Female foeticide in India-III: Swatting them like flies…

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Indian baby

Image by Zuhair Ahmad via Flickr

When and how did it all begin? Writers have drawn references from Atharva Veda, which states, “Let a female child be born somewhere else. Here, let a male child be born.” As far what Manu Shasthra says about the futility of being a woman, the less discussed the better.

Research on female foeticide in India reveals how deep-rooted misogyny is and how mechanical the killings have become. As if the traditional methods of killings weren’t efficient enough, we now have modern ultra-sound scanning machines that swat foetuses like flies. Continue reading →

Female foeticide in India-I: Murder in the womb

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Beautiful baby girl

Image by adam.declercq via Flickr

Think hard. Search every corner of your mind for words that can match this act called female foeticide. Chances are that you may not find one. Female foeticide in India is one such dark realm that words can’t enter.

Words fail because there is no way to explain how the nation continues to be in a self-congratulatory mood when 7,000 female foetuses are eliminated each day (Unicef—State of the World’s Children 2007). Worse still, there is no way to fathom how mothers are turned into killers here, and how suddenly motherly instinct seems like a multi-dimensional deception.

There were a few incidents that took place in mid-2007 that I have never been able to forget. Continue reading →

How to forget devastating floods and move on…

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Some smiles can never be forgotten. More so if they emerge out of tormented souls that saw dear ones being washed away by flash floods, houses being submerged, fertile fields stripped, and little children turned to starve.

Many parts of North Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh suffered a horrific tragedy in October 2009. In North Karnataka alone, nearly 230 people lost their lives, 6.55 lakh houses collapsed, and over 4,290 villages were affected in 75 taluks across 14 districts, of which 346 villages needed complete rehabilitation. Lakhs of people sought shelter in relief camps. They still do.

Back in Bangalore, “resort politics” had peaked. The dissident faction of the then Yeddyurappa government, led by the Reddy brothers, was holing up in high-end resorts in Goa and Hyderabad busy playing political ping-pong. The miserable CM was twiddling his thumbs.

And, when I visited six flood-ravaged villages across Koppal and Bellary districts a few weeks after the tragedy, there were these divine smiles, too.

(Pics: SH)

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