We live in a divergent India, in one side, with an aim to 5 trillion economy leading to dream of unbelievable prosperity and at another remove, an India with abysmal disparity - thanks to the investigative journalism, the sensitive issues are being featured in public domains like print and electronic media.
Horrified to read a letter in the Statesman, just a few days ago, I'm provoked to post this. THERE IS A HUGE GENDER GAP in the countrywide vaccination drive in India. So far, the number of MEN vaccinated, with at least one dose of Covid vaccine is about 20% more than the WOMEN folks. It's alarming indeed. This cannot be attributed to the skewed sex ratio (female to male per 1000). So it calls for reflection. The sex ratio at present stands at 1000/1081, roughly 8%.
In particular, men in small towns and villages are privileged in this respect. In remote places women are made to understand that since the male members of the family need to go out for work, their health must be protected. The women are relegated to household chores, thus not as vulnerable and risk prone as men. Still worse, rumours are doing the round that vaccinating women is going to affect their fertility rates. Women in this country remain always in the receiving end. There exists a disparity in digital access too. Under the prevailing situation, the Government, using its IT Cell must step up campaigns in all regional languages to fight rumours about vaccination, mainly in the rural areas and promote it for WOMEN.
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