Sowmiya Ashok

New Delhi, 10 January 2013. Respect parents’ right to choose the sex of their child and legalise sex determination in the country was one of the responses to a social audit conducted in the Capital’s South-West district to understand the growing phenomenon of female foeticide in these parts. The audit, conducted by the Centre for Social Research (CSR), has also revealed that people are quite open about their preference for boys and justified it by saying that a son is essential for maintenance and retention of property while daughters will have to be married off.

South-West Delhi, which includes places such as Vasant Vihar, Vasant Kunj, Dwarka and Najafgarh, was chosen because it has the worst sex ratio in the Capital (836 women for every 1000 men), said CSR Head, Research and Knowledge, Manasi Mishra.

“In my experience of working in Delhi and Haryana, maintaining female chastity is cited as a major reason as a preference for boys,” she said, apart from reasons such as payment of dowry, preserving familial legacy and share in property.

The audit further revealed that community members in posh localities believed that sex selection is practised by economically backward strata of society and according to them the “educated class does not hold son preference as a dominant ideology”.

Among the more appalling findings are non-participation of non-government organisations in engaging in advocacy efforts regarding the issue and residents’ welfare association meetings not addressing the issue on a regular basis since it is “considered a very personal and private affair”.

Respondents were also not aware of the Pre-Conception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act and its implementation. “While the general attitude may be not to reveal the acquaintances with sex selection cases, since it is known to be illegal, it is still not seen as a ‘crime’,” said Ms. Mishra.

The audit covered 100 stakeholders such as Aanganwadi workers, ASHA workers, doctors and nurses who are “part of the issue” and 900 households in the South West district.

With people crossing over from the South-West district to adjoining districts such as Jhajjar and Bahadurgarh to determine the sex of the child, there should be a provision under the PC-PNDT Act to permit the District Appropriate Authority to raid adjoining districts, said District Magistrate Vikas Anand. He also highlighted the abysmal conviction rates against clinics and those involved in this practice.

“Among the institutional challenges is the lack of dedicated manpower at the district level, insensitivity of the police towards crime against women and sex selective abortion not being a priority for the system” he said. “However, among some of the efforts to curb this practice is during marriage registrations obtaining an oath from newly wed couples that they will not go for sex determination of their child.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/southwest-delhi-survey-highlights-peoples-open-preference-for-male-child/article4293497.ece

Female feticide has been known to exist in India for decades. The 2011 Indian Census revealed that only 914 female births were recorded for every 1000 male births because parents would often terminate pregnancies when the fetus was a female. Immigrants from India, however, have brought along the practice to Canada.

A recent study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal revealed that women born in India were delivering more male children than the rest, especially in cases where the women had given birth twice before. Dr. Joel G. Ray and others studied 766,688 live births recorded in Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, and concluded that “couples originating from India may be more likely than Canadian born to use prenatal sex determination and terminate a second or subsequent pregnancy if the fetus is female.”

During 2002 and 2007, 31,978 women born in India delivered a child in Ontario. Another 18,018 women born in Pakistan also gave birth in Ontario. Compared to Canadian-born women and those born elsewhere, women born in India have been giving birth to males much more so than the rest. These differences were however more pronounced for subsequent pregnancies.

Getting desperate with time

The number of children delivered in the past do not influence the male-to-female ratio of the newborn for women born in Canada. However, the birth data from Ontario suggests that the preference for a male child does impact birth outcomes for women from South Asia in their subsequent pregnancies

For women who have not given birth before, the sex ratio of children born to women of Indian origin is the same as the rest. The male-to-female ratio for children born to women who have not given birth before is around 1.05 for Canadian born women. The same ratio is 1.04 for women born in India and Pakistan. However, the offspring’s male-to-female ratio increases significantly for women born in India when they are delivering their second or third child. The Indian-born women gave birth to 136 males for every 100 females when they delivered their third child in Canada. The presence of two prior children (most likely females) is assumed to have contributed to sex selection of the third child.

Women born in Pakistan also give birth to more males than females while delivering the third child. However, the difference is not statistically significant from the one recorded for women born in Canada.

Source: Joel G. Ray, David A. Henry, Marcelo L. Urquia. June 2012. Sex ratios among Canadian live born infants of mothers from different countries. Canada Medical Association Journal. 184(9).

India’s problem becomes Canada’s

The skewed sex ratio has been known to exist in India for decades. According to BBC’s Geeta Panday, 8 million fetuses have been aborted in India during 2001 and 2011. The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, calls infant feticide a “national shame”. The shameful practice however has crossed the Atlantic to Canada.

The BBC report suggests that the female feticide in India spread with the advent of ultrasound technology, which made it convenient for the parents to determine sex of the fetus. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in 1974 encouraged this practice. The Indian government finally reacted to the issue by enacting the Prenatal Determination Test Act in 1994, which declared sex-selective abortions illegal. The Act, though enacted, has not been enforced to have a meaningful impact. The male-to-female ratio of newborns in India has worsened from 1.06 in 1991 to 1.09 in 2011. It is estimated that there are 40,000 ultrasound clinics registered in India with several thousand additional unregistered facilities performing sex determination tests.

One would assume that the urban and literate parents in India would not indulge in this reprehensible practice. However, the entire opposite is true. Stephen Dale of IDRC in Canada reported that male-to-female ratio for children born to Indian mothers with grade 10 or higher education was 1.46 compared to 1.15 for illiterate mothers. Quoting a 2006 study from Lancent Stephen further revealed that the male-to-female ratio of children born to Indian women who had given birth to two daughters in the past was 1.39. The same ratio for women who had given birth to one female child in the past was 1.32.

The desire to have a son has led many to engage in the heinous act of female feticide. Dr. Prabhat Jha in Toronto estimated that 10 million female fetuses were aborted in India during 1985 and 2005. While poverty and cultural norms, such as dowry to marry off daughters, may be instrumental in sex-selective abortions in India, it is rather sad to see the same being practiced in Canada by Indian emigrants whose economic welfare is superior to those in India.

Bad rap for Pakistani parents

While female feticide is not common amongst the Pakistan-born Canadian immigrants, they still struggle with the image problem, especially when it relates to how they treat their daughters. Several violent incidents perpetrated by immigrant family members against young women have been widely reported in the Canadian media. In the name of honour, some immigrant parents have committed the most dishonourable acts. Aqsa Pervez, a teenager born to immigrants from Pakistan, was brutally murdered by her parents near Toronto. Later, an Afghan family was convicted of murdering three young daughters. The media and the experts who testified in the court blamed the religious beliefs as catalysts behind these vicious murders. I believe culture also plays a much larger role.

The so-called honour killings are equally (if not more) prevalent amongst non-Muslims in the Indian states of Haryana and Punjab. The most known case of honour killing in Canada is that of a young Sikh woman from Surrey, BC, who was murdered in India for marrying a young man from a different caste. Female feticide is also most pronounced in Haryana and Punjab where fewer than 850 girls for every 1000 boys between the ages of 0 and 6 were reported in the 2011 Census.

When it comes to female feticide, I believe religion does play a role. While emigrants from India and Pakistan do share strong cultural backgrounds, the Canadian immigrants of Pakistani origin would avoid abortion, which is against their religious beliefs. No such prohibitions restrict Indian emigrants in Canada.

Canada has been a welcoming place for immigrants where the newcomers are encouraged to practice and celebrate their cultures and religious beliefs. This welcome however does not cover violence against daughters, born or otherwise, by their parents.

Murtaza Haider, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. He can be reached by email at murtaza.haider@ryerson.ca

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

Chandigarh, August 9. Dubbed as the most backward area in the state at one point of time, Malwa has emerged at the most urbanised belt in Punjab, as shown in the updated figures of the Census 2011 that were released today.

Doaba has an urban population of 36.68 per cent, followed by Majha at 36.09 per cent. Similar is the scenario in other parts of the state. The residents are leaving their lush green fields, from where the Green Revolution originated, and venturing in search of greener pastures to towns and cities.

