In India, every 8 minutes one woman dies due to pregnancy related causes which are preventable. With the death of a mother her children are much more likely to die before age
In India, one child dies every 17 seconds due to easily preventable causes. On the scale of ‘best place to be a mother’, India ranks 75 out of 79 developing countries
India accounts for 25% of global child deaths
Kerala has the lowest Maternal Mortality in the country and has 100% Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in place.
In India, only 10% of the most wealthy women deliver without trained health workers, compared to around an estimated 80% of the poorest women
No Link Found Between Economic Growth and Child Undernutrition Rates in India
ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2011) — Economic growth in India has no automatic connection to reducing undernutrition in Indian children and so further reductions in the prevalence of childhood undernutrition are likely to depend on direct investments in health and health-related programs. These are the conclusions of a large study by researchers at the Schools of Public Health at University of Michigan and Harvard University. Download pdf
25% of all Global Maternal Deaths are in India. WHO defines maternal mortality as the death of a woman during pregnancy or in the first 42 days after the birth of the child due to causes directly or indirectly linked with pregnancy.
Globally, every year over 500,000 women die of pregnancy related causes and 99 percent of these occur in developing countries.
The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in India is 254 per 100,000 live births according to Sample Registration System (SRS) Report for 2004-2006. This is a decline from the earlier ratio of 301 during 2001-2003.
In the region, the MMR in China stands at 45, Sri Lanka at 58, Bangladesh at 570, Nepal at 830 and Pakistan at 320 in 2006.
Wide disparities exist across states in India. The MMR ranges from 95 in Kerala to 480 in Assam.
MMR has a direct impact on infant mortality Babies whose mothers die during the first 6 weeks of their lives are far more likely to die in the first two years of life than babies whose mothers survive.
Only 47 per cent of women likely in India have an institutional delivery and 53 percent had their births assisted by a skilled birth attendant. As many as 49 percent of pregnant women still do not have three antenatal visits during pregnancy. Only 46.6 percent of mothers receive iron and folic acid for at least 100 days during pregnancy.
Key Issues
About half of the total maternal deaths occur because of hemorrhage and sepsis. A large number of deaths are preventable through safe deliveries and adequate maternal care.
More than half of all married women are anaemic and one-third of them are malnourished
The Government of India has a legal obligation to ensure that women do not die or suffer complications as a result of preventable pregnancy-related causes. The staggering scale and continuing occurrence of maternal deaths and morbidity in India reveals the Government’s failure to protect women’s rights and comply with international law.
As the nation leading the world with respect to the number of maternal deaths, the Indian government has an immediate obligation to take meaningful steps to dramatically reduce maternal mortality by fully implementing national policies on maternal health and holding those responsible for the failure of its policies accountable.
This report is intended to serve as a resource for those interested in using international and constitutional legal norms and mechanisms to establish government accountability for maternal deaths and pregnancy-related morbidity through public interest litigation and human rights advocacy.
More than 5,000 Indian children below five years die every day due to malnourishment or lack of basic micronutrients like Vitamin A, iron, iodine, zinc or folic acid.
Overall, India hosts 57 million - or more than a third - of the world's 146 million undernourished children. 45.9 per cent of India's under-three kids are underweight, 39 per cent are stunted, 20 per cent severely malnourished, 80 per cent anaemic while infant mortality hovers at 67 per 1,000. 440 million people languish at the bottom of the economic pyramid in India and about 500,000 children are born deformed each year due to vitamin/mineral deficiencies.
"Malnourishment severely retards a child's cognitive, physical and emotional growth and has a cascading effect on his/her productivity in adult years." -- Dr Suresh Kasana, New Delhi
"India should be worried." Experts reiterate that child malnutrition
is not only responsible for 22 per cent of India's disease burden - and for 50 per cent of the 2.3 million child deaths in India -- but is also a serious economic hazard. Neeta Lal reports.
Why
Is Breastfeeding So Important? Download .pdf 17.5 mb.
Breastfeeding provides the perfect nutrition for your baby and provides many health benefits for both mother and baby. - Initiating breast feeding within the first hour and exclusive breastfeeding can prevent under two mortality. - Breastfeeding: Exclusive breastfeeding - Colostrum - Gift of a protective cover from the mother - We believe all mothers know how to feed their child. But do they? - Myths and facts about breast milk - Complimentary feeding - Role of media in promoting proper young child feeding: Media should focus on and promote measures that are required to be taken urgently to ensure the survival of children
"Evidence-based approaches used in risk communication should be adopted as core principles by all health providers, experts, health authorities, policy makers, and politicians when communicating information about program interventions. These approaches include engagement with and listening to stakeholders, and being transparent about decision making, and honest and open about uncertainty and risks. Decision and policy makers cannot assume what the public wants without undertaking social science and decision science research. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has shown that monitoring of public concerns needs to be continuous and responsive, and hand in hand with the monitoring of technical strategies."
