Two Interesting posts,
First, Atanu is not the one to mince words,
I sometimes wonder why. Why are they so eager that people have more children? Don’t they get it that the decision to not have a girl child is a rational response to an intolerable situation? And to avoid the problem of “missing girl children” you have to change the situation, not just make it illegal to abort female fetuses?
I have a theory. Human labor supply in India is immense. This keeps the price of labor low. The fecundity of the poor helps the rich. Because if it didn’t, the rich are powerful enough to have figured out how to stop the poor from reproducing so rapidly. It also seems to me one of the contributing factors why Mother Teresa is held in high regard around the world. She was helping out the rich have access to cheap labor. Someone has to fill up the slums of Mumbai for the rich to have low cost labor. The poor oblige.[link]
Second, Chandni is sceptical,
As an activist I am definitely skeptical regarding the perception this scheme might continue to propagate…that women are inferior…unwanted…a liability…and most importantly DISPENSABLE.
A policy level decision or a scheme at the national level must always focus on the larger picture or should be clear about the long term repercussions. Unless and until we are able to look at women just like men – useful, valuable, an asset and not a liability, we can’t really solve any issue arising from gender inequality.[Link]
Filed under: Links
Q.1 “able to look at women just like men”….
I ask is it imperative to consider MEN as the yardstick or steelyard against which WOMEN’s lives & actions & activities & survival instinct are to be assessed ? can we move out of this conventional mindset (as the so called thought-leaders) n insert “individualistic” perspective?perhaps, then we can see different an image…
thanks
>>>> She was helping out the rich have access to cheap labor. Someone has to fill up the slums of Mumbai for the rich to have low cost labor. The poor oblige
Like I earlier said.. Like Nilu would say – People, stop screwing.
Somehow, the poor are themselves to blame for this situation. Such simple economics is lost on them. More hands to earn also means more mouths to feed. And you have to feed those more mouths for 15 years before they start “giving returns”.
If I were poor, I would rather not have kids. But then, I already am poor
@Atanu
1.Suppose, I take a step further and say, “why people are so eager to have children?” why cant they adapt a child from the existing base of children?” then the Under-privileged child would get better education & lifestyle
2.let me take one more step further, “why people are so eager to get married? instead they could adapt a child and become a single mother / father”, while having an active sex life as a concubine or paramour?”
3.If I were in your place, I would have give her a pack of biscuits or something to eat. that Rs2 would soon vanish from her little palm (after gathering a few beads of sweat from her skin) to some unknown “bhayya” (whatever)..it’s a well entrenced network in Mumbai
for that matter,i see little babies drugged n with blood soaked plasters/cloth arouhd their little heads, and being cradled by nonchalant looking moms/??? who beg …..babies are money minting devices (sorry for being abrasive)
Now labour scenario:
the Govt tried or trying implement Multi component employment programme (skills based)..has there been any awareness programme aimed at Urbap poor & rural poor?could be…are the NGO groups motivated (financially) enough to work towards this..am not sure
Around 45% of Indian pop belongs to the labour force, while 42% are employed. And the employment growth rate is relatively lower than the labour force rate and the gap between this has widened over a period of time. However, the labour force rate slowed down thus reflecting people are upgrading due to education.
Rural poor is migrating to Urban thus causing the urban poor to swell and see itself unemployed. Ideally, rural poor should have stayed back to seek benefits from rural employment programmme
so there are many variables to be finuetuned before we could comment on Labour scenario.n I was having a brief discussion eminent blogger on “lean n mean organisations”. Mechanisation/Technology in a few industries created unemployment.unfortunately the accumulated skills rendered useless whn the segment approach other industries..so what happens to their families?
Girl child, but the line of thought got xtended to somewhere else
I certainly share Ms Chandni’s concern and seek the project to foster heightened respect for women and girls…
but, would disagree with the notion that this may reinforce girl child/woman is dispensable. any schemes driven by Govt or supported by NGOs are further fortified by awareness programmes n we *Advertisers would take care of what message needs to be driven across…the communication channels(mainstream & on ground, activation programmes) would “hammer home” the positive factors of having a girl child.