The urban population in the state has grown by more than 25.72 per cent during the past decade. In 2001, 82,62,511 persons lived in urban areas in the state. The count was recorded at 1,03,87,436 (increase of 21,24,925) in the 2011 Census. The total population of the state was 2.44 crore in 2011, which has risen to 27,704,236 in 2011.

Releasing the break-up of the 2011 data, Census (Punjab) Director Seema Jain said around 62 per cent of the state’s population now lived in rural areas against the 38 per cent in urban areas. The national average of urban population is 31.16 per cent. The figures were released during a workshop on “Census Data Dissemination”.

Every fifth dweller in the cities or towns of Punjab lives in Ludhiana. Mohali is the second most urbanised district, followed by Amritsar and Jalandhar. Tarn Taran (12.6 per cent) is the least urbanised district.

The number of towns in the state has also increased from 157 to 217 over the past decade. Bathinda, which was the ninth most urbanised district in 2001, is now ranked sixth while Gurdaspur has moved two paces ahead from 14 to 12.

Hoshiarpur highest in gender ratio

The gender ratio (893) in the state has increased by 48 points as compared to the last Census (845). It is 906 in rural areas and 872 among the urban population. Hoshiarpur has the highest gender ratio of 974 in the rural settings, followed by Mohali (962) and Jalandhar (951). In urban areas, Mohali has the highest sex ratio of 924. At 837, Fatehgarh Sahib has the lowest gender ratio in urban areas, with Gurdaspur one position up at 848.

70.23% in rural areas still illiterate

The literacy rate has increased from 69.65 in the last Census to 76.68 in 2011. Of the total number of illiterates, 70.23 per cent are in rural areas. Nearly one-third of the illiterate rural population is concentrated in the border districts of Ferozepur, Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran. Ludhiana has the highest number of illiterates in urban areas (almost one in every five persons).

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120810/punjab.htm#1

“Reports from provinces and cities in the first five months show a reduction from last year in the number of people using contraceptive methods,” Tran Van Chien, deputy head of the General Office for Population and Family Planning (Ministry of Health) told a two-day seminar last week on population and family planning in northern Vinh Phuc Province.

So far this year only 600,000 women have chosen to have a coil inserted, down by 5.83 per cent year-on-year. Another 97,000 stopped using intra-uterine devices or IUDs.

The number of cases of sterilisation came down by 553, or 6 per cent, from the same period last year.

The number of people having contraceptive pills implanted – in their arms for gradual release, known as Norplants – fell by 3,000 or 37.6 per cent.

“The population and family planning task faces a lot of difficulties in this Year of the Dragon because too many are eager to have a child, especially a son, born in the year of the dominant animal,” Nguyen Van Tan, deputy head of the General Office for Population and Family Planning, said.

The year’s targets are unlikely to be met, he added.

More than 510,000 babies were born in the first five months, a 13.5 per cent rise year-on-year, 49,955 of them being their parents’ third child.

The sex ratio worsened to 113 boys to every 100 girls after 274,171 boys were born compared to only 241,998 girls.

Last year the ratio was 111.9/100.

The 10 provinces and cities with the highest imbalance in new births – ranging from 115 to 131 boys per 100 girls born – are Hung Yen, Hai Duong, Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Nam Dinh, Hoa Binh, Hai Phong city, Quang Ngai, Quang Ninh, and Vinh Phuc.

Besides the eagerness for “Dragon” boys, there has been another reason for the poor population and family planning performance this year, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien said, pointing to the delay in assigning targets and allocating funds for the National Target Programme.

He also admitted that population and family planning systems are not robust, and working conditions for population officials are not satisfactory, leading to many of them quitting.

Dr Duong Quoc Trong, head of the General Office for Population and Family Planning, said: “By July 6 only five out of [the country's] 63 provinces and cities have received operational funds to carry out the National Target Programme.

“So many provinces have been unable to pay [salaries to] people.

“A lot of employees lost heart and quit their jobs.” — VNS

*****************

The Vietnamese and Chinese are rushing to have babies in The Year of The Dragon.

Persons born within these date ranges; from January 23, 2012 to February 9, 2013;  are said to be born in the “Year of the Dragon, and since the Dragon is said to be a deliverer of good fortune and a master of authority, those people born in Dragon years are to be honored and respected. The dragon is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar, and it is the only animal that is termed ‘legendary’. The Year of the Dragon is associated with the earthly branch symbol. The Dragon is the fifth sign in the Chinese Horoscope and signifies luck.

The aforementioned information was derived from: Govt Calls Emergency Meet to Discuss Anti-Feticide Law, Kounteya Sinha, TNN Apr 2, 2011, 02.04am IST (IndiaTimes.com)

A major problem in Indian cities, especially the larger ones such as Punjab, doctors are bribed into not recording personal information regarding this practice. This accounts for the large discrepancy in the recorded numbers.

Note: the game-design major at UCSC, which dwarfs the traditional CS program, has almost exactly the same gender ratio as the traditional program.

The article by Hafner attributes the success of getting women to continue in CS at Harvey Mudd largely to a new intro to computer science course intended for students who have not had prior programming experience, taught in Python instead of Java and concentrating on applications of computer science across science.  If that were all it took, UCSC would have much better ratios, as we’ve had CMPS 5P  and BME 60 classes for several years, which look superficially very similar to Harvey Mudd’s “gold” intro to CS. They don’t seem to be resulting in many conversions to CS majors, though.

I think one major difference is that a course in computer science is required at Harvey Mudd, so more students who are initially reluctant to try it end up discovering that they enjoy the thrill of creating their own programs and debugging them.

Another major difference is that Maria Klawe, the president of Harvey Mudd, is herself a computer scientist, and so serves as a very visible role model.  At UCSC, the computer science faculty page lists 37 faculty, including lectures and adjunct faculty, only 4 of whom are women.  Computer engineering is not doing much better with 4 out of 30. Biomolecular Engineering (which is where bioinformatics is taught) has 3 women out of 16 on the faculty page, which is slightly better, but very low for a bio-related science. None of the women in the computer sciences at UCSC are in particularly visible leadership positions.

The faculty gender ratios in computer engineering and computer science used to be much better at UCSC (say 15–20 years ago).  It looks like recent hiring has been almost all male.

Hafner’s article was distributed to the UCSC School of Engineering faculty by one of the (male) computer science professors.  I think it was intended to convey the message that it is possible to do a hell of a lot better than UCSC has been doing on gender ratios in computer science.  It caught my eye both because of my own interest (I’m currently scheduled to teach BME 60 next year and hope to covert a couple of students from biology to bioinformatics), and because Harvey Mudd is one of the colleges that has come up in discussions of places that might be a good fit for my son.

For some years demographers have been saying that the male/female ratio for much of the world is out of synch.  If nature was left to its own devices 105 males would be born for every 100 females, that is normal.  However, there is no getting away from the fact that in large parts of the world sons are prefered, and that is at the root of the problem.

In some parts of China 152 males are now born for every 100 females.  Similar figures apply to India, Vietnam and other countries in the far East as well as in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe.

I must admit that here in a major city in China I am not really aware of the gender imbalance, but I am told that in the deep countryside it is dire. Tales of bride-napping and unofficial polyandry are not unknown.

Why has this happened? China critics in the West are quick to shriek ‘one-child policy’, but India has no one child policy, and if anything its gender ratio is even worse.

I am no expert, but it seems to me that this  has come about as a result of the combination of modern medical technologies such as amniocentesis or pre-natal ultrasound, and traditional cultural preferences.  In the past a couple might have continued to produce children until they achieved the wished-for son;  now, when they can be certain of having a son, they will stop having other children.

Here in China, the powers-that-be are concerned about what is happening and now it is absolutely forbidden by law for any ultrasound operator to tell the prospective parents the sex of the foetus, there are extremely heavy penalties for breaking this law.

What will this imbalance mean for the future of societies?  Millions of unmarried men, a rise in the testosterone level of a society resulting in more aggressive societies therefore  more prone to conflict?  Who can say.