India is a vast, complex country, and despite recent economic development, its health-care system is inadequate to deal with the country's main health challenges: infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and poor maternal and child health. A new Lancet Series engages with the construct of Health for All in India by investigating the Indian health system, and to offer solutions for evidence-based and affordable health care for all Indian citizens by 2020.
India has supported the ideal of health for all since it become an independent nation more than 60 years ago. The Bhore Committee report 1 in 1946 recommended a national health system for delivery of comprehensive preventive and curative allopathic services through a rural-focused multilevel public system, financed by the government, through which all citizens would receive care irrespective of their ability to pay. However, a newly independent India faced monumental challenges in 1947.
Despite the severe impact of diarrhoea on children's health and mortality in India, recent surveys show that only half of all children suffering from diarrhoea receive treatment or medical advice, and more than two-thirds receive no Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT). An understanding of the socio-demographic determinants for appropriate treatment of the disease will be critical for improving these figures. This analysis is based on the most recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS3), which shows that children are more likely to receive ORT if they are treated in a public health facility, rather than in a private health facility. Households with mothers belonging to the youngest age group, lowest educational attainment, and poorest wealth index are the least likely groups to properly treat their children suffering from diarrhoea. A significant gender bias also exists as parents show a preferential treatment of male children and delay seeking treatment for their female children. The low usage of ORT can also be attributed to a combination of low health knowledge among the aforementioned groups, and low use of public health facilities.
India: Census 2011: Provisional Population Totals-
pdf 4.3 mb
Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India - Ministry of Home Affairs - 31st March 2011
Census India - 2001
Rural - Urban distribution of population - India and States / Union Territories
National Health Research Policy - 16 pages -
pdf 90 kb
Department of Health Research Ministry of Health & Family Welfare Government of India - New Delhi, February 2011
Achieving MDGs in India
Elimination of inequalities and harnessing new opportunities for implementation of policies and programmes
INDIA’S HEARTLAND STATES NEED URGENT ACTION TO FAST TRACK PROGRESS
The absolute number of poor in the country has declined from about 320 million (36 percent of total population) in 1993-94 to about 301 million (27.6 percent of total population) in 2004-05. With this rate of decline, the country is expected to have a burden of about 279 million of people (22.1 percent) living below the poverty line in the year 2015.
All-India trend of the proportion of underweight (severe and moderate) children below three years of age shows India is going slow in eliminating the effect of malnourishment. The estimate of the proportion has declined only marginally during 1998-99 to 2005-06, from about 47 to about 46 percent and at this rate of decline is expected to come down to about 40 percent only by 2015.
With 1.9 million tuberculosis cases estimated in 2008 India has one fifth of the world’s total. Globally India also made the most notable progress in providing treatment across the country’s entire population – in 2008 over 1.5 million patients were enrolled for treatment.
During the past decade India’s forest cover has increased by 728 sq. km, access to improved water sources is up from 68.2 percent in 1992-93 to 84.4% in 2007-08 – in urban areas it has gone up to 95%. According to India’s MDG Report “India, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, has the lowest sanitation coverage”. Sanitation remains a major challenge and half the population does not have access to toilets – in rural areas this is as high as 66%.
Going at the rate by which youth literacy increased between 1991 and 2001- from 61.9 to 76.4 percent, India is expected to have youth literacy of 82.1 by 2007 and 100 percent by the end of 2012.
Gender parity in primary and secondary education is likely to be achieved though not in tertiary education. However, share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector can at best be expected to reach a level of about 24 percent by 2015, far short of a parity situation.
Human Development Report 2011 - download report Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All Explanatory note on 2011 HDR composite indices India - HDI values and rank changes in the 2011 Human Development Report
Background: India is the largest country in South Asia but only the 7th largest in the world, with a surface area of 3.2 million sq km. The former British colony, however, the 2nd highest population on earth, with some 1.19 billion people, a figure only beaten only by China's population of 1.34 billion. The country has an extensive coastline, with the western coast facing onto the Arabian Sea, the southern facing onto the Indian Ocean, an the eastern facing the Bay of Bengal. India has land borders with Pakistan (2,912km) to the north west, China (3,380km), Nepal (1,690km) and Bhutan (605km) to the north, Bangladesh (4,053km) and Burma (1,463km) to the east.
