CONTEMPORARY INDIA

Introduction:- India is among the largest nations in the world and faces important challenges as well as tremendous opportunities for the future .The present situations of India will give thorough insights into major issues and will familiarise participants with India's rich social, literary and religious culture. In this we debate the various problems faced by our country and the programmes and policies the Government has introduced to the people Some of the areas that influenced the government are :-

(1) CORRUPTION(2) EDUCATION(3) HEALTH

The following are some of the live examples and graphs showing the influence of the above factors and the policies implemented by the Government.

(1)CORRUPTION:-“Corruption is Social Evil” “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

In its simplest sense, corruption may be defined as an act of bribery or misuse of public position or power for the fulfilment of selfish motives or to gain personal gratifications. It has also been defined as “Misuse of authority as a result of consideration of personalgain which need not be monetary".

In recent Centuries India has earned a place among the THREE most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption in India is a

consequence of the nexus between Bureaucracy, politics and criminals. India is now no longer considered a soft state. It has now become a consideration state where everything can be had for a consideration. Today, the number of ministers with an honest image can be counted on finger s. At one time, bribe was paid for getting wrong things done but now bribe is paid for getting right things done at right time. Live Example:-

The 2G scam in the year 2010 has caused a lot of damage to the undercharging mobile telephony companies for frequency allocation country. It was a scam involved politicians and government officials in India illegally licenses, which they would then use to create 2G spectrum subscriptions for cell phones. The shortfall between the money collected and the money that the law mandated to be collected is estimated to be 1766.45 billion as valued by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India based on 3G and BWA.

The culprit behind this scam is Mr .Raja a politician from Tamil Nadu working under the DMK party. Raja hit headlines for the wrong reasons ever since he allocated license for the 2G bandwidth

in 2007 soon after he took over the coveted portfolio, adds PTI. Mr .Raja has been facing criticism after he decided in 2007 to bring in new players and give licenses and spectrum as per the existing policy of "first-cum-first-serve" basis and rejected demands for auctioning. After the licenses were given January 2008 at 2001 prices of Rs. 1,658 crore, two of the telecom operators who got spectrum sold part of the equity at much higher premium.

All the above details could lead to only one possible question that is. Is it possible to contain corruption in our society? Corruption is a cancer, which every Indian must strive to cure. Many new leaders when come into power declare their determination to eradicate corruption but soon they themselves become corrupt and start amassing huge wealth. There are many myths about corruption, which have to be exploded if we really want to combat it. Some of these myths are: Corruption is a way of life and nothing can be done about it. Only people from underdeveloped or developing countries are prone to corruption. We will have to guard against all these crude fallacies while planning measures to fight corruption.

About the graph;- Its clear from the above graph that the population of Indian citizens below Poverty line in the last few decades has decreased by an average of 40.5% of all the people living in both rural and urban areas.

The following steps should be considered to eradicate corruption:

Greedy business people and unscrupulous investors should stop bribing the political elites. Political elites should stop putting their private gains before the welfare of citizens and economic development of their regions. Government should include a chapter in text books related to corruption and its desire consequences.

If we do not take step forward to remove corruption from root, the word developing country will always be attached with our country INDIA. So we the common man are solution for removing corruption from our INDIA and hence we will be also helpful in making our country developed.

3 ways to reduce corruption

The first tool is ‘education’. With the help of education we can reduce corruption. According to a survey conducted by India today the least corrupt state is Kerala, the reason being that in Kerala literacy rate is highest in India. So we can see how education effects education.

The first tool is ‘education’. With the help of education we can reduce corruption. According to a survey conducted by India today the least corrupt state is Kerala, the reason being that in Kerala literacy rate is highest in India. So we can see how education effects education.

We can reduce corruption by increasing direct contact between government and the governed. E-governance could help a lot towards this direction. According to act 2005 generally people should follow the procedure of law given to then when their work is not being implemented in a proper way in public services. This act is a great help in the order to control corruption.

About the graph:- The graph says a lot about the Level of corruption in various states compared parallel to their literacy rate

We can see that Bihar has the highest level of corruption and the lowest literacy rate in all the Indian states, whereas on the other hand Kerala has the lowest level of corruption and the highest literacy rate.

It looks obvious from the graph that the various states of our country are affected differently in different ways. The Central Government of our country is not able to access the different states equally.

From this we can say that our country has come a long way from third

world countries where corruption is very common among the people .

But the most important of all the question is that, Is it sufficient for a better India?

(2)EDUCATION:-

Education in India is increasing from year to year. For example the literacy rate in 2001 is 65.38% and raise by 11.38% in 2011 to 74.04%.the literacy rates in various states of India by 2011 are shown in below table.

In every state, literacy rate has increased between 2001 and 2011. Bihar stands least with least literacy rate both in 2001 and 2011. And Kerala has highest literacy rate of 93%.

The increase in literacy rates of various states from 2001 to 2011 is shown in below graph.

Both male and female literacy rates in India are increasing but female literacy is not reaching male literacy rate for example see the graph given below.

Both male and female literacy rates are very low during the period of 1951.male literacy rate increased effectively 1951 to 2011 .but female literacy rate increased during the period of 1991 and 2001.

Every time there is a difference of 20% literacy rate between male and female literacy rates.

The graph given below will show the literacy rate of male, female and total literacy rate in India between 1901 and 2011.

About the Graph:- From the above graph that female literacy rate is very low when compared to the male and total literacy rates. The

reason is that parents think that there is no need of education for girls. Awareness programs about the importance of education to girls have to be conducted to increase female literacy rate.