One person who may be able to shed some light on this thorny problem is the journalist and author Mara Hvistendahl. Based in Beijing for the past ten years, she writes for Science magazine and her recently published book ‘Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men’ makes for fascinating, if disquieting, reading.  She is speaking at The Bookworm International Literary Festival later this month, and I am lucky enough to have snagged a ticket.

Beijing has been the capital of China since 1949.

When translated from Chinese, Beijing literally means Northern Capital.

Beijing is one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of nearly 20 million.

One in every 5 people in the world is Chinese.

Fortune cookies don’t exist in China.

Cricket fighting is very popular in China.

China only has one time zone.

Chinese invented ice cream, and Marco Polo brought the recipe back to Europe.

In 1980, China implemented a one child policy to slow its rapidly growing population. However, as shown by the chart below, the urban population in Beijing has risen very rapidly because of the migration of citizens to the city for employment.

The one child policy has also created a gender gap in the population, as many families wanted boys to carry on their family legacies. Currently, the gender gap under the age of 20 is 35 million, which will put significant stress on society to accommodate this gap. There have been some fascinating articles written recently that address the gender gap and the potential problems that will arise in the future as a result of it.

It’s a girl, a film being released this year, documents the practice of killing unwanted baby girls in South Asia. The trailer’s most chilling scene is one with an Indian woman who, unable to contain her laughter, confesses to having killed eight infant daughters.

The statistics are sickening. The UN reports approximately 200 million girls in the world today are ‘missing’. India and China are said to eliminate more female infants than the number of girls born in the US each year. Lianyungang in China has the worst infant gender ratio on record with 163 boys born for every 100 girls. Taiwan, South Korea and Pakistan are also countries in which unwanted female babies are aborted, killed or abandoned.

Gendercide in South Asia takes many forms: baby girls are killed or abandoned if not aborted as foetuses. Girls that are not killed often suffer malnutrition and medical neglect as sons are favoured when shelter, medicine and food are scarce. Trafficking, dowry deaths, honour killings and deaths resulting from domestic violence are all further evils perpetrated against women. This femicide has led the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces to report in ‘Women in an Insecure World’ that a secret genocide is being carried out against women at a time when deaths resulting from armed conflicts have decreased.

The brutal irony of femicide is that it is an evil perpetrated against girls by women. The most insidious force is often the mother in law, the domestic matriarch, under whose authority the daughter in law lives. Policy efforts to halt infanticide have been directed at mothers, who are often victims themselves. The trailer shows tragic scenes of women having to decide between killing their daughters and their own well-being. In India women who fail to produce sons are beaten, raped or killed so that men can remarry in the hope of procuring a more productive wife.

It is an oft-made argument that parental discrimination between children would end if families across south Asia were rescued from poverty. But two factors particularly suggest that femicide is a cultural phenomenon and that development and economic policy are only a partial solution: Firstly, there is no evidence of concerted female infanticide among poverty-stricken societies in Africa or the Caribbean. Secondly, it is the affluent and urban middle classes, who are aware of prenatal screenings, who have access to clinics and who can afford abortions that commit foeticide. Activists fear 8 million female foetuses have been aborted in India in the last decade.

The Chinese cultural bias towards male children is one exacerbated by the birth control policy. India, however, poses a more complex problem where the primary cause is a cultural one.

Activists attribute a culture of valuing children by their economic potential to South Asia’s patriarchal social model in which men are the sole breadwinners. Sons both carry the family name and work from a young age. Daughter, on the other hand, impose the burden of a dowry before leaving the home upon marriage. Strict moral codes, onerous cultural expectations and demanding domestic responsibilities are all forces that further subjugate women.

Dr Saleem ur Rehman, director of health services for the Kashmiri Valley, has conceded that a healthy male to female infant ratio in Kashmir in 2001 led him and his team to become complacent. Since 2001, the ratio has dropped from 94.1 to 85.9 girls per 100 boys. The solution, however, lies beyond merely holding officials to account.

The cultural root of the problem partially explains why an effective solution has eluded authorities. Legal prohibitions have proved ineffective. In India, dowries were outlawed 1961 and in 1994 the Prenatal Determination Act outlawed gender selective abortions. Yet dowries remain a condition of marriage and action against unregistered or non-compliant clinics fail to intercept registered medical professionals performing illegal operations.

A crude supply and demand distinction can be drawn. Activists argue the demand for eliminating female fetuses is independent of the supply of illegal services. Only those that can afford to abort will do so. Others simply kill or abandon female infants after birth. This foeticide/infanticide equation will only skew towards the latter if the problem of illegal clinics and criminal doctors were solved.

In the New Statesmen, Laurie Penny explained that South Korea improved its infant gender ratio through a programme of education. But is increasing the awareness of contraception, abortion laws and women’s rights a panacea? No. Educational efforts insufficiently target the core cultural canker. Similarly, economic policed designed to encourage development are necessary but insufficient. Any improvement in living conditions is unlikely to offset the financial burden of raising a child and a dowry.

A solution therefore must be three-fold. Policy efforts combatting poverty must be supplemented by legal prohibitions. There must be an educational programme informing women of their rights. Finally and most importantly, there must be a social and religions campaign aimed at destroying ossified cultural attitudes.

The distinction between, on the one hand a programme of economics and education and on the other a cultural campaign is not qualitative but quantitative. The latter warrants a greater level of official engagement, allowing governments to actively discourage femicide rather than passively encouraging change.

A ‘secret genocide’ is a malaise in response to which government paternalism must surely be justified. In Kashmir, officials have enlisted the help of social and religious leaders. It is religious and social leaders that must reinforce legal prohibitions on dowries with campaigns attacking the social pressures of producing one. And they must supplement information of women’s rights by persuading mothers to educate their daughters and to allow their daughters to work. These cultural channels are best placed to begin to erode sexist cultural monoliths.

Ram Mashru

One of the corollaries of this choice made by nature is that in across the population, one would expect that there are more women than men. A rather simplified assumption, perhaps. The CIA’s The World Factbook records a global ratio of 101 females to a 100 men.

A difference of just 1, but taking India’s population of 1.21 Billion, we should have 601 Million men and 608 Million women.

However, the 2011 census recorded that India has 586 Million women.

That’s 22 Million women less that there should have been, if India followed global trends. What happened to these 22 Million women?

22 Million is a staggering number, so I decided to look at other sources of demographic information and run some projections of my own.

First – India’s own census data. In 1981, India had 962 female children to every 1000 male children. This has dropped to 914 female children in 2011, and if nothing is done, may continue to drop and reach 860 females for 1000 males in 2041, with the population having risen to 1.8 Billion. Doing the arithmetic, that is 62 Million women eliminated over 60 years.

Put another way, that’s over 1 Million women eliminated from India’s population every year.

Next, I checked UN data. World over, 100 girls are born for every 103 boys. Considering 70,000 births per day in India, by global standards, India should have 34,000 women born every day. In reality, the number is just 31,000 – that’s a deficit of 3000 a day, or about 1.27 Million a year.

From that perspective too, that’s over 1 Million women eliminated from India’s population every year, or 3479 women eliminated every day.

And this is not a problem of the hinterland, of the villages alone. If India has an overall Child Sex Ratio (CSR) of 914 girls to 1000 boys according to the 2011 census, Mumbai has just 860 girls to 1000 boys. A drop from the figure of 922 that was recorded by the 2001 census.The nation’s capital, Delhi, stands at 866. Bangalore at 908 girls to 1000 boys is also below the national average. Chennai with a CSR of 964 is well above the national average (although this number too has dropped since 2001).

Whether we look at India’s census, or global UN figures, 1 Million women are eliminated from the population of India every year – that’s a shocking number. The 24×7 news channels would put that out as Breaking News.

Except that, it is not breaking news if something happens every day, year after year.

