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Are GE's portable foetus detection machines
aiding
foeticide in Punjab?
For Punjab, which has had the
shameful distinction of reporting a very low sex ratio in the 2001
census, and the worst coming from the holy city of Fatehgarh Sahib,
a recent report in the Washington Times should be an eye opener.
In 1990, the giant American multinational General Electric teamed up
with Wipro Ltd., a Bangalore software provider, to manufacture and
distribute a low-cost ultrasound machine. By 2000, according to
www.gehealthcare.com , Wipro-GE had shipped out 6,500 of the machines
in India. Wipro's Web site, www.wiprocorporate.com , claims it
pioneered the manufacture of ultrasound equipment for India. The
Washington Times story reports that the GE's latest portable machine
is the Logiq 100 model. This at a time when Indian activists who
oppose the widespread abortion of female fetuses say GE is among a
handful of companies that manufacture the machines for the Indian
market.
Many doctors operating ultrasound machines do not register these
machines. Only 25,770 machines have been officially registered while
the actual number of machines is estimated at anywhere from 70,000 —
by the London Daily Mail — to 100,000, according to the British
Medical Journal. The portable ones end up in rural areas, where
technology makes it possible for any woman to determine the sex of
her child. The fetus can then be terminated at a government
hospital, where abortions, like other procedures, are free for those
who cannot pay.
The Post reported an activist as saying that Wipro-GE especially
targets smaller towns with the help of cheap credit provided by GE
Capital Services India. In the United States, ultrasound is used to
protect the fetus. In India, it is used to destroy it. Now, female
feticide is a $100 million industry.
The Post story also said a University of Bombay study done about the
same time by professor R.P. Ravindra showed that out of 1,000 cases
in Bombay, he could not find a single case of a male fetus being
aborted.
21 March, 2007
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