Electricity in our villages can help control population growth. Electricity will lead to television in houses, which will lead to population control. When there is no light, people get engaged in the process of population growth.
That comment courtesy our Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad. Who was the bloke who once said man is the only animal that elects someone less capable to lead him?
The quote courtesy Amit Varma, who has more by way of comment.
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Ghulam Nabi Azad has conveniently ignored that too much of late night movies and mid night masala (you will know what this is if you had watched Sun TV) may have the opposite effect. 🙂
I wonder why there’s so much of affront taken at this comment. Truth of the matter is that value of entertainment in urban areas is grossly under-rated due to the sheer amounts of it available – malls, tv, libraries, parks, movie halls, plays, concerts, language classes and what have you. I have been to villages where there’s absolutely nothing for the villagers to do once work is done except to gossip around or, as Azad says, copulate. It is a problem that is present and real!
No one took affront. Bemusement is more like it. Electricity for villages is a sine qua non — what is breathtaking however is that in the minister’s mind, that is not a path to progress, but to population control. Incidentally, he — and you — might be interested in recent census figures: birth rates are higher in the small towns and cities, all of them electrified, than in the villages.
Years back Natwar Singh had said the same thing when he was a minister. Prem, did Azad imply that electricity is necessary only for population control, or that population control is easier done when there is electricity in the villages? It seems to me two noble goals can be achieved at the same time.
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