The steep decline is fed by both demand for sons, and the supply of technologies that aid selective elimination of women before they are born. The demand for sons is a socio-economic issue and cannot be separated from the generally lower socio-economic status of women in India. The prevalent practice of dowry, the historically low legal status in inheritance laws (addressed largely by the 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act), socio-religious practices, etc. has resulted in the vicious cycle of lower investment by families in education and health of the girl child, low integration in economic growth, burdening women with everyday chores like the miles spent walking to fetch water – all of this feeds back to a low socio-economic status and finally, to not wanting a girl child.

These factors will most likely not apply to those who read this blog, but it does apply to a majority of India – if we get into a state of denial (“It doesn’t apply to whoever I know”) we’re choosing to remain part of the problem and not the solution.

This hidden genocide threatens our women, our social life, our idea of India itself.

At this rate, the India we seek and are proud of may well cease to exist.
What if anything can we do? As individuals, and as participants in a vibrant though flawed democracy, there are a few things we could do to at least keep the issue alive:

1. Demand action from the Government, from your MP. Meet him or her, share the stats. Ask him to raise the issue of poor implementation of the pre-natal diagnostics (prevention of misuse) act (PNDT). The test of a law is in implementation. And parliament and state legislatures must hold governments to account for failures of implementation.

2. Write to the Prime Minister (http://pmindia.nic.in/feedback.htm) asking for amendments to the PNDT Act for more effective implementation and penalties for those tasked with, but failing to implement the law. Technology can be an ally in implementation – the District Administration of Kolhapur has made a difference by centralising the storage of pre-natal scan images and introducing on-line tracking (http://savethebabygirl.in/home.aspx). The child sex ratio in Kolhapur has moved up from 839 females to 854 females per 1000 boys.

3. Don’t give or take dowry. Not easy, but the more honourable alternative has never been easy. At least try. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 8383 deaths due to dowry in India, in 2009. That’s deaths – there is little point in taking action after someone dies. Do something when there is a chance to live.

4. Support the cause of education, especially education of the girl child. There are numerous organisations involved – find one, and contribute. Donate, go out and teach.

5. Support the programs the provide sustainable access to healthcare, nutrition, water.

6. Support those who fight the fight on your behalf. It is a tough and lonely battle. Support is a very small contribution compared to the fight they fight, but at least give the support. Read Dr. Mitu Khurana’s story at http://mitukhurana.wordpress.com/

7. Publicise, contribute to the network. Use facebook for something beyond your friends –  connect with those who’re “on the case”. Your network may just put pressure on parliament and government. Public pressure has more power than we credit it with. And follow well researched blogs like http://50millionmissing.wordpress.com/

This is, literally, a matter of life and death. Do something. Today. Tomorrow will be 3479 women too late.

This is unacceptable as a civilised society. There’s a lot of effort on to arrest this slide, but more needs to be done for sure!  It’s a right of every girl child to be born and then to lead an equal life, and that right has to be enforced. This is not a favour, but a right!

The missing women of India would have touched many lives in many ways… here’s my tribute to them in the hope that this shall stop some time…

The Missing Women

The dark brown eyes that I can see
The little smile upon your face
A bundle of joy, my little girl
Where is it you disappeared?

Playing games that make no sense
Shining in your innocence
Crying less and smiling more
Are you with us, for I’m not sure?

The books you read everyday
The songs you sing in every way
Lovely music for my ears
Why am I left then with tears?

Threads that bind in fraternal bond
A sister’s love that’s going strong
Growing through the years are you
But why are you lost as morning’s dew?

A daughter’s hand – a father’s strength
The greatest gift that can be made
That bond of treasure is so dear
Yet forlorn it seems this year

A woman you are of true substance
Of grace and grit and common sense
Raising the bar as you perform
But why are you no longer to be found?

The wife you are in equal step
On life’s journeys that move in time
But I can see you no longer here
Have we lost you as I fear?

The hand that rocks the cradle sweet
Singing to your daughter’s beats
Mother’s love that knows no bound
And yet from you we hear no sound

Praised in temples are your forms
Goddess of wealth and wisdom profound
And every river is woman’s image
But where are you on life’s big stage?

Have we lost you to a scan misused?
Did you lose the war of health?
Did you lose the battle of food?
Smoking chulahs take toll of life

The past is past and can’t be changed
But future’s ours to be ordained
We need our women to live and thrive
First a right to birth you have
And then an equal right through life

A right it is, and no favour
An equal right to live a life
A right to birth, to educate
To make a choice that’s your debate

A life you choose with open mind
A equal life that you shall live
A right today we must secure
A moral choice it is we make

First a right to birth you have
And then an equal right through life!

20111021 – Major update – The urban-rural population data release.

This is an extremely important data set for planners and administrators in the major ministries and of course for all those in social sector fields. The new group of data files lists all the districts, their total population with rural and urban components, the population of the 0-to-six years age group and the population of literates, in all cases by male and female.

The text that follows is taken from the ‘data highlights’ file which provides a very good overview of the scope of this data release. You will also find a set of links to the pdf and xls files released by the Census 2011.

Census 2011 lists 7,935 towns in India. The number of towns has increased by 2,774 since the last Census (2001). Many of these towns are part of urban agglomerations and the rest are independent towns. The total number of urban agglomerations/towns, which constitutes the urban frame, is 6,166 in all states and union territories.

Population of UAs/Towns:
1. The total urban population in the country as per Census 2011 is more than 377 million constituting 31.16% of the total population.
2. Class I UAs/Towns: The UAs/Towns are grouped on the basis their population in Census. The UAs/Towns which have at least 1,00,000 persons as population are categorised as Class I UA/Town. At the Census 2011, there are 468 such UAs/Towns. The corresponding number in Census 2001 was 394.
3. 264.9 million persons, constituting 70% of the total urban population, live in these Class I UAs/Towns. The proportion has increased considerable over the last Census. In the remaining classes of towns the growth has been nominal.
4. Million Plus UAs/Towns: Out of 468 UAs/Towns belonging to Class I category, 53 UAs/Towns each has a population of one million or above each. Known as Million Plus UAs/Cities, these are the major urban centres in the country. 160.7 million persons (or 42.6% of the urban population) live in these Million Plus UAs/Cities.18 new UAs/Towns have been added to this list since the last Census.
5. Mega Cities: Among the Million Plus UAs/Cities, there are three very large UAs with more than 10 million persons in the country, known as Mega Cities. These are Greater Mumbai UA (18.4 million), Delhi UA (16.3 million) and Kolkata UA (14.1 million). The largest UA in the country is Greater Mumbai UA followed by Delhi UA. Kolkata UA which held the second rank in Census 2001 has been replaced by Delhi UA. The growth in population in the Mega Cities has slowed down considerably during the last decade. Greater Mumbai UA, which had witnessed 30.47% growth in population during 1991-2001 has recorded 12.05% during 2001-2011. Similarly Delhi UA (from 52.24% to 26.69% in 2001-2011) and Kolkata UA (from 19.60% to 6.87% in 2001-2011) have also slowed down considerably.

Child Population (0-6 years):
6. Population of children in the age group is 158.8 million in Census 2011. In the urban areas there are 41.2 million children in this age group. In comparison to Census 2001, the number of children (0-6) in urban areas has increased (by 10.32%), while in the rural areas it has decreased by 7.04%.
7. Of the 41.2 million children (0-6) in the urban areas in the country, the population in Class I UAs/Cities is 27.9 million, which is about 67.8% of the total Urban child population. In Million Plus UAs/Cities the Child Population (0-6) is 16.6 million constituting about 40 % of the total urban child (0-6) population of the country.
8. Among the 53 Million Plus UAs/Cities 16.6 million are children (0-6), of which 52.7% are boys and 47.3% are girls, showing a preponderance of male children in these large cities.
9. Malappuram UA has the highest proportion of Children (0-6) (13.57%) in the Million Plus category, followed by Ghaziabad (13.09%). Kolkata UA has the lowest proportion at 7.54%.

