22 Dec, 2024
| 23- October-1970 | If India's "vasectomy fairs" had hawkers, they might cry, "Come one, come all & all one billion." India faces a population of one billion by the year 2000. To hold down that number, the government offered money ($13 to each man) and gifts (a sari for his wife) to those willing to be sterilized. Thirteen dollars was more than three times what an average village worker can earn in one month. In December, a fair held at Kerala attracted 15,000 men. Just seven months later, a fair in the same town received 63,000. Doctors operated in ten-hour shifts. |
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