TIMES NATION

THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHI | FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2015

DIDI INVITES BJP VETERANS JAITLEY, GADKARI

TO GLOBAL BUSINESS SUMMIT IN BENGAL | 9

JAITLEY BRIEFS PRESIDENT PRANAB ON

DETAILS OF LAND ORDINANCE | 13

Estimated Number of internally displaced people (IDPs) because of conict and violence

STATOISTICS

HOMELESS

AT HOME

Unlike many countries that are politically unstable,

India is a stable democracy. Despite this, it is home
to the worlds 15th largest population of internally
displaced people ( IDPs) those forced to relocate
because of conict and violence. According
to Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, a
humanitarian organization that collates global
IDP data, in 2013, there were 33.3 million people
worldwide displaced within their own countries.
Given the civil war and rapid military gains by ISIS
in the countrys north, Syria has the worlds largest
number of IDPs. It is followed by Colombia, which
also has seen armed conict since the 1960s

Azerbaijan

5.4

Ukraine

6.7

Top 5

Afghanistan

6.7

Syria

Turkey

76.0

9.5

Sudan

Colombia

57.0

Colombia

27.2

34.0

Somalia Pakistan

11.0

14.3

33.0
Iraq

30.7

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

The need for additional

fund flow for highway
development was
earlier mooted
by the road secretary,
sources said, and
it was moved in the
last couple of weeks
opment programme of the
government, particularly the
building of 15,000 km of roads,
during current and next financial year. It added allocation of these resources to the
road sector will also spur economic activity and employment generation arising from
the road construction sector.

11.5

Source: Internal
Displacement
Monitoring Centre

Figures are no. of IDPs (lakh)

Petrol-diesel excise duty hike to

raise `10,500cr a yr for highways
New Delhi: The decision to
hike excise tax on petrol and
diesel by Rs 2 per litre will
come as a big boost to highway
development in the country,
which is moving at a snails
pace. The increase is expected
to generate nearly Rs 10,500
crore annually at a time when
highway development is being pushed mainly through
government-funding mode.
At present, about Rs 12,000
crore comes annually for
highway development from
the total fuel cess collection.
A government release said
that fresh decision has been
taken in order to fund the ambitious infrastructure devel-

Myanmar

6.4

South Sudan

Nigeria

5.3

Iraq

Nigeria

DR Congo

Sudan

India

Syria

However, retail price of

petrol and diesel will remain
unchanged all over India despite additional excise duty
of Rs 2 per litre from midnight today (Friday), oil
mnister Dharmendra Pradhan tweeted. When the government hiked excise duty on
the petrol and diesel last

month, oil firms had decided

to absorb the duty change.
The government on December 2 raised excise duty on
petrol by Rs 2.25 per litre and
on diesel by Rs 1 a litre. Oil
companies had revised fuel
rates just a day before the
hike and had decided to absorb the increase.
The need for additional
fund flow for highways was
earlier mooted by the road secretary, sources said, and it
was moved in the last couple
of weeks. This additional
fund will mean our borrowing
requirement for highway development programme will be
less, said a ministry official.
For the full report, log on
to www.timesofindia.com

Goons molest,
drag Bengal
woman off bike
Kolkata: New Years Eve
turned into horror for a young
couple when the woman was
molested and her husband beaten up by a bunch of drunken
goons at New Town in Rajarhat late on Wednesday night.
The gang tried to drag the
woman away with them but
the couple fought them off.
After surviving the battle,
the couple headed straight for
a police station where officers
brusquely told them that they
would not accept a complaint
unless the woman got herself
medically checked, says the
husband. It is the polices responsibility to get a rape complainant examined.
TOI has pictures that show horrific bruises on the 24year-old survivors face. TNN

More girls being born,

but fewer surviving
Uptick In Sex HOW THE
States
Assam, Jkhand,
Ratio At Birth, STATESSexFARED
Kerala, MP, TN,
Ratio
West Bengal
Years
At
Child
Decline In 0-4
Birth (0-4 yrs) Delhi, Haryana,
Raj
Age Group 2007-09 906 914 Punjab,
AP, Bihar,
Subodh.Varma@timesgroup.com

2008-10 905

914

2009-11 906

914

2010-12 908

912

2011-13 909

909

here is good news

and bad news on one
of the key problems
that haunts India
survival of the girl child.
Sex ratio at birth, that is,
number of girls born for every
1,000 boys born, has inched up
from 906 to 909 between 2007
and 2013. This suggests that female feticide, the monstrous
practice of killing off the girl
baby in the mothers womb
has been somewhat checked.
Thats the good news.
The bad news is that the
child sex ratio, that is, number of girls in the 0-4 year
age group for every 1,000
boys in the same age group,
has declined from 914 to
909 in the same period.
Information on sex ratios is made available by
the Census office based on
their sample registration
system (SRS) annual surveys
over the years. The latest release was last week.
Experts and activists say
that the slight increase in sex
ratio at birth is not very significant though it is a welcome trend. They feel that
laws prohibiting sex selection are not very effective.
Perhaps, in cities, there
is some prevention of sex
selection due to laws but
there is spread of this heinous practice in rural areas and in regions where earlier it was not there, argues
Kirti Singh, lawyer and womens rights activist.
Ravinder Kaur, professor
at IIT Delhi who has studied
sex ratios and related family
issues also said that laws and
campaigns have not contrib-

At
Child
Birth (0-4 yrs)

Chhgarh, HP,
Guj, J&K, Ktaka,
Maharashtra,
Odisha, UP

uted much in controlling sex

selection. Sex determination
services are still available for
those who seek them. The
change is due more to complex social changes happening including fertility decline,
improvements in socio-eco-

There is a tendency
to give the girl less food,
or not treat her sickness
with the same urgency as
a boys. There are many
court cases on deaths of
small girls. All this points
to deep discrimination
against girls
KIRTI SINGH
LAWYER & WOMENS RIGHTS ACTIVIST
nomic circumstances, etc.
But the slight uptick in sex
ratio at birth is negated by
what happens to girls who are
born and survive. Neglect,
discrimination and in extreme cases even killing of very young girls is behind dipping child sex ratio. There is
a tendency to give the girl less
food, or not treat her sickness
with the same urgency as a
boys. There are many court
cases on deaths of small girls.
All this points to deep discrimination against girls,
Kirti Singh said.
The increases and decreases are small at the country level but at the state level sharper
trends are visible. Again,

these are good and bad.

The good news is that Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, which were the
worst four states in terms of
sex ratios both at birth and at
the 0-4 age group, are the only
states in the country where
sex ratios at both levels are
improving. Clearly, social
outrage backed by better regulation has had some effect.
In all four states, sex ratios
are still below 900, pointing to
the long road ahead.
But in six states Assam,
Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and
West Bengal sex ratio both
at birth and in the 0-4 age
group are going down.
This is worrisome because these are states which
had better sex ratios and now
appear to be heading the way
some of the north Indian
states went earlier.
Apart from the six states
above, sex ratio at birth has also declined in Andhra Pradesh (pre-division), Bihar,
Chhattisgarh, and Himachal
Pradesh. Child sex ratio has
declined in Gujarat, Jammu &
Kashmir, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, besides the six states.
There is no common explanation for the decline in
some of the eastern and
southern states; again a mix
of fertility shifts, rise of son
preference due to spread of
dowry in some of these states
etc. are decisive factors, Ravinder Kaur said.