The features:

(i)Overall literacy in India was approximately 65. 4 per cent in 2001whereas female literacy is 54.16 per cent. 

(ii)Total literacy as well as female literacy is higher than the national average in most of the states from south India.

(iii)There are wide regional disparities in literacy rate across the states of India. There is a state like Bihar which has very low literacy and there are states like Kerala and Mizoram which have literacy rates of 90.92 and 88.49 per cent respectively.

(iv)Apart from the spatial variations, percentage of literates in the rural areas and among the marginalised sections of our society such as females, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, agricultural labourers, etc. is very low.

(v)It is worth mentioning here that though, there has been improvement in the percentage of literates among the marginalised section yet the gap between the richer and the marginalised sections of the population has increased over the years.