posted December 16, 2006 12:59 PM            

Ten million girls have been killed by their parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born or immediately after, a government minister said on Thursday, describing it as a "national crisis".

A UNICEF report released this week said 7,000 fewer girls are born in the country every day than the global average would suggest, largely because female foetuses are aborted after sex determination tests but also through murder of new borns.

"It's shocking figures and we are in a national crisis if you ask me," Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury told Reuters.

Girls are seen as liabilities by many Indians, especially because of the banned but rampant practice of dowry, where the bride's parents pay cash and goods to the groom's family.

Men are also seen as bread-winners while social prejudices deny women opportunities for education and jobs.

"Today, we have the odd distinction of having lost 10 million girl children in the past 20 years," Chowdhury told a seminar in Delhi University.

"Who has killed these girl children? Their own parents." In some states, the minister said, newborn girls have been killed by pouring sand or tobacco juice into their nostrils.

"The minute the child is born and she opens her mouth to cry, they put sand into her mouth and her nostrils so she chokes and dies," Chowdhury said, referring to cases in the western desert state of Rajasthan.

"They bury infants into pots alive and bury the pots. They put tobacco into her mouth. They hang them upside down like a bunch of flowers to dry," she said.

"We have more passion for tigers of this country. We have people fighting for stray dogs on the road. But you have a whole society that ruthlessly hunts down girl children."

According to the 2001 census, the national sex ratio was 933 girls to 1,000 boys, while in the worst-affected northern state of Punjab, it was 798 girls to 1,000 boys.

The ratio has fallen since 1991, due to the availability of ultrasound sex-determination tests.

Although these are illegal they are still widely available and often lead to abortion of girl foetuses.

Chowdhury said the fall in the number of females had cost one percent of India's GDP and created shortages of girls in some states like Haryana, where in one case four brothers had to marry one woman.

Economic empowerment of women was key to change, she said. "Even today when you go to a temple, you are blessed with 'May you have many sons'," she said.

"The minute you empower them to earn more or equal (to men), social prejudices vanish."

The practice of killing the girl child is more prevalent among the educated, including in upmarket districts of New Delhi, making it more challenging for the government, the minister said.

posted December 16, 2006 01:02 PM              

completely out of balance...

posted December 17, 2006 06:36 PM              

Weeks later she was found in a trunk at a railway station cut up into several pieces.

Her brothers had murdered and butchered her....yes her brothers?!

Aren't these stories so very tragic. Its unbelievable in this day and age that women can be treated this way...

posted December 19, 2006 07:26 AM              

And who says blood is thicker than water....

Apparently not to some....

posted December 27, 2007 03:50 AM              

Nevermind the millions whose souls are slowly scooped out and replaced with obedience and want every day in this country.

We walk with them, talk with them...we are them. I guess we tend to choose the tragedies we'll discuss based on different criterion.

Like whether or not the victims die.

(Although to this day, suffering requires one to remain alive.) What about the living?

Far off...across the ocean we look for the criminal acts against human beings..when our own backyard reeks of misery.

daf

posted December 27, 2007 05:46 PM              

End result of all of this discussion of remote problems?

We feel satisfied with having taken time out to discuss, (but rarely do anything) about the plight of our fellow man and go on walking past the guy who is "probably on drugs", asking for a burger outside of the McDonald's.

We feel secure that our corner of the world is the "sane" one. Everyone else is doing the atrocious things. Not my neighbors, them, over in Bumf---, Utah. Not my countrymen, them over in Pakistan. Not the system, the government. Not greedy business and an American market being absorbed by a world market...the brown people..the ILLEGALS.

And see that's the real kicker. We have energy enough to be at each other's throats when we hear strong words with which we disagree.

But not enough energy to shut our mouths, unclench our fists and get something done.

And there's another thing, see...I'm still not talking about you.

This is all about us. As a society. This is a trend, not a personal observation (by all means feel free to keep swinging though. If it helps you act out your aggressive patterns, who is anyone to stand in your way when you pounce? And to heck with them if they tell you to work on it. It's actually roughly fetching in a Xena the Warrior Princess kinda way. )

posted December 27, 2007 07:22 PM              

Since you're here spouting off and sending people like me packing..may we please see the preaching YOU'VE been doing in your own backyard please?

Credentials please. Passports. Are you authorized to be posting internationally yet?

Intellectual posturing mostly aside, back to your pseudo-response:

If the message: "Invest your energy in your local community." Isn't about the most internationally legitimate message there is, then it's "Love one another." Certainly more internet worthy than, "this country has horrible things happening in it."

You've got better? (It certainly doesn't appear that way from your response which is both aggressive and subconsciously evasive at the same time.)

You don't appear to have any particular ideal that you're espousing. You're just reacting to me.

