All imagination? Congress doubts plausibility of Maneka's 'counter-productive' compulsory sex-determination idea

Even as Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi called for making sex-determination tests compulsory to battle India’s problem of female foeticide, the Congress has said that it could be counter-productive and lead to further problems. Congress leader PC Chacko told ANI, “In this country today, women are unsafe, girl child is unsafe and if by sex-determination, the information is registered whether the female foeticide can be stopped, this is her idea or imagination. Whether it will be counter-productive, whether it will have (a) positive effect is something to be seen.” [caption id=“attachment_2608026” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Maneka Gandhi. AFP[/caption] Chacko also wondered if it was a well thought-out plan. Maneka had on Monday suggested said that sex determination test should be made compulsory to track women pregnant with a girl child as a measure to check female foeticide. “In my personal view, the woman should be compulsorily told that whether it is a boy or girl child whom she is going to give birth. It should be registered to be able to check whether they have given the births or not,” the minister said. “I am just putting out this idea. It is being discussed though there is no conclusion yet,” she said at the All India Regional Editors Conference here. It is a different way to look at this problem (female foeticide), which could be solved with this idea, she said. “We cannot keep catching people doing (illegal) ultrasound,” she said, adding that arrest of such people was not a permanent solution. With inputs from PTI