ponderings & pennings

In form of the "Palna" scheme for supporting the girl child, the government seems to be playing the role of the hand that will rock the cradle - the cradle with a girl child. The intentions are indeed noble, given the shameful statistics of the sex ratio in the major cities and states of our nation with the capital performing the poorest on this score and how shameful I feel coming from there.

However I search the concept of PPP here too as we are hearing of this new found love of the ministers of late. Did they try to get support for the scheme? I guess not because most of such thoughtful ideas are done with ulterior motives and may be no one from the corporate world would like to shoulder the responsibility too given their understanding of such bloated announcements of the men in white. I wish to be proved wrong here, but I get reminded of the utter failure of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan and even the Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Another thought runs my mind and you may label me a nuisance on poking trivia in such a noble deed. Are we really making the parents get mature and accept the girl child by taking up such a sheme. I’d prefer a country wide propaganda highlighting the evil in killing of the female foetus. Why not make more stringent the laws on female foeticide - something like rarest of rare crimes! Are we not postponing the awareness among the folks about gender equality by adopting the girl child. Just think, will it make the person who is hell bent against a girl child to allow his wife carry the child for months and feed her knowing fully well that they will have to abondon the child. The devil in me sees that the man will go ahead with the act of foeticide and save both time and money - time by conceiving his wife again earlier and money by avoiding feeding a foetus.

Thus my belief that education is the only thing our nation is in dire need of and it seems to be the panacea of all her ills gets strengthened.