-The Hindu
Alarmed over the declining child sex ratio across the country, the Union government has set up a Sectoral Innovation Council to look into the entire gamut of issues connected with the sharp drop in the number of girls per thousand boys in the ages of 0-6.
The council will identify interventions that have worked and those which did not and also suggest innovative strategies, approaches and methods of interference to address the problem in a time-bound and effective manner.
The Census 2011 has shown a sharp decline in the child sex ratio, compared to the previous census. It has declined to 914 in 2011 from 927 in 2001 and has been continuing unabated since 1961 despite improvements in other social indicators such as literacy, gender gap in effective literacy rate, and the overall sex ratio. The decline in the child sex ratio has spread to 22 States and 5 Union Territories, with the highest decline in Jammu and Kashmir.