The data files:
Data Highlights [pdf, 32 kb]
Population by gender and residence, Census 2011 [pdf, 412 kb] [xls, 319 kb]
Cities with population 100,000 and above [pdf, 152 kb] [xls, 190 kb]
Urban agglomerations/cities with population 100,000 and above [pdf, 138 kb] [xls, 179 kb]
Urban agglomerations/cities with population 1 million and above [pdf, 20 kb] [xls, 35 kb]
Constituents of urban agglomerations with population 100,000 and above, Census 2011 [pdf, 162 kb] [xls, 251 kb]
Urban agglomerations spread over more than one district [pdf, 10 kb] [xls, 24kb]
Abbreviations [pdf, 7 kb] [xls, 28 kb]

Gender Ratio:
10. Gender ratio, the number of females per thousand males, in urban areas in India is 926 in Census 2011. It has registered an increase of 26 points over the Gender ratio in 2001 Census.
11. Gender ratio in Class I UAs/Cities (population of 100,000 and above) is 921, which is 5 points lower than the total urban gender ratio in the country.
12. Among the Million Plus UAs/Cities the Gender Ratio stands at 912. The UAs, where population of females exceeds the total male population in this group are Kannur UA (Kerala) at the top with 1168. Surat UA (Gujarat) is at the bottom of the list with Gender Ratio at 754 where males outnumber females.
13. In the two of the three mega cities there is predominance of male population as they have returned low Gender Ratio (e.g., Greater Mumbai UA – 861, Delhi UA – 867). Kolkata UA has returned a better gender ratio at 928.

Child gender Ratio (0-6 years):
14. The Child gender Ratio in the country has declined from 927 to 914 in Census 2011. This decline is more pronounced in rural areas than in urban areas of the country, where the decline is by 4 points from 906 to 902 in Census 2011.
15. The Child gender Ratio in UAs/Cities with 100,000 persons and above is 899 which is marginally lower than the national average for urban areas.
16. The combined Child gender Ratio in Million Plus UAs/Cities is 898. Thiruananthapuram UA (Kerala) has returned the highest Child gender Ratio (971) in this group. The lowest slot is occupied by Agra UA (780).
17. Child gender Ratio in the three Mega Cities are 946 (Kolkata UA), 900 (Greater Mumbai UA) and the lowest in 868 (Delhi UA).

Literacy Rate:
18. The literacy rates among both males and females have shown improvement in Census 2011 compared to the last Census. The literacy rate in the country as a whole is 74.04%. In the rural and the urban areas the literacy rates are 68.9% and 84.9% respectively.
19. The female literacy rate in rural and urban areas shows wide variation. In the urban areas of the country the female literacy rate is 79.92% in the rural areas it is only 58.75%.
20. In the 468 UAs/Towns the progress in literacy has been quite encouraging. In 89 UAs/Cities the total Literacy Rate has crossed the 90% mark. The corresponding number of UAs/Cities in Census 2001 was only 23 in Census 2011. In another 288 UAs/Cities, the Literacy rate ranges between 80% to 90%, improving from 197 in Census 2001.
21. The total Literacy Rate in Greater Mumbai UA is 90.78%, the highest among the mega cities. The Literacy Rate in Delhi and Kolkata are 86.43% and 88.33% respectively. The female literacy rate is also the highest in Greater Mumbai UA (87.19) the top three megacities.

20110926 – Major update – In the Paper 2 series 12 more states and union territories have been added.

In the ‘Provisional Population Totals Paper 2 of 2011′ series you will find most of the new data concerns administrative divisions in the state (or UT), several ‘At a Glance’ compilations of data and charts, decadal growth rates for populations and the percentage shares (under various categories) of populations.

There are also gender ratios by residence, child population (with associated decadal growth characteristics, gender ratios and percentages), literates and literacy rates (also by residence).

The new entrants follow below. One state only remains and that is Jammu and Kashmir – perhaps by this week the paper 2 series will also be complete. I will post the details here as soon as that happens.

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam
Bihar, Chhattisgarh
Jharkhand, Lakshadweep
Maharashtra, Manipur
Meghalaya, Mizoram
Tripura, Uttarakhand

20110822 – Major update- The Census of India has begun releasing – as part of its Paper 2 series – the state and union territory results for rural-urban populations, literacy, child gender ratios and administrative units maps. I am listing the state/UT releases issued so far, followed by the major new data files for those states/UTs:

Andaman & Nicobar Islands
Andhra Pradesh
Gujarat
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Karnataka
Kerala
NCT of Delhi
Orissa
Tamil Nadu

Chandigarh
Dadra and Nagar Haveli
Daman and Diu
Goa
Madhya Pradesh
Nagaland
Puducherry
Punjab
Rajasthan
Sikkim
Uttar Pradesh
West Bengal

Andaman & Nicobar Islands
Provisional Population Totals (pdf, 1.52 MB)

Andhra Pradesh
Percentage of Urban Population (Map)(pdf, 233 kB) ; Figures at a Glance (pdf, 351 kB) ; Population, Decadal growth Rate, sex ratio by residence (pdf, 5.17 MB) ; Child population, Decadal growth, child sex ratio by residence (pdf, 6.97 MB) ; Literates, Literacy rate by residence, Literacy rate by gender (pdf, 6.24 MB)

NCT of Delhi
Provisional Population Totals (pdf, 8.04 MB)

Gujarat
Figures at a Glance (pdf, 77 kB) ; Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex Ratio by Residence (pdf, 2.62 MB) ; Child Population, Decadal Growth, Child Sex Ratio by Residence (pdf, 1.15 MB) ; Literates and Literacy Rate By Residence (pdf, 1.70 MB)

Haryana
Figures at a Glance (pdf, 144 kB) ; Highlights of Haryana (pdf, 185 kB) ; Percentage of Urban Population to Total (Map)(pdf, 208 kB) ; Percentage Decadal Growth Rate of Urban Population 2001-2011 (Map)(pdf, 203 kB) ; Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex Ratio by Residence (pdf, 876 kB) ; Child Polulation, Decadal Growth, Child Sex Ratio By Residence (pdf, 1.24 MB) ; Literates and Literacy Rate by Residence (pdf, 916 kB)

2011May – The first set of detailed state-level data is almost complete as a release from the Census of India, 2011 Census. In this post I will provide the data types for each state and the links to the Census documents.

Enumeration in an Orissa (now Odisha) village. Photo: Census of India

Update 23 May: Nine more states added – Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha/Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

Update 15 May: Six more states added – Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Kerala.

I haven’t checked these links – they are on the Census of India website. The state data are provided in pdfs and xls sheets. Beware some large file sizes! My advice is to look at the pdfs carefully too for numbers. Experience with earlier census releases (these will go on for two to three years) is that you will find tables carried in pdfs with no readily available corresponding xls sheets. So store them carefully.

Why does Bihar with a population of 103 million have one data document while Gujarat, with 60 million, have eleven? Why is Delhi’s data document a single 65 MB giant? What’s the difference between two Assam documents which seem similar? I’m afraid I don’t know. My best guess right now is that through 2011 the ‘schedule’ of tables and data releases will become more standardised for all states (and UTs).

For now, this is what we can work with. Read an earlier post about Census 2011 here.

Here is a starting list of states and the data releases for them. I’ve begun with the large states (sorry, those interested in small states and union territories, those are coming) and alphabetically.

