Saving the Female Fetus #114 Majumdar Sahib: My full statement was:

``Now Mr. DM, using emotive slogans is asking for state planning, control and use of `British methods` to implement baby production and dowry regulation.``

Please address the problem of dowry, parents`choice to determine their baby`s gender and the probability determination of ratio for each state and region. Moreover the ratios can wander all over the place from year to year anyways.

Why do the Chowkies want to interfere in a couple`s choice if they are not willing to pay a red cent towards the dowry? It is no skin off my nose if Sanket is what he is or how he got into this world.

Saving the Female Fetus # 116: intellibent = some one of an intelligent bent of mind.

Saving the Female Fetus #114: What are those probabilities? The demand for 1000/1000 ratio was by an intellibent Chowki earlier. Why are the ratios in post #107 all over the place?
What was the objective of this ratio anyway?
A planner knows better what to produce than the parents?
What are the Dowry laws?

Saving the Female Fetus # 109: ``Hope you don`t use this term again for it underscores the gravity of the issue.``

Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing
Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing
Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing
Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing
Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing, Eveteasing and Eve....
Hold on, I am catching my breath.
teasing.
Sorry, I had to get it off my chest.

Saving the Female Fetus DullaBhatti: That was a moving poem by the unborn daughter but not quite so moving as the song by Surinder Kaur:
`Ni kankaN Lammia DhiaN kioN Jammiaan ne maE....`

(Why did you give birth to me O mother, when my brothers and their wives are so cold and unloving towards me).
It was very sad to read about the dowry problem of an educated girl in Amritsar. There was a window of time right up to early eighties when it was the only Ram Baan of dowry. That has been at least my extended family`s experience.

Saving the Female Fetus Several posts: I am all for freedom of speech as long as you speak my thoughts.
I am all for pro-choice, as long as you choose what I tell you to choose.
I am all for pro-choice, as long as it is done blind-folded.
There ia a definite asymmetry in attitudes towards females v/s males. It needs to be fixed, starting with people on Chowk.
Equal education, equal job opportunities, equal inheritance and uniform laws for all citizens is a must. It just makes sense. None of this personal Muslim Laws and personal Jaini Laws for different groups.
Chowkies speak with revulsion of `Bought brides` but no one talks about `Bought Giglows`.
Chowkies speak with clenched fists about heinous crimes of `female feticide` but noone is too worried about abortions in general.
Chowkies want 1000 females for 1000 males but no one seems worried that the ratio in Europe over decades has been where it is in India right now. What would you have couples do? Conjugate under the watchful eyes of `Ratio Polce`?

Anyone who thinks that asymmetry does not describe the attitude of all male Chowkies is a `Sala Haraamzada` and can address me as Jija Ji from now on.)

Saving the Female Fetus #102 Jang: `there is little social sanction towards infanticide..what with all the nosy neighbors. and with girls going to school (or going out of the house), ..`

You maybe right. Teachers can inspect the girls without clothes visually and digitally for any signs of abuse or lumps. Yes that should work. Of course if it is male teachers, they should work in pairs.

If they do find sign of abuse, what do they do, write DM an e-mail? He can handle probably a few cases, but eventually we might need a small `Bureau of female student welfare`, No?

By the way were there any Dowry deaths in plush ChandiGarh or South Delhi ever? If you had told me thirty years ago that people will murder for dowry, I would not have believed you, but it is happening.

What are the Dowry Laws anyway? Do you know them?

Saving the Female Fetus To paraphrase Tagore:

``Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of empty slogans and Narebazi;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country`s Chowkies awake.``
I do not care too much for Pakis, they are too far gone anyway.

EinsteinWallah #105: ``If value of female child were to go up with their declining numbers then that should have happened in 1700s and 1800s. But it did not happen.``

Please explain why did it happen now and not then? Is it the hole in the Ozone layer this time or is it some planetory alignment or maybe the report was .....?

