For once I agree with DQ.
Fresh news:
Effects of Low Female to male ratio AHMEDABAD: Woe betide bachelors in north Gujarat who don't have sisters - they will have to "buy" a bride and this has created an annual Rs 50 million industry in the region.
Three communities of caste Hindus in Mehsana, 74 km north of here, follow a AHMEDABAD: No fiction this. Men in north Gujarat purchase a bride and this has created an annual Rs 50 million industry in the region. tradition of 'Satta-Paddhati' in which the brother and sister of one family are married to the sister and brother of another family.
This is because of the low sex ratio of 779:1000 girls to boys. Households with a son but no daughter are thus forced to cast their net wide and pay exorbitant sums for brides, according to a survey conducted by Ahmedabad-based NGO Chetna - Centre for Health Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness.
"Because of the lowest sex ratios in Mehsana, boys who don't have sisters are not getting wives. There are thousands of eligible bachelors who are forced to remain unmarried because they don't have a sister to exchange," said social worker Rajshri Swaminarayan.
"This situation often results in parents buying wives for their boys," Swaminarayan said.
Explained Illa Vakharia of Chetna: "Buying wives has brought many evils along with it. Agents or pimps mint money on purchase of wives, and parents of wives ask for more money or else call their girls back home.
"In Mehsana alone, annually Rs 50 million is spent on purchasing wives who come from as far as south Gujarat and even out of the state," Vakharia said.
Ironically, development and literacy in Mehsana have contributed to the bias against the female child.
"Mehsana, with a literacy rate of 75.54 per cent and a relatively high per capita income and development level, continues to be plagued by the evils of female infanticide," said Vakharia.