Home Ministry data vs Health Ministry data! Gujarat's poor sex ratio at birth data

Home minister Amit Shah, health minister Harsh Vardhan

Don’t India’s top ministries – of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and of Home Affairs (MoHA) – tally data before releasing them? It would seem so… A few days back, I did a story in Counterview, based on an MoHA report, stating that Gujarat has the lowest sex rate at birth (SRB) at 901 girls as against 1000 births, followed by Assam (903), Madhya Pradesh (905) and Jammu & Kashmir (909), raising valid apprehensions that widescale female foeticide may be prevalent in India’s “model” State.

Before I did the story, I had read a story in Gujarati daily “Sandesh”, which said that Gujarat was declared 100% Open Defecation Free in 2017, yet the claim turns out to be bogus in in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 report, released recently by MoHFW, which said that 26% of households still defecate in the open and that the state had added just 10% new toilets at the time of the survey (2019).
I asked senior journalist, Neelesh Rathod, who had done the story, to forward me the NFHS report, which he promptly did. After a gap of about a fortnight, I decided to scan through the report’s Gujarat portion, and I was surprised: It said that Gujarat’s SRB was 955 females per males for in the “last five years”. The figures were for NFHS report for 2019-20. There apparently was a considerable improvement: It was 906 in the earlier report (for 2015-16).
Improvement? Well, tue MoHA report does not seem to think so, while the MoHFW report appears to suggest there was. Be that as it may, I decided to read through the introduction to the figures on Gujarat, which seemed to “clarify” things: It had generated data from 29,368 households, 33,343 women, and just 5,351 men. On the other hand, the MoHA report data are based on the actual registration at birth – which was 87.3% of the total births that may have taken place in 2019.
The NFHS-5 report also have some other revealing facts about Gujarat: 14.2% of urban and 26.9% or rural women were married before they reached 18; 2.6% urban and 6.7% rural women of the age 15-19 were already mothers or were pregnant at the time of the survey; neonatal mortality rate (NNMR) was 16.8 (urban) and 24.8 (rural), infant mortality rate (IMR) was 24.1 (urban) and 35.5 (rural), and under-five mortality rate (U5MR) was 26.7 (urban) and 44.2 (rural) – all per 1000.
Also, I found these data interesting: Ever-married women age 18-49 years who have ever experienced spousal violence 10.0 (urban) and 16.8 (rural); ever-married women age 18-49 years who have experienced physical violence during any pregnancy 2.2% (urban) and 1.2% (rural); and young women age 18-29 years who experienced sexual violence before reaching 18 years of age 3% (urban) and 4% (rural).

Comments

A Mumbaikar and an Indian said…

Somehow the figures sent out by the various ministries (central or state) are always doubtful.

July 5, 2021 at 12:55 PM

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Search This Blog