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shahana dastidar
Monday, 17 August 2009
Language thou art too narrow...
........and too weake
To ease us now; great sorrow cannot speake;
Knew'st thou some would, that knew her not, lament,
As in a deluge perish th'innocent?
John Donne (1572-1631)
In the state of Delhi, female infanticide and foeticide (killing of female infants and female foetuses) seems to be on the decline. For the first time in recorded history, more girls were born than boys in 2008. 1004 girls per 1000 boys. Of course a few more girls than boys is a perfectly natural phenomenon seen everywhere else in the world. However in India, a tradition of killing off girl children whether as foetuses or as infants has resulted in some rather skewed ratios. In 2007, for example, Delhi registered only 848 girls per 1000 boys.
The government credits this increase to a new scheme wherein parents are paid Rs.100,000 when a girl turns 18. Basically, they're paid not to kill their daughters. But the effectiveness of this scheme is being doubted because....."Ironically, the 2001 census clearly showed that the sex ratio is worst in middle class and upper middle class localities, including Punjabi Bagh, Greater Kailash and Malviya Nagar."
I happen to live in Greater Kailash myself.
Anyway for the first time we have 2 states in India, Delhi and Kerala, that have a natural or normal gender ratio between baby girls and boys.
2 states out of 30.
One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
It could be worse I guess. In Punjab there were areas with only 600 odd girls for every 1000 boys. That amounts to about 400 dead girls every year.
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