Agree with you on the British methods. Wonderful people the Englishmen were!
Can we use these methods for sitiuations, where they are really needed, like on terrorism promoters and sympathisers. No need to use them to regulate private speculation in marriages. There will be a real change in attitude only when you read that a desperate father unable to meet the `Mehar` demands killed his three sons and their mother and then commited suicide.


``The idea that because of this national integration is quickening its pace is just laughable.``

Not exactly my words, but why is it laughable? Please explain the joke so I can laugh with you.
The immediate relief is given to Jharkahndi brides families with cash. The Haryanwi F/M ratio has thus trickled down to JharKhand. This will provide relief from dowry demands for other Jharkhandi brides to be. To hasten the process keep the central palnners and analysts out of the loop and decriminalize the ultrasound tests.

The central planners failed miserably in Moscow. They were telling peasants in Ukraine what to plant and what to sell to the state at what prices. Those who defied the planners ended up in Gulag, causing famines, widespread misery and death of millions. Now Mr. DM, using emotive slogans is asking for state planning, control and use of `British methods` to implement baby production and dowry regulation.

This is no reflection on DM. Indeed his cousin and wife may be the devils incarnate. I just do not like hyperbolic exaggerations in `snuffing of lives` and `loss of whole generation`. Moreover I do`nt think he or anyother human being is capable of controlling what he is asking for.

Please explain the numbers, you posted in #107. What does it all mean?
I agree with the rest of your post, but it is a different topic.

Saving the Female Fetus News item: `A Bengladeshi man arrested in middle East for making love to a cow.`

All those, who make their living with animal husbandry, better watch out. Here come the tourist buses with Haryanvis. I warned you guys long time ago. Right Tahmed?

Saving the Female Fetus Alephnull #90: `` It is unlikely that criminalising the process or attempting to control the technology will provide a permanent solution.``

I agree. If anything, the technology needs to be improved to know the results as soon as possible. One way to produce the solution to Hardin`s problem is to eliminate guaranteed profit from a choice of gender. The inheritance laws should be opened to contest by both daughters and sons. That should reduce the pressure for dowry.

Parents who selectively kill female fetuses are like long term speculating farmers, assured of windfall profits for making boy babies. The Haryana cases are jolting them out of slumber hopefully. Maybe the rising bride prices need to rise further quite a bit more, before it becomes useless to speculate. One could have four sons and the market just collapses for grooms. In that case it would have looked wiser in hindsight to hedge bets with daughters or best yet not to speculate in the first place with one`s own children.

Saving the Female Fetus # 95: suitcaes = suitcases

The following link shows M/F ratios for Europe for 18 years. The lower limit is 934 females per 1000 males.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921(199109)17%3A3%3C517%3AEFMATB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O
This compares to DM`s ``the national average female ratio has gone down from 972 in 1901 to just 933 in 2001..``

Of course, Haryana`s ratio and Punjab ratios are lower than the national average, but that is what is expanding the gene pool across states.

The problem is not as severe as during Hasting`s time: ``...more than 400 Jadeja rajput households, there was ``not a single female child in any of them``.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/grhf-asia/suchana/9999/vishwanath.html

It is self correcting and even desirable to stir up the soup.

Saving the Female Fetus #38 DM :
``As I said earlier, the abortion issue is a related but distinct issue.``

If abortion is legal and becoming more so throughout the world, it is as moral or evil to abort the boys as the girls. Since the government does not contribute to the doctor`s fees, dowry or Mehar, it has no business to try to regulate the abortion market. Let the parents decide what they want to do.

``You are right. There was a similar shortage of men in Europe in the post-war period, especially in Germany, although I do not think that the sex ratio was that skewed as it is in Punjab and Haryana.``

The numbers tell a different tale. The casualties in WWI for the British Empire were 35% of the total forces.
http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html
With the sex ratios due to female foeticide, your numbers indicate a change of less than one percent. Again that change is within the range for Europe over a period of many years.
http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html
The median of M/F ratio is 1.059, which is equivelent to 944 females per 1000 males.