Andhra Pradesh

Comparision with other states [xls, 24 kB]
Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex-Ratio and Population Density [xls, 24 kB]
Population in the Age-Group 0-6, Number of Literates and Literacy Rate for State and Districts [xls, 24 kB]
Literacy Rates by Sex for State and District, 2001 and 2011 [pdf, 23 kB]
Proportion of Child Population in the Age-Group 0-6 to Total Population, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 68 kB]
Provisional Population Totals at a Glance [pdf, 13,585 kB]

Assam

Provisional Population Totals 2011 [pdf, 15.9 MB]
Provisional Population Totals II, 2011 [pdf, 7.65 MB]

Bihar

Provisional Population Totals 2011 [pdf, 86 kB]

Chhattisgarh

Figures at a glance [pdf, 94 kB]
India and Chhattisgarh figures at a glance [pdf, 93 kB]
India and States-UTs at a glance [pdf, 184 kB]

Delhi

Provisional Population Totals Paper 1, NCT of Delhi Series 8 [pdf, 65.0 MB]

Gujarat

Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex-Ratio and Population Density [xls, 26kB]
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population for State and Districts, 1901 – 2011 [xls, 24kB]
Sex-Ratio for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 23 kB]
Population in the Age-Group 0-6, Number of Literates and Literacy Rate for State and Districts, 2011 [xls, 29 kB]
Literacy Rates by Sex for State and District, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 26 kB]
Proportion of Child Population in the Age-Group 0-6 to Total Population, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 27 kB]
Ranking of Districts by Population Size, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 24 kB]
Ranking of Districts by Sex-Ratio, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 22 kB]
Ranking of Districts by Population Density, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 21 kB]
Literacy Rate 1951-2011 [xls, 19 kB]
Ranking of Districts by Literacy Rate and Sex, 2011 [xls, 23 kB]

Haryana

Provisional Population Totals, 2011 [pdf, 106 kB]
Provisional population totals data sheet [pdf, 674 kB]
District-wise Population [doc, 674 kB]
Comparative Sex-ratio, child sex ratio, literacy of Districts, 2001 and 2011 [doc, 26 kB]
Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex-Ratio and Population Density [xls, 24 kB]

Himachal Pradesh

Figures at a Glance, 2011 [pdf, 758 kB]
Provisional Population Totals 1 [xls, 22 kB]
Provisional Population Totals 2 [xls, 21 kB]
Population distribution, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex-Ratio and Population Density [xls, 22 kB]
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 20 kB]
Sex-Ratio for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 20 kB]
Population 0-6 years, Literacy Rate for State and Districts, 2011 [xls, 23 kB]
Literacy Rate by Sex for State and District, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 20 kB]
Proportion of Child Population, 0-6 years, to Total Population, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 20 kB]
Child Sex Ratio for State and Districts, 2001-2011 [xls, 19 kB]

Jammu and Kashmir

Provisional Population Totals 1 [pdf, 4.93 MB]
Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex-Ratio and Density [xls, 24kB]
Percentage Decadal Variation [xls, 23 kB]
Sex ratio since 1901 [xls, 21 kB]
Population 0-6, Number of Literates and Literacy Rate for State and Districts [xls, 23 kB]
Ranking of Districts by Population Size, 2001-2011 [xls, 21 kB]
Literacy Rate 1961-2011 [xls, 19 kB]
Ranking of Districts by Literacy Rate and Sex, 2011 [xls, 21 kB]

Jharkhand

Provisional Result data sheet, 2011 [pdf, 24 kB]
Provisional Population, 2011 [pdf, 2,016 kB]
Provisional Results, 2011 [pdf, 188 kB]
Provisional Population Totals 1 [xls, 47 kB]
Provisional Population Totals 2 [xls, 49 kB]

Karnataka

Provisional Population Totals 1 [pdf, 32.50 MB]
Population distribution, Decadal growth rate, Sex ratio and density [xls, 60 kB]
Percentage decadal variation in Population, State and Districts 1901-2011 [xls, 59 kB]
Sex ratio for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 61 kB]
Population 0-6, Number of literates and Literacy rate by sex for State and Districts [xls, 63 kB]
Literacy rates by sex for State and Districts, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 52 kB]
Proportion in 0-6 age group by sex, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 51 kB]

Kerala

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 194 MB]
Provisional Population at a Glance [pdf, 0.5 MB]
Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 35kB]
Population distribution, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex-Ratio and Density [xls, 32 kB]
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population, State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 34 kB]
Sex-Ratio for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 31 kB]
Population 0-6, Number of Literates and Literacy Rate, State and Districts [xls, 34 kB]
Literacy Rates by Sex for State and Districts, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 31 kB]
Proportion in 0-6 age group by sex to Total Population, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 34 kB]

Madhya Pradesh

Provisional Population Data Sheet [pdf, 16.953 kB]
Provisional Population of Madhya Pradesh [pdf, 2,016 kB]
Distribution of population, sex ratio, density and decadal growth rate [xls, 29 kB]
Total Population, child population 0-6, literates and literacy rates by sex [xls, 35 kB]
Percentage decadal variations in population, 1901-11 to 2001-2011 [xls, 20 kB]
District growth rate of population: 1951-71 to 2001-2011 [xls, 18 kB]
Sex-ratio for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 20 kB]
District sex ratio, 1961-2011 [xls, 19 kB]
Proportion of Child Population 0-6 by sex, 2001-2011 [xls, 16 kB]
Population of State/Districts by sex and percentage share of total 1 [xls, 14 kB]
Population of State/Districts by sex and percentage share of total 2 [xls, 13 kB]

Maharashtra

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 327 kB]
Tables and Statements [pdf, 4.79 MB]
Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 0.9 MB]
Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex Ratio and Density [xls, 30 kB]
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population, 1901-2011 [xls, 31 kB]
Sex Ratio for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 23 kB]
Population 0-6, Literates and Literacy Rate [xls, 39 kB]
Literacy Rates by Sex, State and District, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 24 kB]
Proportion of Age Group 0-6 to total Population, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 14 kB]
Districts ranked by Population, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 13 kB]
Districts ranked by Sex Ratio, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 12 kB]
Districts ranked by Population Density, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 12 kB]
Districts ranked by Literacy Rate and Sex [xls, 13 kB]

Odisha/Orissa

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 2.35 MB]
Provisional Population Totals, Paper 1, [pdf, 39.83 MB]

Punjab

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 669 kB]
Provisional Population Totals data sheet [xls, 35 kB]

Rajasthan

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 145,825 kB]
Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex Ratio and Density [xls, 23 kB]
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population, 1901-2011 [xls, 24 kB]
Districts ranked by population growth rate, 1901-1911 to 2001-2011 [xls, 34 kB]
Sex Ratio, 1901-2011 [xls, 24 kB]
Districts ranked by Sex Ratio [xls, 21 kB]
Total Population, Child Population 0-6, Literates and Literacy Rate by Sex [xls, 24 kB]
District Literacy Rate by sex 2001-2011 [xls, 23 kB]

Tamil Nadu

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 193 kB]
Provisional Population Totals, Paper 1 [pdf, 17,363 kB]
Annexure I and II [doc, 23 kB]
Distribution of Population, 0-6 Population and Literacy Rate by Sex [xls, 36 kB]
Distribution of Population, Decadal Growth Rate, Sex Ratio and Density [xls, 34 kB]
Districts ranked by Population Size, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 31 kB]
Percentage Decadal Variation in Population, 1901-2011 [xls, 34 kB]
Sex Ratio for State and Districts, 1901-2011 [xls, 32 kB]
Districts ranked by Sex Ratio, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 29 kB]
Districts ranked by Population Density, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 30 kB]
Districts Sex Ratio, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 34 kB]
Literacy Rate, 1961-2011 [xls, 26 kB]

Uttar Pradesh

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 4.0 MB]
Provisional Population Totals, Paper 1, [pdf, 127.0 MB]

Uttarakhand

Provisional Population Totals [pdf, 0.3 MB]

West Bengal

Provisional Population Totals [xls, 22 kB]
Area, Population, Decennial Growth Rate and Density, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 25 kB]
Sex Ratio, 0-6 Population, Literates and Literacy rate, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 27 kB]
Population distribution, decadal growth, Sex ratio, density and Literacy rate [xls, 33 kB]
Districts ranked by Population, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 23 kB]
Districts ranked by Sex Ratio, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 23 kB]
Districts ranked by Population Density, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 23 kB]
Districts ranked by Literacy Rate, 2001 and 2011 [xls, 23 kB]

That’s the major list so far. Small states and UTs to follow as soon as possible. Please let me know if links are broken or not working.

Female fetuses (babies inside the womb) have more resilience than the male ones as evidenced by the fact that 70% of spontaneously aborted fetuses are males.

Unlike the popular perception, young and old females are more resistant to diseases and live longer than males. Moreover, heart attacks are less common among females than their male counterparts.

