Late-Night TV: India’s Latest Weapon Against Overpopulation
Posted by: Annika Harris
Filed in:
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12:30PM, Tuesday July 14th 2009
India has a rather novel idea to curb overpopulation—late-night TV! Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad wants the country to increase efforts to bring electricity to the country’s rural areas in the hopes that watching late-night TV will kill the libidos of this huge population and discourage procreation. “If there is electricity in every village, then people will watch TV till late at night and then fall asleep,” Azad argued. “When there is no electricity there is nothing else to do but produce babies.” India’s population grows about 1.6 percent annually and accounts for about 17 percent of the world population even though the country makes up only 3 percent of the Earth’s land. Azad said 80 percent of India’s population growth can be reduced by TV, which is a great medium to combat the problem. [Impact Lab]
Kudos to India for increasing its effort to bring electricity to rural areas (it’s only 2009, after all), but wouldn’t more conventional approaches like, you know, sex education and contraceptives, prove more effective in fighting overpopulation?
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Gorigrl
wrote on July 14 2009 @ 02:18 pm: [report]
Due to its landmass and great population as well as the fact that its only been independent since 1947, India is not as advanced as the western world. I have been to India and the people there are incredibly hard working. They may still be less advanced in the rural areas, but I found the comment”(it’s only 2009, after all)” a bit offensive and uppity. TV’s use as a method of birth control is a bit unconventional, but due to the fact that a large part of rural residents are illiterate a campaign sex education and contraceptives would be a waste of money and could possibly only make people feel as if their traditional values were being attacked. TV in India serves as a gateway to the rest of the world and somewhat more modern values. So TV could serve as a source of information as well as a distraction from babymaking, lol!
Glam
wrote on July 14 2009 @ 03:02 pm: [report]
@Gorigrl Yeah, dumbing-down a large population of illiterates, as you say, with TV is a great way to get them on par with the western world. Plus, all that’s necessary for sex ed. would be someone that speaks their language.
Annika Harris
wrote on July 14 2009 @ 03:04 pm: [report]
@Gorigrl I didn’t mean to offend you. My family comes from an island nation that didn’t have electricity in every home until ‘90s. However, I think the fact that bringing electricity to rural Indians hasn’t been a top priority of the government speaks volumes to me about how the underclass is still devalued.
ReptarGetsFriskyToo
wrote on July 14 2009 @ 03:17 pm: [report]
Well as an actual Indian person, who’s been to Indian on numerous occasions, using television is genius. Gorigrl pretty much hit the nail on the head.
It takes a lot more than a person who speaks the language to educate somebody. In rural areas nobody is going to listen to you if you talk about contraceptives/sex education. Though it is modernizing, sex is still taboo. Hell, some people even think Valentines is taboo.
And though Indian people seem hardworking, we are actually lazy. So watching the idiot box for entertainment instead of coaxing the wife after a long day in the fields will definitely be easier and less work, for the everyone, from the farmers to the government folk trying to limit the population.
Gorigrl
wrote on July 14 2009 @ 05:06 pm: [report]
@ReptarGetsFriskyToo, yeah I meant to mention the valentines thing & in regards to hardworking was supposed to be in reference to how the people have worked to develop and change the country , at least in the cities, very rapidly in the last 10 or so years. My friends over there, would love nothing more than to spend the day shopping, going to the movies and sleeping for half the day, lol!