Escalating Foeticide rate: A Threat to Sustainable Development

Abstract

Sustainable development ensures people their right to live peacefully in this world. The important resource for the development of any country is its man power. But there should be parity between men and women as it reduces gender gap and thus leads to optimum development of a Nation. On the contrary, in India, the sex ratio is skewed in favor of males and there is a sharp decline in the number of females. This skewed sex ratio has far reaching and multidimensional effects. Sex ratio is an index of balanced and stable society. It is also a composite indicator of women’s status in a country. This steep decline in the sex ratio indicates the evil practices of sex selective abortion, foeticide and infanticide. In this context, the importance of education especially life skills education cannot be neglected as it can make a change in the attitude of people. In this paper, author makes an attempt to explore the reasons for low sex ratio in India, its wide reaching consequences and how it affects sustainable development. Besides, author describes the importance of life skills education in accomplishing the goal of sustainable development.