Exposure to the danger of death like war is more among males than females.

This demographic feature may be turned on its head in any community where female feticide or infanticide (killing of girl child through the acts of omission or commission) is prevalent due to social bias against the girl child.

GENDER RATIO AS AN INDICATOR OF SOCIAL STATUS OF WOMEN IN A GIVEN COMMUNITY

In the Indian context, the state of Kerala is at the top with >1010 females for every 1000 males. (For centuries, Kerala practised the matriarchal social system which earned it the name of Stree Malayalam-the land of women). On the contrary, in the Northern States like Haryana, the figure is dipping below 900 females for every 1000 males. The ante-natal sex determination through ultrasound and selective abortion of female fetuses is at root of this malady even though this has been banned under the law.

“She called me on the very day she committed suicide. She said that she was being battered so badly by her husband that she no longer wished to stay with him. But I persuaded her to give the marriage some more time.”[Link]

I received Momofrs mail while writing about why our gender ratio will not improve until we start  ‘respecting’ women. Respecting women would mean we acknowledge that women are equal citizens, human or people. Just like the rest of the world.

Meaning, we don’t respect them because they brought us into this world (so if they don’t want to be mothers, they don’t deserve respect?)

We don’t respect them because they sacrificed for us or because they are stronger and more loving, ‘they make a house a home‘, ‘they complete men’ or they are beautiful ( ), they are wiser etc. We respect them even if they are none of these things, just because they are people, just like everybody else.

Respecting women would mean we acknowledge that they are the best and only people who can decide if they should stay in a marriage. Their word would be enough.

Yes it comes as a shock to their parents who have thought of nothing but her marriage all her life, maybe spent all their savings as dowry in the hope that she is treated humanely by her in laws and spouse.

Yes there are other problems. The neighbour’s third cousin will point a finger at the upbringing. Why do the parents care? Because they fear she will not find another match. Why not stop seeing Getting-married-and-Staying-married as the only goal in her life? A huge number of a woman’s problems are solved once marriage becomes an option instead of being the only goal in her life.

This might just save her life. Not only from abusive spouse or in laws, but also from her parents before or soon after she is born.

And even if her life is not at risk (let’s assume) then doesn’t her happiness matter? She has one life, if she is unhappy why wait for her to get used to abuse and unhappiness and for her spirit to break? Yes, nobody is perfectly happy, yes her grandmother and mother suffered too, but that’s no reason for her to not be given every chance to lead a happy, fulfilled life.

If she is matured enough to be married, then she is matured enough to decide if and when she does not wish to stay married. Here we hold her responsible even for crimes against herself, but we don’t trust her to take that one of the decision that concerns her more than it concerns anybody else.

Why don’t we take it seriously when a woman says they do not want to live with their spouse? Why isn’t her word enough?

It is a universally acknowledged fact that the English grammar & punctuation skills of Indians are far better than anyone in the world, Brits and Americans included. A testament to this is the virtual monopoly Indian kids have on the spelling bee championships, going where no child their age has gone i.e. words longer than 7 alphabets. The rap fad might end up affecting the literary value of our songs, though, and consequently that of our culture, our heritage and everything else that is s nice. Long-gone seem the days when Javed Akhtar & Gulzar would come up with unfathomable (but apparently quite awesome) lyrics like ‘geela … geela paani’ (wet … wet water) or ‘itni shiddat se I did something’ (I don’t know what this means but I think I did something nice). Today, a trend’s developing, where all songs have a few lines in English spoken really fast and aggressively, usually to indicate high levels of libido and/or rage. The rhymes, unfortunately, leave a lot to be desired. When the less famous Patel sibling (Ameesaa ben) pouts ‘Mausam bada hai Awesome’, I can’t help but cringe. When aliterations are reduced to stuff like ‘Lazy Lamhe’, I am but a touch saddened. When Himesh advises ‘Full-too attitude, de de tu zara’, I let it pass only because he’s in a league of his own. When I hear Sunidhi croon -

Silly silly silly sillee boys …. mujhe follow follow karte hain ….
Jab unke taraf dekhoon …. baatein hollow hollow karte hain

I’ll admit it, she probably has a point there – guys do have a tendency to follow women around and talk hollow stuff because they’re so bowled over by the immense awesomeness of the women being followed. This does not, however, justify coming up with such random lyrics, even if there’s Katrina Kaif wearing treacherous clothing just itching to malfunction as she does pelvic thrusts which would corrupt even the lai llama – the wisest and most chaste (chastest?) llama ever. Here’s the video I refer to, presented solely for academic interest.

Continuing on the same topic (the lyrics of the song), she goes on to say -

dil karta hai haule haule-se main khud ko gale laga loon
kisi aur ki mujhko zaroorat kya main to khud se pyaar jataaoon

This, however, is where I draw the line. What she’s essentially saying is that she’s so hot that she’s like totally in love with herself, like that narcissistic greek guy from the fables (his name eludes my memory, unfortunately). Anyone else will be such a disappointment for her that she’s going to ‘jataao pyaar’ on her own – i.e. please herself. I have to say that this is something which is simply not acceptable. Skewed sex-ratios are a real problem, people. Some magazine estimates that soon, there will be nearly 20 mn Chinese dudes, all spoilt rotten by their folks because they had no siblings while growing up, suddenly realizing that they have no girls to follow-follow or talk hollow-hollow. It’s alright if they turn to each other for solace and comfort – will be the best population control measure I suppose. It could get catastrophic though if China was to export it’s way out of this surplus as well! We Indians have just hit the peak of our demographic dividend curve, so we’ll get where the Chinese are, just a few decades later (as always). Given such a bleak outlook, is it really a good idea for girls – especially the hot ones – to indulge in or inspire others with such notions of self-fulfillment? Unless Katrina et al can assure us that it’s ‘just a phase’ and that ‘it too shall pass’, I strongly urge the social/moral police to stage an intervention here in the strictest possible manner. I’m pretty sure our culture is getting corrupted here somehow, and that should be good enough.

Although it might seem so, this post was not an excuse to have the video on my blog. Also, this rant does not wish to trivialize a matter as serious as this. It is high time we do something about it lest our children pay for our mistakes, even if it is the only known way in which parents can get back at their children.We need to do something, else it might get quite painful. We need to ‘chase ourselves‘, if I was to quote some borrowed wisdom.

We should probably look at the gender ratio issue too, ’cause I would be deeply saddened if my son (if/when I have one) was to end up living like an engineering college student without even stepping into an engineering college. Scary thought!

(Hopefully I’ll update this post with more examples of literary-mudder)

Ed: Just watched Tees Maar Khan, and all I have to say to the director Farah Khan is that Tees Maar isn’t sufficient punishment for the agony I had to endure. Tees hazaar maar will be enough though.

A few seconds later, as I looked around the room and realized I was one of four girls in a forty-person lecture, a small part of me began to wonder if our professor would have felt comfortable telling that joke if the ratio had been less severe, or even reversed.

A big part of me thinks he wouldn’t have.

When I got to the weekend, the first thing I noticed was how few women were in the room. I wasn’t surprised, but it’s something that you can’t help but notice. I ended up interviewing for two divisions – a more testing-oriented position and a design-oriented one. In the testing-oriented interview, I mentioned that one of the reasons I had chosen my college was because I went to an all-girls high school and I was excited about going to an engineering college with a good gender ratio. My interviewer interrupted, “That’s interesting, because you know, there are not a lot of women who work here, it’s probably only about 10%.” I shrugged and said “It doesn’t bother me, I work with men all the time. I just didn’t want to go from a completely female environment to a completely male one.”

Afterwords, I wondered if I had said the wrong thing. What should I have said? “Yeah, that totally sucks, maybe you should fix that?” That’s certainly what I was thinking. Gender is so awkward to talk about in a job interview. On the one hand, I don’t want it to be counted against me and on the other hand, I don’t want to pretend that it’s a non-issue. I think it’s important to talk about gender issues and not build up this media-hyped lie that “feminism is dead”.

