I REFER to the report headlined, 'Killing girls part of midwives' job' (South China Morning Post, August 21).
Ms Caroline Lees has done a commendable job in highlighting this grotesque practice. While the practice is indeed regrettable, a heartening thought is that in a country of some 900 million, such atrocities are localised, thankfully to only a few pockets.
The real culprit of course is, and has been, poverty, illiteracy and isolation of some remote communities from mainstream India.
The problem is also intimately tied to other social ills, notably the practice of dowry and the burden it imposes on the parents, and prospect of hunger and malnutrition, for those whose meagre resources are already stretched.
Non-governmental and voluntary organisations have realised that increased education and greater nutrition are the keys to addressing the myriad problems that lead to the atrocities of the kind mentioned in Ms Lees' article.
They have begun to address the problem in a modest but significant way, and the country has seen progress in tackling these issues.
Organisations such as the Pragat Shikshan Sansthan (Progressive Education Society) are helping to educate numerous children in Satara, Maharashtra.
