(a) Discuss the major challenges related to women's reproductive health in India. What measures would you suggest to overcome…

(a) Women's Reproductive Health: Challenges and Measures

Major challenges to women's reproductive health:

• Maternal mortality: the maternal mortality ratio fell from 130 (2014–16) to 93 per lakh live births (2019–21, Sample Registration System), but remains high in states such as Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh;
• Anaemia and nutrition: 57% of women aged 15–49 were anaemic in NFHS-5 (2019–21), raising the risk of haemorrhage and low birth weight;
• Early marriage and adolescent pregnancy: 23.3% of women aged 20–24 married before 18, and 6.8% of girls aged 15–19 were already mothers or pregnant (NFHS-5);
• Contraceptive burden on women: female sterilisation dominates (about 38% of married women), male sterilisation is negligible (0.3%), and about 9% of married women have an unmet need for family planning;
• Unsafe abortion and sex selection: stigma, lack of trained providers and son preference lead to unsafe and sex-selective abortions despite the PCPNDT Act;
• Reproductive tract infections, cervical cancer and infertility, which remain under-diagnosed and stigmatised;
• Menstrual health: gaps in hygienic products, water and sanitation, especially in rural and poor households;
• Violence and lack of autonomy: 29.3% of ever-married women reported spousal violence (NFHS-5), and decisions on contraception and childbearing are often made by husbands or in-laws;
• Health system gaps: shortage of specialists in rural community health centres, weak emergency obstetric care, high out-of-pocket costs, and disparities by caste, tribe, region and income.

Measures to overcome them:

• Safe motherhood:
• strengthen Janani Suraksha Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (antenatal check-ups) and the LaQshya labour-room quality programme;
• improve emergency obstetric care, blood banks and referral transport in high-mortality districts;
• Nutrition: Anaemia Mukt Bharat, fortified food, deworming and the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana for maternity support;
• Delay marriage and first birth: enforce the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, keep girls in school, and link cash transfers to schooling;
• Widen contraceptive choice: injectables, spacing methods and counselling (Mission Parivar Vikas), and male involvement in family planning;
• Safe abortion: implement the MTP (Amendment) Act, 2021 (up to 24 weeks for specified categories); the Supreme Court extended access to unmarried women (X v. Principal Secretary, 2022);
• Primary care: Ayushman Arogya Mandirs for screening for cervical and breast cancer and RTIs; better training, pay and supplies for ASHAs and ANMs;
• Social change: comprehensive sexuality education, community mobilisation against son preference and violence, and women's control over income;
• Financial protection through PM-JAY and state schemes.
• Conclusion: reproductive health depends as much on women's status, education and autonomy as on medical services, so both health systems and gender norms must change.

(b) Sustainable Development and the Livelihood–Environment Conflict

Sustainable development: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, 1987). It balances economic, social and environmental goals and is expressed in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (2015).

• Weak sustainability: natural capital can be replaced by human-made capital;
• Strong sustainability: some ecosystems are irreplaceable.

The livelihood–environment conflict in India:

• Forests: millions of forest dwellers depend on forests, while conservation (such as relocation from tiger reserves) can threaten their livelihoods;
• Mining and dams: coal and bauxite mining in Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, and dams like Sardar Sarovar (the Narmada Bachao Andolan), displace people and damage ecosystems, while providing jobs and energy;
• Agriculture: stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana worsens air pollution, but farmers lack affordable alternatives; groundwater is over-used for water-intensive paddy;
• Coal regions: coal-dependent districts need a just transition as India moves to renewables;
• Informal industry: tanneries, brick kilns and small units pollute, but employ many poor workers.

How sustainability can be achieved:

• Community rights and management:
• the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and community forest resource rights (Mendha Lekha in Gadchiroli managed its own forests);
• Joint Forest Management;
• the "environmentalism of the poor" (Ramachandra Guha and Joan Martínez-Alier), which shows that the poor protect resources they depend on, as in Chipko;
• Consent and participation: gram sabha consent, as in the Supreme Court's Niyamgiri decision (2013), and meaningful public hearings in environmental impact assessment;
• Green livelihoods: watershed development, afforestation and water conservation under rural employment schemes (MGNREGA, now succeeded by the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025); non-timber forest produce value chains; eco-tourism;
• Sustainable agriculture: crop diversification (millets), micro-irrigation, the System of Rice Intensification, natural farming, and incentives for crop-residue management;
• Energy transition: the target of 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030 and net zero by 2070, with retraining in coal regions;
• Law and principles: "polluter pays" and the precautionary principle (Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum, 1996); the National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008); Mission LiFE for sustainable consumption.
• Conclusion: sustainability in India must be pro-poor: it succeeds when people who depend on nature gain rights, income and a voice in protecting it.

(c) Relevance of Development Planning

Development planning in India:

• the Planning Commission (1950) ran twelve Five-Year Plans (1951–2017). The Mahalanobis model of the Second Plan stressed heavy industry and the public sector;
• the Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog in 2015.

Achievements:

• built heavy industry, dams, power, and institutions such as the IITs, ISRO and AIIMS;
• food self-sufficiency through the Green Revolution;
• expansion of education and health;
• a framework for public investment and regional balance.

Criticisms:

• Growth and efficiency: slow growth (the "Hindu rate of growth"), the licence-permit raj and inefficient public enterprises (Bhagwati and Desai, 1970);
• Top-down and technocratic: James Scott (Seeing Like a State, 1998) and post-development critics (Arturo Escobar) argue that central plans ignore local knowledge;
• Social costs: displacement of Adivasis by big projects, persistent poverty and regional imbalance;
• Market critique: Hayek argued that central planning cannot use dispersed information and threatens freedom.

Continuing relevance:

• markets do not by themselves deliver public goods, equity, regional balance or environmental protection;
• planning has changed form, from command to indicative and strategic:
• NITI Aayog's long-term visions and the SDG India Index;
• the Aspirational Districts Programme (2018), which uses data and competition among districts;
• PM Gati Shakti (2021) for infrastructure planning;
• decentralised planning: Gram Panchayat Development Plans under the 73rd Amendment and Kerala's People's Plan;
• long-term challenges such as climate change, ageing and urbanisation require coordinated planning.
• Conclusion: development planning remains relevant, but as flexible, participatory and cooperative-federal planning, not as centralised command.