Law to encourage 2-child families

The Indian government plans to enact a law barring people with more than two children from politics and government jobs.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said yesterday the proposed legislation prohibiting men and women with more than two children from contesting elections or holding government jobs was being discussed with opposition parties before it was tabled in parliament.

'A new law is badly needed to enforce the government's two-child policy as persuasive methods have miserably failed to curb the population explosion,' he said in Gorakhpur, in Uttar Pradesh.

But Calcutta-based human rights activist Maitreyi Chatterjee has warned a coercive two-child policy will spur the abortion of female foetuses and murder of new-born girls, practices already rampant across India.

'The gender ratio is badly disbalanced because of the mass murder of baby girls,' Ms Chatterjee said.

'Enforcement of the new law will provoke more killings, worsening the man-woman ratio.'