``Actually, I believe in minimum laws but the laws that are there must be enforced, otherwise there would be a general disrespect for the law.``

I do not know what the dowry laws are. I can venture a guess that they are chaotic, unenforcable and can be easily circumented. The government does not earn any revenue from marriage or dowry, why should they spend taxpayers` money on enforcing `good moral conduct`?. Any policing that is needed should be to enforce income tax laws. I am told the property sales in India take place at multiples of declared prices with suitcaes of cash changing hands. The underground economy is far bigger than the white economy on paper. I am sure Brides or grooms will change hands in a similar manner if Dowry gestapo is empowered.

``..the British had and therefore were able to almost eradicate female infanticide.``

Infanticide is not the same thing as foeticide. The population of India in Hasting`s time was less than 72 million. Company Bahadur was a corporate dictatorship and could afford an army of Tax collectors, Babus and spies to finger the criminals. do we want to spy on a billion people today?

``They provided an illegal service. As far starving female babies to death, this does not happen any more as it is no more socially acceptable..``

Well it should not be an illegal service then. If the sting operations continue, starvation of female babies is what we will get.

For the first time in living memeory, we have a two way market in dowry, a breakdown of `Beti & Roti` rigidiry of castes, a breach of state and region barriers and hopefully soon even marriage against religious barriers.

No amount of legislation, religious sermons and reforms could accomplish what free markets have achieved in such a short time.

Couple of trick questions:

A. Is there a central planning office for F/M ratios that deternines fair dowry prices every year? How good are the Dowry laws? Is there a burueau of matchmaking that assigns numbers to registered bride and groom applicants and then try to match them? Does the dowry depend on the number of sisters and brothers in the family? Is there a premium allowed on ugly girls? Are there specialists, who ensure that orderly markets exist for all ages, religions, castes, states and beauty grades?

B. Some people are concerned about Pandvas. What is wrong with Pandvas? If five husbands working diligently on five wives produce five babies per year, how many years will it take for five husbands working with one wife to produce one child? Told you it was tricky, but there goes the need to stop buses and force visectomies on reluctant customers.

A Thousand Cuts ``Just tell me how best can FGM be eradicated from the face of this earth.``

Do you really want that Bro Zeemax? Of course the action options have been discussed in great detail already. Let me look thru them again and get back to you later with my choices. Thanks for the relief on the arbitration jon. Good night now.

A Thousand Cuts From #269: ``Zeemax: Because sub-saharan Africa is too far gone, irretrievably if you ask me. I think you should worry more about feeding them otherwise they will go back into slavery or extinction. It is a question of priorities you see. ``

Yeah, the Americans said about the same thing about India too in the sixties. Let Indians die, concentrate on saving Pakistan.

What is your final answer Zeemax Pai? Is the sub-saharan Africa too far gone or are the somalian beauties beckoning you with their ancient civilization?

A Thousand Cuts #334: ``FMG or no FMG, they would end up like that anyways.``
Yes, that is my opinion.
Oh, so FMG did have a hand in their ending up like that? How so?
If it did not, why throw in those pictures in the mix of variables?
Jawhara`s article or the so called feminists did not bring in the famine. You did.
The ball is in your court to show the relationship.

Me a racist? Nah, I would say the samething about Koreans, Danish or Japanese.)

A Thousand Cuts `Gangrene? When did anyone say FMG was to remove gangrinous parts to keep the victim alive?`

I said that it is not the case of Gangrene. I think you agree with that assertion, based on your statement above.
Arbitration is possible only if both parties agree to it. Threads and articles on Chowk die with or without everybody agreeing on everything. What do you say Samina?

``all I`m saying is that they can still survive with this barbaric custom if they are alive to get this practised away and done with and banished forever, just as Waris Dirie`s campaign. Got it Bhra?``

OK Zeemax Bhra. I can live with that, but let me play devil`s advocate and ask your permission to work in parallel on banishing this barbaric custom forever if that did not imperil the more important and larger rescue effort.