This was on Monday. I missed it, due to football commitments (playing, not watching). However I will be watching it again thanks to BBC's watch back service here.
The documentary investigates how female foetuses are aborted regularly in India. Sex determination tests are illegal in India for this reason.
Worse than abortion is girl babies being buried alive or thrown away. It's a side of India that we don't hear in the 'India is Shining', 'Incredible India', image that's projected, here there and everywhere. This practise goes on in feudal, rural India (where 70% of its 1 billion population live) - it includes a family who buried their seventh daughter alive as they couldn't afford the dowry for her wedding (a year's wages). Shocking but true. Yet it's also present in educated middle class and upper class India, as India's Missing Girls highlights. Which is arguably more shocking.
So despite India's cities looking more and more like mega-malls the reality for the majority ithe country is very different. And that also goes for any of this newfound middle class money filtering through to the villages and those that live on less than $1 a week.
Respect to the documentary maker Ashok Prasad, a friend, who's finding it increasingly difficult to make programmes like this because the climate's geared towards reality TV shite. God help us.
