Volume 1 : Issue 1 (2014)

DISPARITIES AND INEQUALITIES - ASSESSING INDIAN CHILDREN AND WOMEN’S POSITION WITH RESPECT TO SOME OF MDGS

The present paper is the analysis of the situation of children and women in India in terms the disparities that persist among states and different sub-groups of the population. This is important and essential for better targeting in terms of improved and pragmatic programme focus. It deals with three key indicators - Child Mortality, especially Girl Child Mortality, Maternal Mortality and Girl Child Education as many of the other indicators links to these in the cause and effect chain to assess inequalities. Given India’s entrenched social hierarchy and complex cultural diversity, it is important to evaluate group-specific performance in assessing the achievements in the MDGs. The analysis would be incomplete without paying attention to the disparities that exist between and within states, and the inequalities that persist among different subgroups of the population, especially women and girls, Scheduled Castes and Tribes. The MDGs rest on education as the major tool to bring about gender equality. The widespread donor assumption that gender disparities would diminish as enrolmennts increased has had to be revisited (Action aid,2007).

Children, Women, Millennium Development Goals, Disparities, Inequalities

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