& times have changed.though not so educated, women (I doubt north) have become relatively more evolved in their attitude towards life…
“When a son is born,
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes,
And give him jade to play…
When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give broken tiles to play…”
a few learnings from our bro & key competitor China: how efficiently it is tackling this issue
a)The “Girl Care Project”, a multi-pronged approach to encourage the birth of girls, though experts complain that it’s being framed in terms of the future needs of men. Some 40 million Chinese men are estimated to face the crunch in finding wives due to the “scarcity” of females, thus the growing number of so-called “bachelors’ villages”
a)some 100,000 girls to be exempted from school fees
b) Under the program, couples who limit themselves to two girls would receive a combined annual pension of about $150 for the rest of their lives. Preferential treatment in health care, housing and employment..
c) this is perfect! China’s birth control policy is now “a diversified mechanism,” which allows for one-child in the cities, two in the rural areas, and three in ethnic regions, with no limit in Tibet
d)Illegal sex determination and sex-selective abortions are strictly banned
read about … The Spring Bud Program
http://www.womenofchina.cn/action/act_pro/4996.jsp
R,thank you for this space
a)… “why cant people adapt a child from the existing base of children instead of having their own child?
“why people are so eager to get married? instead they could adapt a child…
perhaps demanding for too much,and also this create lesser mortals,i.e.intellectual society.yet anthr kind of Imbalance prevails.am intelligent n my man is brillaint, n we adapt a child from some rural background,instead of our child,the society loses out on a “genius”child..ponderable!
*therefore,have one child and sponsor a child*girl till higher education & ensre that she is part of skills-based programmes, crafts etc. the expenses for healthcare,education etc would come wthn Rd15,000 per year…ditch some parties,reduce alcohol sessions
b)Big IT giants (Infosys does this,guess,Mrs Murthy) can adapt girl children in a village.Educate a woman she educates a whole family!
c)”Girl Child” needs to have a glamorous n hgh glitz garb..have a marathon run in all the metro, catch limelight struck,cause driven Page 3 celebrities to march ahead in the runs,splash the content around.create salivating factor.capture attention of big MNCs Britannia*umm (my client),HLL (our client),ITC(excellent job ths organ is doing on Water for rural areas,profound)…a run in each Quarter.sustain this.international media run for India
d)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Banyan
Govt should rope in this kind of successful individual ventures…they lend authenticity!
“Polio” campaign by SRK, Big B, Pallid lookign Ash(huh) has been successful
many an idea galore.it’s just that each one of has to stretch a little bit.no worries, ur waist becomes slender….can you do that?
I could not resist…
*sincere apologies…but I want to say
have a prblem with this
“as an activist I am definitely skeptical….”
leaders n those who jumped into the arena donot hesitate. they fight till they die.
wonder, what would have happened if Mahatma Gandhiji set forth the historical march to Dandi on a pair of hesitating feet? Govt apathy, lack of sustenance power on Govt, inertia stuck citizens of India who elect leaders and sleep with them restless cant be lame excuses.
am sure most of u know Ramesh Ramanathan’s Janaagraha, whose true life story is the base for the movie “Swades”.his NPO has 100 citizens working on various projects….n read the core thought “Be the change you want to see” http://www.janaagraha.org/taxonomy/term/11
I go back my argument with Shadows, why cant we participate in Govt initiated ventures?we have the right speak.the right to vote.why dnot we have the right to participate (not a passive participation like wrting a cheque or ding IT returns with fanfare)? we have been sleeping with the system for years.time to stir up things!
I feel this system is neither a plan to create “dispensability” around woman nor an effort to surge ahead China in headcount…but to voice a child’s right to survive atrocities n emerge as someone bigger than what the world expected her/him to be…not a tinly little bundle of death
[...] the reader to (link) Retributions
on’t Abort the Girl Child & Different perspectives & to Barb :60 years of & the country of [...]
ROFL
umm, no wonder, Mr Klee beetled off …
A line is a dot that went for a walk…..!