Prime Minister of India on Female Feticide

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, spoke out against the practice of female feticide in India, calling it a “national shame”. Striking a note to resonate with the masses, he said,

“I do not say this as the prime minister of India. I say this as the proud father of three daughters. I wish for every girl in our country what I wish for my own daughters”

Read the news article here …

Most news articles describe the occasion only as a conference. I dug a little to find what the occasion was. For those interested, it was a conference on ‘Saving the Girl Child‘ in New Delhi.

Departing from the “Prime Minister says ….” format of the headline in most news papers, one of the newspapers had the headline “Manmohan Singh, father of three daughters, says “save the girl child”.

On a side note, he should take a more active role to prevent this practice, not only as a Prime Minister of India, but also as a leader respected in the Sikh community. For example, I have been following the Elections for the US Presidential nominee and am impressed by Barack Obama taking up his community to task for not paying attention to their kids. I gather that, unlike Bill Cosby, he is drawing a much more positive response from his African-American community. (I wonder, though, whether Manmohan Singh commands enough respect in the Sikh community. I know that some people are disappointed at his kowtowing to the Congress party (read Sonia Gandhi) but I am sure that many others, like me, respect him for who he is and what he is trying to do.)