OK. Ashok,got that.

[Guest guest]

OK.Got it,Ashok.

Infact,for a moment I presumed the ref to, " South Indian actresses being

overwieght " , would be the cause for Malini's hubby to feel bad, and so wanted to

clarify.

Yes,strangely Seema too was mentioning the other day,How in the 70's and early

80's,the govt

sponsored TVchannels were actively promoting the concept of Family Planning,with

slogans of Hum do

Hamare do and then to Hum do Hamare ek,but now with so much of media invasion

into the drawing

rooms of nearly all Indian homes,we hardly see any advt,highlighting the virtues

of a small family,with

Amitabh the only goodwill ambassador of our country,confusing the children and

their family by

alternatingly promoting Polio vaccine programme at times and in the same vein

actively promoting Pepsi

drinks too.

God knows,who is really thinking of the population control studies these days in

India as most of them r

busy in either stalling the parliament or singing the virtues of Narmada river.

Shyam(84)

one billion(fwd) !

Hiya this is posted on Samachar sify news today. We may not agree with

all but heart of the matter is population, has more than doubled since

independence. If u add one Australia every year (Australia is much

bigger than India geographically) we Donot need rocket science or

supercomputers to tell what is going to happen!!

By Rahul PhondkeFriday, 22 April , 2005, 10:11

India today has well over a billion people which account for about 20

per cent of the World's population and considering that we have in those

1 billion, some south Indian heroines, we also account for about 30 per

cent of the World's weight. Take a look at these figures:

Every 1.2 seconds a Child is born in India, the fastest in the world.

Every year we add about 25 million people i.e. A complete Australia and

Malaysia.

We have only about 2.5 per cent of the World's available land area and

even lesser of the available water resources.

It does not take complicated maths to do the sums. We have a ministry

for Information and Broadcasting , which supervises the working of

Doordarshan, whose outstanding levels of tedium play a direct role in

increasing the fertility of couples, Couples, who are so bored that for

entertainment that they actually read the Software license agreements

which pop up while installing pirated software and have a hearty laugh

together thereafter ( " Ha..Ha " , it goes).

We have a ministry for Sport and Youth headed by a 78-year-old person

whose own youth has served time for anti national activities i.e.

Sporting ridiculous haircuts in the 1990s movies like " Saajan " and

" Thanedar " .

But we do not have a Ministry for Family Planning (it is clubbed

together with Ministry of Health), for an issue that is clearly a more

grave emergency than Doordarshan (though that is debatable).

India was the world's first country to institute a government sponsored

program for family planning. As usual, the 'democratic' approach was and

still is a bit too conciliatory. A bit like Sushma Swaraj, preaching the

virtues of abstinence to control AIDS. Abstinence is something

Vishwamitra's mom also tried telling him, when Menaka was doing an item

number under Indra's direction. I could imagine the dialogue

" Vishu !!!, come back here. How many times have I told you to abstain "

" But Mooo..m, she is Menaka. Miss Urdhwaloka 5000 BC. Can't I at least

just talk to her ? "

" No.. at your age you must focus on Tapasyas, Yagnas and funny hairdos "

But Vishu obviously did not listen and the world got a sneak peek in the

creature that man is. i.e. the World with the exception of Sushma

Swaraj. For, Swaraj was convinced that rather than sex education and

mandatory HIV testing for marriages, a billion Indians could easily

achieve what Vishwamitra could not.

Moral of the story: Purely conciliatory approaches do not and will not

work in India. The same hypocritical naivete has characterised the

family planning program. While conciliatory approach is obviously

'democratic', no such planning works without a carrot and stick approach

i.e. Incentive for limiting family size smaller than four and penalties

for going beyond.

The penalties need not be jail terms, Kumar Gaurav movies would do just

fine. But penalties are needed ..may be in terms of a higher income tax,

or less preference in recruitment or Promotions.

Before the communists and rent-a-cause socialists come out with daggers

drawn that this is non democratic and unconstitutional, let us take a

look at the spectacular underperformance of the democratic approach.

Even if right now, every couple restricts itself to two children, we

would still overtake China in another 15 years with even lesser

resources to handle so. If these conciliatory approaches would have

really worked then we need not have any penalties even for tax

avoidance, drug trafficking, etc.

Solution to this problem itself directly would ease some of the related

problems if not solve them altogether. Urban overcrowding and squalor,

Environmental degradation, Unemployment etc but no political party deems

it fit to enforce population control.

I guess " control " and " politics " do not really go together. If the right

to education, right to employment and the right to mention Mother

in beauty contests are constitutionally enforced, why not population

control. The citizen also has a duty towards the country, which the

nation has every right to enforce.

Population control is no longer a debate topic. It is a desperate

emergency that calls for desperate measures.

If the government could get time from rewriting history books,

announcing free electricity and handing out reservations like Paans

after a wedding, there could yet be a solution.

If not then the citizens have to do what is the Government's

responsibility, i.e self governance. I bet even Vishwamitra would have

said, " Tathastu " .

From

L & M Prasad (lp1960@...)

I hope LP (Malini's hubby) doesn't mind me forwarding this interesting

article to the group..............Ashok.