In India, girls begin to outnumber the boys
Campaigners in India's capital, Delhi, are celebrating new figures that show for the first time in decades the number of baby girls being born is more than the total of baby boys.
Having long campaigned against a cultural discrimination towards baby girls which has led to a growth in the aborting of female foetuses, campaigners said figures, which showed that in 2008 1,004 girls were born for every 1,000 boys, could mark a break-through.
Dr Dharm Prakash of the Indian Medical Association, which ran a campaign against aborting girl foetuses, said: "The community has responded to our request that girls should be born." Selective abortion has been illegal for years, but the practice remains rife. There are often reports of police raiding clinics where such operations are performed. In 2007, police in Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi, arrested a doctor after the remains of up to 35 foetuses were discovered in his clinic. The government has estimated that up to 10 million girls have been killed, before or immediately after birth, by their parents over the past 20 years.
In Delhi, some credit for the turn-around has been given to the local government's so-called Ladli scheme. Under this project, the government deposits 10,000 rupees (£125) on the the birth of a baby girl and makes subsequent payments as she passes through school. The money is used for further education or to pay for a wedding and setting up home.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited



Comments
Shame on the Indian government for a funding program that promotes the selective abortion of boys.
My, my, aren't we quick to celebrate infinitesimally small achievements!
In some north Indian states, the ratio of males to females has been something like 1000 to 850 for decades! How is that going to be turned around?
India is a very sick nation. The culture, such that it is, doesn't merit even half the sanitized nonsense most people are fed with.
80% of India's ground water is contaminated and even that is drying up. Either India will attempt (yet again) to export its problems to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and the United States (by taking advantage of globalization and lax immigration controls) or there will be massive unrest and deaths in India, especially in the overcrowded northern states, caused by food and water shortages. India already overflows with people and represents one of humanity's grandest failures.
The blame can be placed squarely at the feet of the Fabian Socialists in London, who basically formulated all the social policies their Fabian agent, Jawaharlal Nehru, implemented during the first 15 years of independence. Fabian Socialists also lie at the root of the poison that is now beginning to throttle the western world to death. They should all be rooted out and sent to psychiatric wards for rehabilitation or worse.
P.S. New Labour under Sweet Tony Boy was basically a Fabian administration, and it probably still is under pederasty Brown.
Awareness, strict laws & high cost of abortions turned situation around
Parmod Mehta Mansa, March 31 In the Malwa region, notorious for female foeticide, seven villages of Mansa district have shown the way as far as tackling the imbalance in sex ratio is concerned. In these seven villages, the number of girl child is higher as compared to boys. Though the overall sex ratio in the district is 836 women for every 1000 men, but in these seven villages, the number of girl child in the 0-6 year age-group has crossed the 1000 mark. According to a survey conducted by the health department, in village Chahor, the number of girl child in the 0-6 year age-group is 1160 for every 1000 boys. In village Reond Khurd, this figure is 1132, in village Kahnewal 1050, in village Kahnia 1038, in village Makha Chehlan 1028, in Narinderpura 1016 and in Alisher Khurd, it is 1000. It is notable that in the district, the sex ratio was adverse being 784 women for every 1000 male earlier. Kashmira Singh, Jagtar Singh and Ashwani Kumar, residents of these villages, said people were gradually becoming aware of the imbalance in sex ratio and the need to protect and nurture the girl child.
Read this a amsll detour>>
Parsi tribe is another example of the declining tribe. Parsis - The Zoroastrians of India by Sooni Taraporevala The following text is an extract from the book
'Zoroastrians of India: Parsis: A Photographic Journey' by Sooni Taraporevala. c 2000 Sooni Taraporevala.
Reproduced with permission of Good Books, Mumbai, India. By the year 2020, India will have achieved the dubious distinction of being the most populated country on earth with 1200 million people. At that point, Parsis who will number 23,000 or 0.0002 per cent of the population, will cease to be termed a community and will be labelled a 'tribe', as is any ethnic group below the 30,000 count. Demographically, we are a dying community - our deaths outweigh our births. Parsis are a people who uprooted themselves and moved to a different world to save their religion. We migrated to India one thousand years ago. The Parsi experience is about dilemmas that most minority communities face; questions about religion and race, survival and extinction, assimilation and identity, tradition and the modern world. There are only 100,000 Parsis in the world today, mostly in India, particularly
in Bombay. Demographically, we are a dying community-our deaths outweigh our births. Parsis like to quote a remark that Mahatma Gandhi once reportedly made, "In
numbers Parsis are beneath contempt, but in conribution, beyond compare." Out of an Indian population of more than one billion, Parsis number a mere 76,000. Demographic trends project that by the year 2020, India will have achieved the dubious distinction of being the most populated country on earth with 1200 million people. At that point, Parsis who will number 23,000 or 0.0002 per cent of thepopulation, will cease to be termed a community and will be labelled a 'tribe', as is any ethnic group below the 30,000 count.
http://www.the-south-asian.com/April200
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla