Electricity will solve India's population problem: Azad

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_electricity-will-solve-india-s-population-problem-azad_1273240
DNA 12th July 2009

On the occasion of the World Population Day on the 11th July, India’s health and family welfare minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, suggested that every rural home in India should have a television. As he sees the TV as a panacea to fix the country’s ‘population crisis’ - that is, people could watch TV till late night and will thus have less time for procreation. This means less poor, starving, malnourished rural babies. Crisis solved!
His comments caught me thinking how serious our govt about family planning is when our population increases by 18 million every year and is expected to surpass that of China by 2028. That is the kind of comment to be expected when a country’s Health and Family Welfare minister is not a medical expert but a zoology proficient.
While the health minister has warned that India is "sitting on a volatile volcano", some demographic experts question the whole premise of the population doomsday scenario.
They point to growing evidence that population growth decreases as the economic and social status of people, and especially women, improves.
Nine relatively affluent Indian states, including Maharashtra and Punjab, boast fertility rates — the number of children an average woman produces — as low as 1.8, compared with a national average of 3.4 in 1993.
In the 1980s, the government launched a popular slogan "Hum Do Hamare Do" (We Two and Our Two) suggesting a small family — with two children — is a happy family.
This made sense to the middle and upper-income groups but had little impact among India’s poorer masses, for whom number of children was number of earning hands. The importance attached to male child also meant that many couples with two daughters would keep trying for a son.
Indian Catholic Bishops disagree, however, and are, in fact, encouraging couples to have children. The Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council announced at the beginning of July that they were initiating a campaign to offer medical interventions against infertility, including reversing tubal ligations.
"Don't think I am saying this in a lighter vein. I am serious. When light will reach (villages), 80 per cent of population growth can be reduced through TV," Azad said, adding that the government is working to ensure greater rural electrification. God be with us!