The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A peek into the travails of bearing a girl child

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Monday, Sep 29, 2008
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A peek into the travails of bearing a girl child

Staff Reporter

Nupur Basu’s 25-minute documentary on female foeticide is a personalised effort

The film also has an English version
This is Nupur Basu’s fifth documentary

Bangalore: In a country where one million female foetuses are killed every year, the former NDTV senior editor Nupur Basu’s “No Country for Young Girls?” comes as no surprise. Screened at the British Library, this Television Trust for Environment (TVE) production, which was recently telecast on BBC World, probes behind the ratio of 821 females to 1,000 males in India’s capital city, to focus on the life and feelings of 27-year-old, Agra-based Vaijanti. A mother of two daughters, and coerced into female foeticide, Vaijanti became a victim of a loveless marriage in a town known to the world for its symbol of love — the Taj Mahal. Ms. Basu, in her fifth documentary film, wanted to turn around the national fatigue of hearing stories about dowry and AIDS, go behind the conspiracy of silence and explore the issue of foeticide from a personalised point of view. She mentioned that even the Vedas underscored the importance of a son to perform the last rites. As Vaijanti journeys through Delhi, Ganganagar in Rajasthan, Bangalore and the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat, she finds women with the same and similar experiences of foeticide, and discrimination against women in the domestic and work spheres. The 25-minute documentary, with a dubbed version in English, raises questions about adoption, criminalisation of the health system and the poor implementation of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act.

Terming the crime as of epidemic proportions, Ms. Basu said of her film: “It is a story of utter despair and great hope.”

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