HIV - According to the National Family Health Survey, nearly 55.3% of women aged 15-49 years are anaemic and 46% of children are malnourished. - 27 atrocities against Dalits every day · 13 Dalits murdered every week· 5 Dalits' homes or possessions burnt every week· 6 Dalits kidnapped or abducted every week· 3 Dalit women raped every day· 11 Dalits beaten every day· A crime committed against a Dalit every 18 minutes - Adivasis population of India is the 8.14% of India's population, or 85 million people (according to the 2001 Census). While their percentage which is Below Poverty Line is unacceptably high (52%), what is staggering is that a full 54% have no access to economic assets related to communication and transport. The Adivasi literacy rate (29.6%) is far below that of the country as a whole (52.2%), with female literacy a stunningly low 18.2%. There are 14 official languages in India, and it is against the law to teach any of the other 1500 languages in schools. - India today has over 3600 dams; more than 3300 of them built after independence in 1947. At least 700 more dams are under construction.According to an Indian government working group, 40-50 percent of those displaced by development projects are adivasis. - India's labour force is growing at a rate of 2.5 per cent annually, but employment is growing at only 2.3 per cent. Thus, the country is faced with the challenge of not only absorbing new entrants to the job market (estimated at seven million people every year), but also clearing the backlog. - Sixty per cent of India's workforce is self-employed,many of whom remain very poor. Nearly 30 per cent are casual workers (i.e. theywork only when they are able to get jobs and remain unpaid for the rest of thedays). Only about 10 per cent are regular employees, of which two-fifths areemployed by the public sector. - More than 90 per cent of the labour force is employed in the "unorganisedsector", i.e. sectors which don't provide with the social security andother benefits of employment in the "organised sector." - Over 70 per cent of the labour force in all sector combined (organised and unorganised) is either illiterate or educated below the primary level - Underemployment in various segments of the labour force is quite high.For instance, though open unemployment was only 2 per cent in 1993-94, the incidence of under-employment and unemployment taken together was as much as 10 per cent that year. *Please think beforethe celebration of 15th August. Think, what does our celebration means to majority of our fellow citizens* *by **Himu Aronno* <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=887215075>* * -- Adv Kamayani Bali Mahabal +919820749204 skype-lawyercumactivist "After a war, the silencing of arms is not enough. Peace means respecting all rights. You can’t respect one of them and violate the others. When a society doesn’t respect the rights of its citizens, it undermines peace and leads it back to war.” -- Maria Julia Hernandez www.otherindia.org www.binayaksen.net www.phm-india.org www.phmovement.org www.ifhhro.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To post to this group, send email to humanrights-movem...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to humanrights-movement+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
