CENSUS 2001: THE HUMAN RIGHTS DIMENSION situation, starting once again with its repeated plea that free and compulsory education be provided as a Fundamental Right to all children imtil they complete the age of 14 years, that greater efforts be made to combat discrimination against the girl child in all of its manifestations and that, in particular, the doors be thrown open for them to have better access to education, nutrition and health care. 2,5 Census 2001 is not without encouraging news: there are positive trends both in respect of the nation-wide female to male ratio and a significant increase in literacy figures. Yet, the disaggregated State-wise figures are cause for deep concern, the broad picture being as follows: • On 1 March 2001, the population of India was 1,027,015,247, of whom 531,277,078 were male and 495,738,169 were female. The sex ratio (the number of females per 1000 males) for the country as a whole was 933, an improvement of 6 points over the figure of 927 recorded in Census 1991. This was the first time since 1901, when the sex ratio was 972, that the declining trend has been arrested. • However, while the national average was 933, many States/Union Territories were disconcertingly below that average. The lowest sex ratio among the major States of the country was in Haryana, where it was 861. But others below the national average were: Andaman and Nicobar Islands (846), Arunachal Pradesh (901), Assam (932), Bihar (921), Chandigarh (773), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (811), Delhi (821), Gujarat (921), Jammu and Kashmir (900), Madhya Pradesh (920), Maharashtra (922), Nagaland (909), Punjab (874), Rajasthan (922), Sikkim (873), Uttar Pradesh (898). • It was particularly disturbing to note that the comparatively affluent belt comprising Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Chandigarh had figures far below the national average and that, in the most populous State of the country, Uttar Pradesh, the ratio was 35 points below that average. • Yet more alarming was the sharp decline—nation-tvide—in the sex ratio of the child population in the age group 0 to 6 years. That ratio fell from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001. The sharpest decline was in the States of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttaranchal, Maharashtra and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. It was obvious, at one level, that this decline related to discrimination against the girl child in matters of health care and nutrition. ANNUAL REPORT 2000-2001