BORDERS: Bangladesh 4,053 km, Bhutan 605 km, Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km, Pakistan 2,912 km
Population growth, from 443 million in 1960 to 1,004 million in 2000
Map showing the population density of each district in India
Map showing the population growth over the past ten years of each district in India
Map showing the literacy rate of each district in India
Chart showing the Total Fertility Rate of Indian states (SRS survey 1996-98)[1]
India has a population of approximately 1.136 billion people (estimate for September 1, 2007 based on interpolating on estimates by Census Bureau of India for March 1 of 2007 and 2008), comprising approximately one-sixth of the world's population. This population is remarkably diverse; it has more than two thousand
ethnic groups, and every major religion is represented, as are four major
families of languages (Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages) as well as a language isolate (the Nihali language[2] spoken in parts of Maharashtra). Further complexity is lent by the great variation that occurs across this population on social parameters such as income and education. Only the continent of Africa exceeds the linguistic, cultural and genetic diversity of India.[3] These factors render the task of comprehensively detailing the Demographics of India prohibitive; some important indices are available, nevertheless.
Although
India occupies only 2.4% of the world's land area, it supports over 16% of the world's population. 31.8% of Indians are younger than 15 years of age.[4] As per the 2001 census, 72.22% of the people live in more than 550,000 villages, and the remainder in more than 2000 towns and cities.[citation needed][5]
Although 80.5% of the people are Hindus,[6] India is also home to the third-largest Muslim population in the world 13.4% after Indonesia and Pakistan. India also contains the majority of the world's Zoroastrians, Sikhs and Jains. Other religious groups include Christians (2.3%), Buddhists (0.8%), Jews and Bah�'�s.[7]
Census
The most recent
census of India was performed in 2001 for enumeration as of March 1 of that year.[8] It was the 14th census in an unbroken series, and the 6th after independence in 1947 (with the exception that census could not be held for Assam in the 1981 and Jammu & Kashmir in 1991). Eight censuses were performed under the British Raj, the first one was carried out throughout the 1860s and completed in 1872. After this, there has been 'one census every decade starting 1881'.
The 2001 census was conducted in two phases, the first being Housenumbering and Houselisting operations, carried out in May 2000, and the second being population enumeration, carried out from February 9 to 28, 2001. The reference time for the census is 1 March, 2001. The homeless population was enumerated on 28 February. A revisional round was undertaken 1 to 5 March 2001 to account for mutations between the time of visit in February and 1 March.[citation
needed]
The total population calculated for 1 March 2001 was 1,027,015,247, making the 2001 census the first to count more than a billion Indians.[9] The population had risen by 21.34% compared to the 1991 total. The female population had increased by 0.3 percentage points to 48.4%.[10]
See list of States of India by urban population. Maharashtra has the largest urban agglomeration while Delhi is the most urbanised market at over 93% urbanization.
There are several nomadic communities found in all over India. Their population is not estimated in India, but it is supposed that they make up 7% of total population of India[citation needed].
Key data
Total Population: 1,129.9 million(July 1, 2007 est. CIA)[11]
1,028.7 million(2001 Census final figures, March 1 enumeration and estimated 124 thousand in areas of Manipur that could not be covered in the enumeration)
Percent of the population under the poverty line: 22% (2006 est.)
Unemployment Rate: 7.8%
Net migration rate: − -0.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Sex ratio: at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.098 male(s)/female 15–64 years: 1.061 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.908 male(s)/female total population: 1.064 male(s)/female (2006 est.)
Infant mortality rate: total: 34.61 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.) female: 29.23 deaths/1,000 live births male: 39.42 deaths/1,000 live births
Life expectancy at birth: total population: 68.59 years male: 66.28 years female: 71.17 years (2007 est.)
Total fertility rate: 2.81 children born/woman (2007 est.) The TFR (Total number of children born per women ) according to Religion in 2001 was : Hindus - 2.27, Muslims - 3.06, Sikhs - 1.86, Christians - 2.06, Buddhists - 2.29, Jains - 1.50 , Animists and Others - 2.99, Tribals - 3.16, Scheduled Castes - 2.89.[13]
Nationality: noun: Indian(s) adjective: Indian
Religions: Hindu 82.5%, Muslim 11.4%, Christian 2.31%, Buddhists 0.8%, Sikh 1.93%, Jains 0.41%, others or not stated 0.76% (2001 Census)[citation needed]
Censuses were conducted in parts of India in the ancient times with examples such as Kautilya's Arthashastra which describes the collection of population statistics for taxation in 4th century B.C.. The British census in 1865-1872 was the first conducted in modern times in India.
The 2001 census figures released by the India Census Commission give a breakdown by various parameters including religion.
β.^
The data is "unadjusted" (without excluding
Assam and
Jammu and Kashmir); 1981 census was not conducted in Assam and 1991 census was not conducted in Jammu and Kashmir
It should also be noted that about 40% of the Hindus speak Hindi while the rest speak Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati,Kannada and other languages. Almost 70% of the Muslims speak Urdu while the rest speak Kashmiri, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati and other languages. About one-third of the Christians speak Malayalam, one-sixth speak Tamil while the rest speak a variety of languages.
It should be noted that
Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman are racial and linguistic terms and denote members of these racial groups and speakers of their linguistic groups.
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Why
Is Breastfeeding So Important?
