Current Affair 1:

MoSPI’s Women and Men in India (2021) report

 

The Women and Men in India, 2021 report, released by MoSPI is the collection of a variety of gender-related statistics that are released by different agencies of the government. This serves as a single go-to platform to find information pertaining to gender statistics.

The report is divided into six chapters based on diverse aspects of gender – Health, education, participation in economy and decision making, impediments to empowerment, and population-related metrics.

Health Statistics:

Infant Mortality Rates (IMR):

Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR):

The Maternal Mortality rate (MMR), which is defined as the ratio of the number of women who died due to pregnancy complications to one lakh live births in that period, has been declining from 254 in 2004-06 to 103 during 2017-19. Anaemia in pregnant women is one of the important factors that define maternal and foetal complications.

Obesity:

Obesity, hypertension, and diabetes are the major reasons behind the growing number of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across the world. Around 55 million people are at risk of death if enough and timely interventions are not taken to control NCDs as per WHO. In fact, India is the first country to adopt a strategy to minimize deaths due to NCDs by 25% by 2025.

Obesity in India has increased in both genders. While the percentage of men who are obese increased from 18.9 to 22.9, female obesity increased from 20.6 to 24.0 from NFHS-4 to NFHS-5.

Education:

Participation in Economy:

Economic empowerment of women is a key driver to achieving gender equality. It includes the ability of women to participate in existing market conditions, control and access over resources, and increased participation in economic decision making. However, the worker population ratio in India across all the age groups presents a poor picture of women’s participation. It is 53.9% for men as compared to 21.8% for women.

 

There is also a disparity in the percentage distribution of workers by type of employment. Under self-employed conditions, 35% of females work as a helper in the household enterprise, while only 8.5% males work in similar employment. Around 44% of men work as own-account worker, employer, only 21.3% of women work in the same status.

In terms of financial aspects, women hold up to 33% of the total accounts in the scheduled commercial banks. This translates to 18.61% of the total amount of deposits in the scheduled commercial banks.

Participation in decision making:

Representation of women across the key branches of the government setup is considered vital for progress on gender equality as well as on other issues that could potentially impact women. Ranging from policy prioritization to policy implementation, women at any level of decision-making could have a positive impact.

Two examples:

Legislature:

The representation of women in legislature in India is dismal. The overall percentage of women in legislatures is around 9%. This is well below the aimed representation of 33% as envisioned under the Women’s Reservation Bill- Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2008. Only 9 states in India have a percentage of female legislatures above 10% but below 15%, while only Mizoram has 26% female legislatures.

Judiciary:

In Judiciary, the Supreme Court has merely 12% female judges. Indian Judiciary is still considered a ‘Man’s World’.  This pattern is also evident across the high courts of different states. Only Telangana and Sikkim high courts have more than 30% female judges, the rest of the High Courts have below 30%.  Nine High courts have less than 10% of female judges.

 

Current Affair 2:

India's sugar exports grow by 291% since 2013-14

 

In 2021-22 (April-February), India has exported sugar worth of USD 769 million to Indonesia, followed by Bangladesh (USD 561 million), Sudan (USD 530 million) and U.A.E (USD 270 million). India also exported sugar to Somalia, Saudi Arab, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Nepal, China, etc.

Indian sweetener has also been imported by USA, Singapore, Oman, Qatar, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Germany, France, New Zealand, Denmark, Israel, Russia, Egypt, etc.

 

Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka account for nearly 80 percent of the total sugar production in the country.

Notably, India is the world’s second-largest sugar producer after Brazil.

Since 2010-11, India has consistently produced surplus sugar, comfortably exceeding the domestic requirements. The record exports would enable the sugar producers to reduce their stocks and would also benefit the sugarcane farmers, as the increased demand for Indian sugar is likely to improve their realizations. The significant rise in agri-exports is also seen as a testimony of the government’s commitment to increase farmers’ income by boosting exports of agricultural and processed food products of the country.

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