10 Million Fewer Girls Born in India
Associated Press
December 19, 2006
By NIRMALA GEORGE

Lawmakers and women's rights activists raised an alarm Monday over new evidence indicating about 7,000 fewer girls than expected are born each day in India, where women routinely suffer discrimination and parents often abort female fetuses.

The spread of ultrasound technology allowing parents to find out the gender of their unborn children has resulted in the large-scale 'disappearance' of girls here. One study released earlier this year estimated that 10 million fewer girls were born here than expected in the past 20 years.

The government must 'rise in revolt against the male child mania,' said lawmaker Gurudas Dasgupta during a parliamentary debate Monday.

The debate was spurred in part by a report last week from UNICEF, which estimated that 7,000 girls go unborn each day in India, where abortions are legal and a ban on finding out the sex of unborn children and aborting female fetuses is widely flouted. the rest