Page 444 - SSB Interview: The Complete Guide, Second Edition

The maternal mortality in India is the second-highest in the world. Only
42% of births in the country are supervised by health professionals. Most
women deliver with help from women in the family, who often lack the skills
and resources to save the mother’s life if it is in danger. According to the

UNDP Human Development Report (1997), 88% of pregnant women (age
15-49) were found to be suffering from anaemia.

Family planning

The average woman in rural areas of India has little or no control over her

reproductivity. Women, particularly women in rural areas, do not have access
to safe and self-controlled methods of contraception. The public health
system emphasises permanent methods like sterilisation or long-term

methods like IUDs that do not need follow-up. Sterilisation accounts for
more than 75% of total contraception, with female sterilisation accounting for

almost 95% of all sterilisations.

INDIAN ECONOMY

A combination of protectionist, import-substitution and Fabian socialist-
inspired policies governed India for some time after the end of British
occupation. The economy was then characterised by extensive regulation,

protectionism, public ownership, pervasive corruption and slow growth.
Since 1991, continuing economic liberalisation has moved the country
towards a market-based economy. By 2008, India had established itself as

one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Growth significantly slowed
to 6.8% in 2008–09, but subsequently recovered to 7.4% in 2009–10, while
the fiscal deficit rose from 5.9% to a high 6.5% during the same period.

India’s current account deficit surged to 4.1% of GDP during the second
quarter of the financial year 2010–11 against 3.2% the previous quarter. The
unemployment rate for 2010–11, according to the state Labour Bureau, was

9.8% nationwide. As of 2011, India’s public debt stood at 62.43% of GDP,
which is the highest among the emerging economies. However, inflation
remains stubbornly high at 7.23% in April 2012, the highest among its

BRICS counterparts.