news details |
|
|
| Are J&K's developmental claims fake, fudged, unrealistic? | | 8 CM's story of failures continues by syed junaid hashmi | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Oct 3: Despite Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's repeated pronouncements of Jammu and Kashmir having progressed by leaps and bounds during the last two years, nothing much is visible on the ground. Human Development and Gender Development have show steep downward trend.
The Chief Minister and his coterie of IAS officers have been unable to bring about any change despite making claims off and on. Omar has been making frequent changes in the administrative set-up but to no avail. The events have proven the popular perception that despite restoration of popular government in 1996 in Jammu and Kashmir following long spell of president's rule, state has seen unprecedented decline in human development and gender empowerment over a period of ten years from 1996 till the year 2006.
Respective governments in the state have failed to bridge widening gap of inequalities between men and women across the state. Degradation of human resource coupled with disempowerment of women has been the hallmark of 10 years of governance which the state has witnessed. These spine chilling revelations have been made by Union Ministry for Women and Child development in its report on "Gendering Human Development Indices: Recasting the gender development index and gender empowerment measure for India."
The report has ranked Jammu and Kashmir among worst performing states in terms of removing gender disparities, improving overall standards of living and ensuring enhanced political and economic participation of both men and women. Ministry has based these conclusions on dismal report card of J&K in terms of Human Development Index (HDI), Gender Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measures (GEM) over a period of ten years i.e. from 1996 to 2006.
On the scale of Human Development Index (HDI), which is used as an index to rank states by level of human development and separate developed (high development), developing (middle development), and underdeveloped (low development) areas of the country, Jammu and Kashmir has gone a step back and has been placed at 27th rank in the year 2006 when the HDI was calculated. State was at number 26 in the year 1996.
HDI ranking is compiled from statistics for life expectancy, education, standard of living and gross domestic product (GDP) collected at the national level. Except for Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Andhra Pradesh, all other states of the country have improved HDI ranking and moved to next higher level. Report maintains that failure to improve HDI ranking has been due to inability of government to reduce high levels of malnutrition which continue to affect a large part of the child population, limiting their learning capacity and influencing morbidity and mortality ratios.
It further says that maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate are far too high while incidence of anemia among women and children is at unacceptable levels. Besides, far too large a proportion of population, especially in rural areas, lacks access to affordable health care. However, it needs to be noted that most serious gender discrimination which is confronting state is female foeticide which gets reflected in alarmingly low sex ratio.
On the Gender Development Index (GDI) scale, which shows inequalities between men and women in terms of long and healthy life, knowledge and decent standard of living, Jammu and Kashmir has been placed at number 28 among 35 states and union territories for the year 2006. This is 3 ranks lower than where J&K was in the year 1996 and hence, an indicator of the fact that disparities between men and women have increased after the formation of democratic government in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The dismal performance mainly on account of inability of the state government to bring reforms both in the urban and rural areas. Report has penalised the state for failure to adopt 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments for the reservation of one-third seats for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions and Urban Local Bodies. It has held the state guilty of not taking any policy-based affirmative action to empower women by ensuring their participation in decision-making in democratic institutions at the local level.
It has also noted that Jammu and Kashmir has failed to put curbs on harassment through violence, both physical and sexual and remove severe disparities in access to assets such as land and low share of "paid" work and income. The report affirms that data on dowry deaths, rape, eve teasing and violence against women grossly underestimates the extent to which women face harassment and inclusion of these indicators in an index of empowerment requires the availability of equivalent data for men.
It further implores upon the state that gender empowerment cannot be achieved without actions that ensure that all spaces, both inside and outside the home, are safe for women. Women face severe disadvantages as farmers due to lack of access to productive resources, especially land and credit in Jammu and Kashmir, says the report. It adds that women are still excluded from extension services in the context of agriculture and animal husbandry across the state of Jammu and Kashmir. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