Education levels have increased when compared to past years but standards of education are not up to date. I.e. education levels are not increasing with increase in technol.

School dropout rates are also more. The main reasons for drop outs or not joining in schools are lack of awareness of importance education, lack of interest either of parents or of children and not availability of proper schooling facility and poor financial status.

Government has to check on drop outs and have to tack measures to decrease dropout rate like promoting programs which explain the importance of education and giving scholar ships and free education up to some extinct. For example programs like fees reimbursement, scholarships to poor people. If we share photos in Facebook 1$ will be given for each photo to any foundation which works for poor children’s education and health.

Live Example: - The scheme introduced by our Government under the Chief Minister Dr.Y.S .Rajashekar Reddy is the FEES REIMBURSEMENT PROGRAMME.

It allowed students (backward castes, poor) to compete in the present educational system.

The students were made free from extra fees and are now establishing jobs in multi-national companies.

(3)HEALTH:-1. Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR)

2. Percentage of births covered by skilled birth attendants

3. Life expectancy of women as a ratio of life expectancy of men

4. Age specific fertility rates of 15 to 24 years girls

Life Expectancy at Child Birth

About the Graph:-The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) is the number of women who die from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes) during pregnancy and childbirth or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, per 100,000 live births. The incidence of maternal deaths is too rare an event to provide a robust estimate of the MMR by sample survey method. The present estimates are available from

Sample Registration System (SRS) based studies taking into account the requirement of large sample size for sub-national estimates of MMR.

The national MMR level has come down from 327 per 100,000 live births in 1999-2001 to 212 per 100,000 live births in 2007-09, registering a decline of 35.2% over a span of eight years.

Life risk in motherhood is gradually diminishing across the country mainly due to promotion of reproductive healthcare facilities through government-run programmes. From 33% deliveries attended by skilled personnel in 1992-93, the proportion has increased to about 47% in 2005-06 and 52% by 2007-08. At this rate of change, India is likely to attain 62% delivery attendance by skilled personnel by 2015.

Life Expectancy in the coming years:-

About the Graph:-The above graph shows the projected values of life expectancy in both the sexes from 2001-2025. We can see that the life expectancy of the feminine gender is greater than that of the masculine

In the coming years the life expectancy of an individual is likely to increase due to increase in technology and production of more efficient medicines. Life expectancy in India shows a continuous increasing trend. From 63.8 years in 2001-2005, it has gone up to 67.3 years in 2011-2015. The life expectance of women in India is more than that for men. It was 66.01 years in 2001-2005 for women compared and rose to 69.6 years in 2011-2015 for women.

The Age-Specific Fertility Rate (ASFR) in India shows a declining trend across different age-groups. The ASFR for the women in the age-group 15-19 years was 51.1 in 2000 which has come down to 30.7 in 2011. Similarly, ASFR for the women in the age-group 20-24 years was 218.7 in 2000 which has come down to 196.7 in 2011

Child Health

1. Immunisation coverage

2. Under 5 mortality rate (U5MR)

3. Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

4. Neo-natal mortality rate

Universal immunization of children against the six vaccine-preventable diseases (namely, tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, and measles) is crucial to reducing infant and child mortality. According to the guidelines developed by the World Health Organization, children are considered fully vaccinated when they have received a vaccination against tuberculosis (BCG), three doses of the diphtheria, whooping cough , and tetanus (DPT) vaccine; three doses of the poliomyelitis (polio) vaccine; and one dose of the measles vaccine by the age of 12 months. BCG should be given at birth or at first clinical contact, DPT and polio require three vaccinations at approximately 4, 8, and 12 weeks of age, and measles should be given at or soon after reaching 9 months of age.

Affordable Healthcare1. Out of pocket expenditure on health as percent of total household expenditure

2. Total government expenditure on health as a percent of GDP

3. Share of budget allocated to primary health care vis-à-vis total health budget

4. Number of doctors per 1000 population

The country has a well-structured 3-tier public health infrastructure, comprising Community Health Centres, Primary Health Centres and Sub- Centres spread across rural and semi-urban areas and tertiary medical care providing multi-speciality hospitals and medical colleges located almost exclusively in the urban areas. Improvements in health indicators can be attributed, in part to this network of health infrastructure.

The General Government (Central and State Governments combined) expenditure on health was 1.36% of the GDP in 2012-13 (budget estimate)..

Improved Hygiene and Public Health

1. Proportion of population with access to safe drinking water

2. Proportion of population having access to sanitation

3. Policies on health education

4. Prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria

The overall proportion of households having access to improved water sources increased from 68.2% in 1992-93 to 91.4% in 2008-09. The urban coverage increased from 87.6% to 94% and the rural coverage from 61.0% to 90.4% during the same period.

Live Example:-

One of the programs that the government of India has introduced to people is the 108 emergency service. 1-0-8 Emergency Response Service is a 24X7 emergency service for medical, police and fire emergencies. The service is available for the entire state of Andhra Pradesh ,Gujarat, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh.

The main highlights are. It is a 24x7 emergency service. Toll Free number accessible from landline or mobile Emergency help will reach you in an average of 18 minutes. 1-0-8 is dialled for the purposes mentioned below:

(1)To save a life

(2)To report a crime in progress

(3)To report a fire

Conclusion:-

India which was once one of the backward countries of the world is now fighting for its place in leading counties through implementing various policies which are improving the living standards of its people .Many socially affecting factors like corruption , lack of primary education are being abolished through the policies. From this we can say that the future of India as a fact will be among the top in all the aspects of life.