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The continuous decline in numbers of girls in the age group 0-6 years compared with boys in several states has shocked demographers in India and has made policy makers sit up and take notice. A new report, Missing , released by the United Nations Population Fund on 20 October, maps the adverse sex ratio among children.
India's population stood at 1.03 billion on 1 March 2001, having risen 21% between 1991 and 2001. "What did not rise, but rather declined shockingly, was the sex ratio," says the report.
The sex ratio, calculated as number of girls per 1000 boys in the 0-6 age group, declined from 945 girls per 1000 boys in the 1991 census to 927 during the 2001 census.
Credit: P VIROT/WHO These latest falls come...