Because my India is progressing..a lot of infrastructure, service industries, medical science. So, here's a little quiz on India's progress:
This morning, I saw these 4 headlines in a leading Indian newspaper's site:
- Indian IT takes a stride, tops entry list in IT contest
- Strapping NRI doc shines in US Navy
- Office of profit issue : All parties unite
- Doctor jailed for girl abortion scan
1? wrong, 2? even worse! 3? don't even go there..
The answer is 4. "Doctor jailed for girl abortion scan". Read further and found that this was the first prison sentence of such kind in 12 years, since this law has been made!
This is even more revealing of our progress - it shows that we Indians are either always producing boys in our maternity rooms. I don't doubt that, as given that our 'strapping' doctors are shining all over the world, its fairly possible that they've invented some kind of 'boy-gra' pill.
Or, it shows that we all Indians are happy with our baby girls! We are broad minded, believing in equal-oppertunity and are far off from the orthox 'the boy carries my lineage' thought. Isn't that a sign of progress?
Now this happens to be the first couple in 12 years, who (out of the blues) decided they'll go for a sex-determination. And there was this doctor who happened to think alike, and agreed to help them.
So, leaving such once-in-a-blue-moon cases out (I mean, its okay to have such cases once in 12 years, right?), I can sleep peacefully tonight, proud over my fellow Indians that we are progressing
End of quiz....or is it?
Before calling ourselves developed, or even developing, we should look into dirts of our own minds. Forget rural India. Don't we all know that even in "big cities" like Delhi, its a child's play to determine sex and get the female baby aborted? I mean c'mon! you have seen signs reading "500/- for abortion", haven't you?
"big cities" my foot!
Delhi's eve-teasing has taken the dangerous shape of daylight-rapes, and sexual assaults. A girl can not travel in the over-crowded city buses because they are nothing less than jungle of predators looking forward to 'carrying their lineage'.
For a girl, waiting on a bus-stand after work is like sitting like a 'bait' for the drooling 'hunks' who just can't hold their manhood in them. You'll get a ride offered from anyone starting from an executive placed in his merc, to the brave two-wheeler jokeys
And did I hear that 'dowry' is history? Get a life! I know in some parts of our country, the grooms are weighed with gold while getting married. Even our familiar computer-engineer (who happens to be the backbone of our $50-an-hour 'service' industry) appears on a 'dowry menu' as follows:
- Green-Card (GC) holder: Rs 1 crore ($200,000)
- H1 visa (still 3 years to go, so he'll manage to get a GC): Rs 50 lac ($100,000)
- Employed in India (well!): Rs 10 lac ($20,000)
The sex ratio in some states like Haryana and Punjab has dropped to as low as 600:1000! I once saw on news, a haryana youth complaining people his age are not getting brides in their state to get married. I guess he'll take some time to figure that his (could have been) bride is already dead in one of such 'rare' foetus-murders!
When will this end?
..would I ever sleep peacefully in night?
(sigh)
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2 comments:
An incident took place in Pune - a young girl was raped by a man posing as a plain clothes officer; he asked her to come to the police station when she and her male friend didn't have a driver's license to show. He sent the boy off to get his license and asked the girl to accompany him to the police station. Took her instead to an isolated area where the horrendous crime was committed.
The law [which most are not aware of] clearly states that between 6 pm and 6 am, a woman has the right to REFUSE to go to the Police Station, even if an arrest warrant has been issued against her. It is a procedural issue that a woman can be arrested between 6 pm and 6 am, ONLY if she is arrested by a woman officer and taken to an ALL WOMEN police station. And if she is arrested by a male officer, it has to be proven that a woman officer was on duty at the time of arrest.
It is good for us to know our rights. To what extent it comes of use remains to be seen in any situation. But as they say, knowledge is power.
I did not know this and am sure lot of us don't ? please be informed.
Yours truly
Thanks for visiting my blog ...I agree with you pretty much .. we are mostly misleading ourselves by saying that building new malls, fly overs and getting higher salaries is progress ... the sad part is there is so much disparity in India regarding everything, crime is the first thing that is going high ..sadly in media, movies everywhere that is what is talked about most... hopefully we shall preempt this somewhere and move towards real progress ...
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