India: Social Development Report 2016
India: Social Development Report published by the Oxford University Press is a bi-annual publication of the Council for Social Development (CSD), New Delhi. The CSD has been publishing its Social Development Report since 2006. Each report, apart from giving an overall view of the social situation in the country deals, in greater detail, with a selected theme of social development. This year’s theme is “Disability Rights Perspectives”. The earlier Reports had focussed on Child Rights and Development (2006), Project Related Displacement and Resettlement (2008), Land and the Marginalised (2010), Minority Rights (2012) and Challenges of Public Health (2014).
This latest Report has been co-edited by Professor Asha Hans and Professor Kalpana Kannibaran, Regional Director, Southern Regional Centre, CSD. It was released by Dr Syeda Hameed, eminent social and women’s rights activist and former Member of the Planning Commission of India.
The context of this latest volume is set by the deliberations around the U.N. Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities and its ratification by India on October 1, 2007, and by the consequent debate in the country on bringing the disability law in India in conformity with the U.N. Convention. The significance of the release of this Report at this time is underlined by the fact that it has come just two days after the observation of the International Day of Persons with Disability and almost immediately after the decision of the Union Cabinet to introduce extensive amendments in our disability law.
The Report released today deals with the dimensions, problems and policy measures for the disabled population in India. Almost all the papers included in the thematic section of the Report contain the analysis and findings of new research commissioned for the Report, on conceptualisation of disability, gaps in the data relating to this problem, diversity and the plurality of disability prevailing in the country, the problem faced by the disabled in different sectors of activities particularly education, health and employment and perspectives on the rights of the disabled as contained in the relevant International Convention and national laws. The Report forcefully argues that the problem of the disabled is not merely that of deprivations, discrimination and denial but also of violation of their human rights.
The disabled constitute 2.2 per cent of India’s population according to the 2011 Census. In absolute number, it is more than the population of a large number of countries of the world. State-wise disability figure show that while the absolute number of persons with disability is the highest in U.P., Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, the ratio of disabled to the total population is highest in Sikkim, Orissa and Jammu & Kashmir.
As in the previous Social Development Reports, this Report also contains in a separate Chapter the measurement of progress of various States and social groups across the rural and urban areas in terms of 29 indicators within selected dimensions of social development i.e. demography, health, education and basic amenities. We aggregate these indicators, after making statistical corrections into a single index and rank states and social groups according to this index. These indices are prepared separately for rural and urban areas, for social groups like Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and male and female.
Please visit link below to access the story:
• http://www.thehindu.com/education/Disabled-children-miss-out-due-to-lack-of-support-services-Report/article16787022.ece#comments
• http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/telangana/2016/dec/08/societys-understanding-of-disability-an-aberration-1546895.html
• http://thewire.in/85002/disability-rights-social-activism/