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"India is catching up with other sexist, modern societies like South Korea and China in sex-selective abortions. It's a technological revolution of a reactionary kind." Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate Trinity College Cambridge. Professor Sen, who has been writing about the tens of millions of "missing" women in Asia for a decade, noted that the startling deterioration of the Sex Ratios for children in China, India and South Korea has occurred even as overall sex ratios for females in those countries have modestly increased. In Punjab, couples who abort their female fetuses are known as "kudi-maar" - or "daughter-killers." In Punjab, India's most prosperous farming state, the Sex Ratio has plummeted to 793 girls per 1,000 boys from 875, while in Gujarat, a leading industrial state, the figure has fallen to 878 from 928. Early figures from the 2001 Census, conducted in February and March, have made it clear that female fetuses are being regularly aborted, continuing a trend that first became marked in the 1980's. The Sex Ratio dropped to 927 in 2001 from 945 in 1991 and 962 in 1981. The fall in the Sex Ratio over the past decade, when India's population grew by a staggering 181 million, has been most extreme in the richest states of the north and west, where more people can afford tests and abortions, demographers and economists say. But longer life spans for women and rising literacy rates have not yet changed the strong cultural preference for sons, who, Will carry the family name, Inherit ancestral property, Care for parents in old age, and Light their fathers' funeral pyres. ======================================================== Asit K. Ghosh Rockledge, Florida, USA __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.goanet.org/mailman/listinfo/goanet