My next interview was for a design-oriented position. This division was very excited about students from my school in general. In fact, the man who had recommended for me to interview was from this division. My interviewer was telling me how excited he was about my school and described a student he had met at the career fair, “I met one student, you probably know him, [edited for anonymity]” My stomach dropped, he was describing one of the biggest assholes at my school. That guy who is always the first to make a sexist comment just so he can snicker with his friends in the back of the classroom. Was this the sort of person that these people hired? I’m sure this man had no idea of this background – but it was depressing to think about all the same.

Ultimately I got a job offer from the design division and not the testing division. I still wonder if the gender question played into it. I actually liked the testing division way better and could imagine myself working there. Those engineers got to spend some time at sea and having spent six weeks living on a ship for my study abroad experience, I felt that I was pretty qualified.

I feel like gender issues are inappropriate to ask about in a job interview – it’s too political. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place – but that seems so artificial. That was a huge part of how I chose my college. What an awkward job interview.

Wei Shangjin, a professor at Columbia Business School, proposes an intriguing new theory in Forbes to account for why the Chinese save so much.  Conventional explanations of China’s high savings rate focus on high out-of-pocket expenses for health care and education, the absence of a social safety net, and an undervalued currency that makes exports cheap and imports expensive.  But in Wei’s view, it all boils down to sex — the gender ratio, that is, and the competition it causes in the marriage market.

In China today, he notes, there are 122 baby boys born for every 100 girls.  Given China’s one-child policy, most Chinese parents, especially in low-income rural areas, have a strong preference for having a boy to carry on the family line (in my own observation, residents of high-income cities like Beijing, in contrast, seem to actually prefer girls).  Even though it’s technically illegal under Chinese law to tell an expecting couple the sex of a fetus (for precisely this reason), many find out anyway and will abort a girl in order to try again for a boy.  The result is a lopsided demographic with a lot more boys than girls.

China’s one-child policy was instituted in 1979, so that means there’s been plenty of time for those baby boys and girls to grow up and start looking for mates.  And when they pair off, there aren’t enough girls to go around.  According to the numbers, one out of every five young men will be unable to find a partner.  Which means, if you don’t want to end up the lonely heart, you better have a plan to impress the ladies.  For families with boys, Wei believes, that means saving up to buy housing and other accoutrements of wealth that will help attract a mate (in fact, in some parts of China, bachelors and their parents have resorted to forking over a cash “bride price” that can go as high as US$5,000, a payment that represents several years’ income for a farming family.  The lucrative practice has given rise to organized scams involving “runaway brides” who take the money and disappear.  For a rather eye-opening read on this topic, check out this recent Wall Street Journal article).

Wei’s theory, that mating competition drives high savings rates in China, is an interesting notion, one he tries to back up with hard data.  He reports:

In our study we compared savings data across regions and in households with sons versus those with daughters. We found that not only did households with sons save more than households with daughters on average but also that households with sons tend to raise their savings rate if they happen to live in a region with a more skewed sex ratio. 

Even those not competing in the marriage market must compete to buy housing and make other significant purchases, pushing up the savings rate for all households.

The effect is significant.  The household savings rate in China rose from about 16% of disposable income in 1990 to over 30% today, which is much higher than most countries. (The comparable rate in the U.S. was about 3% before the crisis, and 6% in recent months.) About half of the increase in the savings rate of the last 25 years can be attributed to the rise in the sex ratio imbalance.

When I read Wei’s article, it immediately called to mind a joke one of my Chinese students told me.  My wife and I had just had our first child — a boy — this past October, and he was quick to congratulate me on this, for most Chinese, highly enviable outcome.  I remarked, though, that my wife’s parents would actually have preferred a girl.  He said that this was a common attitude in Beijing, unlike the rest of the country.  A boy, he said, is like China Construction Bank.  You must save and save in order to afford and buy a house.  A girl, on the other hand, is like CITIC (China’s first financial institution set up to raise foreign investment) because she will bring in money from outside.  It’s a very Chinese analogy — I didn’t quite get it at first — but it captures an outlook that would seem to back up Wei’s theory.

Demographics certainly have a big impact on saving and spending patterns, but the usual focus is on age, not sex.  I don’t know whether Wei’s theory is correct — I still think saving to pay for out-of-pocket health care is a key factor — but it certainly presents food for thought.  If it is true, even in part, it suggests that the Chinese preference to save rather than spend may go far deeper, and prove far less tractable, than many economists believe.

(In any event, the balance has certainly shifted since 1973, when Mao allegedly made Kissinger a bizarre offer to send 10 million “excess” Chinese women to the United States.  Don’t take my word for it, check out the BBC and AFP).

How does the project work?

If you read this blog, chances are good that you work in a technology-centric profession or have a tech-related hobby. Chances are also good that you go to events connected to your work and/or hobby such as conferences, workshops, and lectures. It is also possible that you might be concerned about gender diversity at tech events.

If you are at a tech event, just count how many women, men, or others are in attendance. Then add this gender ratio to the Be Counted database at http://b-counted.appspot.com/. You can chose to either add a single event or a multi-session event. Multisession events would be bigger conferences or lecture series. Here, you would enter the name of the multi-session event and then add one session after another to this event.

The idea is to collect a lot of gender ratio reports from different events. So far, we have reports from, among others, the 2009 Nonprofit Software Development Summit, which happened in Oakland in the United States, the 2ndQGIS Hackfest which happened in Vienna, Austria, and the Bolsena Code Sprint which happened in Bolsena, Italy. We are interested in collecting more data and finding out together with the visitors of the site how the ratios vary depending on the type of event, the location, the size, etc. We are curious to find out how these variations could turn into patterns and how this could create a picture of diversity in the tech world that is constantly updated with new data.

So, if you go to a tech event, count how many women, men, and others are attending and enter the numbers into the Be Counted database. Do let others know about the project. If successful in terms of participation, this collective scrutiny of tech events and gender ratios will lead to more reflection on the part of participants and organizers.

How did we come up with Be Counted?

In spring 2008, I made a project that had some similarity to Be Counted as my MS thesis project at the MIT Media Lab Computing Culture Group. In summer 2009, I discussed it with Hanna Wallach and Persephone Miel as part of the thesis evaluation process. In the discussion, we found out that each of us had counted the ratio of women and men at tech events, in classes, etc. So I started to set up Be Counted using Django on Google App engine. I had a rough version of the project written around April 2010. Persephone, Hanna, and Karen gave feedback and I revised several times until the most recent version was done in November 2009.

What features will be next?

I want to make a simple API so that people can use the gender ratio information in visualizations, in “guess the gender ratio” games, or in other creative applications. I am hoping that an API will help to disseminate the data, so that the process does not stop after the data has been collected.

Will there be more projects like Be Counted? And if yes, what are they going to be like?

I think I can speak for all of us if I say that we want to be involved in more feminist software/hardware projects.

I personally am specifically interested in the tech work environment. For my thesis, I analyzed several studies. There are studies like one conducted by researchers at the University of Kansas that is reported on in this article which concludes that women are just different from men and that’s why they avoid IT careers. Other studies like the FLOSSPOLS study about Open Source Software and gender or the Athena Factor published by the Harvard Business Review both look at gender dynamics in places where tech work happens. I find those studies more conducive to designing applications that aim at improving diversity in environments where technology gets created. Why? Because if the problem is the work environment – and I am defining work broadly here – this work environment can and needs to be scrutinized and changed.

In the case of Be Counted, we are focusing on numbers. The reason for this is that quantitative data is something that engineers are more used to dealing with than anecdotal evidence. However, I could also imagine technologies that intervene in a more direct way. Gloria W. at some point proposed an aggression detector to be used in difficult work meeting situations. The device would detect aggression in the voice of meeting participants and intervene when this occurs. So the question here would be, how does aggression manifest, and how can aggression be measured.

So, yes I would argue for scrutinizing tech work environments through software, hardware, and other less technical means in order to improve it and make it open to a broader group of people.

from Dyslexia