Side by side, the social distortion and political instability has resulted in threat to the integrity of the state in India after the departure of the British rule. This has undoubtedly aggravated tensions in social relations and more distance with the development of capitalist order against political and constitutional order of independent India. The violation of human rights, social equity and law has taken place. The upshot adverse law and crime has spread out social abuses, under caste system and tribal areas. In this context, the principle in the prime question of the profile of economic growth and its integrity is to be further emphasized.

The principle is that national natural and human resources should be mobilised by independent state to provide goods and services as well as jobs and wages at living rates. The demolition of priority for public investment for creating by agrarian projects and industrial projects in critical areas are now being transferred to private corporate business not only Indian but also foreign. In particular — under the market-friendly policy provide corporate business volatility thus violating established law which has resulted in economic scams, and financial corruption. It is remarkable that 1.2 billion Indians caught in the sharpest decline in economic growth and the government is busy in filling debts of proportion of their upper crust. Inflation of prices, goods and services has become permanent.

The good news is inextricably tied up with the bad. Provisional data from Census 2011 indicate that India's population might stabilise soon with the slowing down of the growth rate. From 21.54 per cent in Census 2001, the decadal population growth fell to 17.64 per cent in 2011. In absolute terms, 2001-2011 is the first decade (if 1911-1921 is excluded) to add a smaller number to the population than the preceding decade. The slowing down of birth rate is not always a good news. It means fewer hands for jobs not as well as consumption demand which both affect industrial growth and more intense exploitation of natural resources.

The other news is that literacy rate climbed from 64.83 per cent in 2001 to 74.04 per cent in 2011. But the literacy rate is still very low but still worst whatever progress in literacy has been made it is in foreign language, that is English. The fact is that it is crime actually that the kids have to learn their first lessons in foreign language which stunts their capability to grasp the true meaning of words and ideas, without the mother tongue being primary for learning and understanding. It is important that it should be first language in the primary stage. Therefore, the very increase in the literacy rate is faulty and counter-productive.

While literacy among males rose from 75.26 per cent to 82.14 per cent, an increase of 6.9 points, it rose among females from 53.67 per cent to 65.46 per cent, an increase of 11.8 points. Of the additional literates, women (110,069,001) outnumber men (107,631,940). The gap of 21.59 percentage points between men and women in 2001 now stands reduced to 16.68 points. The full census data, to be released next year, should provide policymakers a comprehensive view of where India stands on key indicators of socio-economic development, which is set against the goal of creating a more egalitarian and just society, which is impossible for achieving meaningful results in education system.

It is no surprise that the overall sex ratio (number of females for every 1,000 males) has shown improvement, from 932.91 in 2001 to 940.27 in 2011; a good part of this can be explained by the greater natural longevity of women and improvements in health care over the years. But the fact remains that girls child is biggest victim of our market - friendly growth process. Lurking in the provisional population data, however, is a deeply disturbing set of statistics: a steep fall in the child sex ratio, which measures the number of girls for every 1,000 boys in the 0-6 years age group. The sex ratio in the 0-6 age group has been continually declining since 1961 but the fall from 927.31 in 2001 to 914.23 in 2011 is the worst since Independence.

This trend and scale of decline in rising India is shocking. It can only be explained by the deadly application of the ‘son preference' on a growing scale — through the instrumentality of sex-selective abortion, or female foeticide. Attempts to tackle female foeticide through bans on sex-determination tests imposed by the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act have been largely ineffective. In his essay ‘Many faces of gender inequality' (Frontline, November 9, 2001), Amartya Sen drew on the 2001 Census data to highlight the fact that India split into two when it came to the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group: the South and the East had a decent ratio while the entire North and the West revealed a deeply disturbing picture. Even though the regional split concealed many micro-level variations, the contrast was striking. It would be interesting to see if the same regional pattern continues in the 2011 Census but the overall child sex ratio data, which throw sharp light on social mores, are depressing. (IPA Service)