Flattering, but hardly useful.

Don't recall claiming not to be a hypocrite. Got a link?

Because I DO have one. In it I claim my absolute right to say one whatever seems right in one moment, and do whatever seems the thing to do in the next.

Karma and I have an arrangement.

So I wonder: Are you telling me that because you don't like hypocrisy, I should somehow be..ashamed of living my words and actions in the now, as they happen..if they conflict?

Do explain. Satisfy an ignorant hypocrite's curiosity.

daf

P.S. Still wasn't talking about you. This was about us. Sorry if anyone feels judged. Guilty as charged perhaps?

Me too. Sniff

As JW Hop will tell you..I seem to believe that I am enlightened.

posted December 27, 2007 07:46 PM            

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both aggressive and subconsciously evasive at the same time

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I would say the same of yours. In fact, it took me quite a long time to decide on what to respond to your post.

Regarding "Love one another," I couldn't agree more. I would say however, that Jesus put no locality on that commandment. Nor did he decry people investing themselves in conversations about problems in other lands.

That's lovely that you choose to be free to be a hypocrite, but where's the sense in that?

quote:

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You don't appear to have any particular ideal that you're espousing.

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posted December 27, 2007 08:00 PM              

I mean..you want sense? It seems the most sensible thing in the world to do, watching people and speaking strongly to find the predators in the crowd.

Throwing a little bait out there for the ego-trolls and more benignly intented but just as primitively developed self assigned "warriors" of who knows what to latch on to. Just so you know where they are from time to time.

The shy, the selfless, the touching and the touched in the head. (Hola!)

To take the time to observe and carefully memorize the inner and outer indicators of their conditioning and of their natural habits. To watch and see if there is any hope for us yet..or if the waiting need go on. Just watching what you do and reading between the lines of what you write. That's it.

After all, the things people do, and the energy they put out is all that can really tell you anything about them..not their actual words. Especially when they splatter that energy willy-nilly with no idea of the amount of information that they give away with their actions and reactions.

The words we've written are just brush strokes if you read the text. You have to step back to see the picture.

By the way, your faith in "sense" is charming. Don't ever lose that.

daf

P.S. The biggest problem facing YOU personally today..is much nearer to you than India. Guaranteed.
You should think about checking it out.

posted December 27, 2007 08:27 PM              

If no one here intends to do anything to stop the senseless slaughter of Millions of girls from India..then you came here for entertainment.

You came here to pass the time. You frittered away a few minutes indulging yourself with the rest of us, in the luxury of using these girls' deaths as a "conversation piece."

An excuse for you to blow a few lines of your opinion during this tragedy become open-mike night 10,000 miles away from the scene of the crime.

Certainly yacking about politicians and the bums they are is wonderful fodder for entertaining ourselves. Conspiracy theories an endless source of amusement for us all.

What about 10 Million dead little girls? Should they be the subject of our evening's entertainment?

Cruel? Maybe. Sorry. But that's just the way it is. Let's hope someone goes over there and starts blowing away these murderers soon! Let's hope they are inspired by this thread! That should vindicate us.

Sarcasm aside:

posted December 27, 2007 10:43 PM            

(and I mean that sincerely in a fetching Monty Python kinda way....)

At least you presented the opportunity for me to have a whole new respect for AG... thanks for that!

I've been compared to worse than Xena, Warrior Princess. I kinda like it actually.

posted December 28, 2007 12:15 AM            

I can't in good conscience give you your publication as preaching in your own backyard. I can't verify sales if you even sell it. I can't verify demand. I can't even verify supply. Searching for your site using Google is not productive (the best way is to put Daffy Times in quotes, and go to the link in the eco-munity.com site. Other ways of searching for it are mostly useless as they won't return the Daffy Times url.). So if that's preaching in your own backyard it doesn't seem terribly effective. I don't see your publication inspiring a public movement towards your ideals.

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It seems the most sensible thing in the world to do, watching people and speaking strongly to find the predators in the crowd.

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How are you finding the predators? And what are you doing with them?

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Just watching what you do and reading between the lines of what you write. That's it.

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I find it interesting that you believe yourself proficient in this regard. I do as well. 8th house Capricorn Sun, Moon in Virgo, Gemini Rising, Saturn in Gemini...analysis is certainly a specialty.

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The biggest problem facing YOU personally today..is much nearer to you than India. Guaranteed.
You should think about checking it out.

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The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to believe that "sense" doesn't make any sense at all.

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Siding with nonsense, then? Really? So then, why do you expect that people want to hear your opinion if what you have to offer is nonsense? Perhaps you should enter the realm of fantasy writing in order to serve these needs better.

quote:

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If no one here intends to do anything to stop the senseless slaughter of Millions of girls from India..then you came here for entertainment.

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