PUNITIVE POPULATION NORM MUSTN'T SHAPE DISASTROUS CHOICES

IN Madhya Pradesh, a forest recently became the unlikely refuge for a three-day-old infant, abandoned beneath a stone by his own parents.

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His parents were neither poor nor uneducated both were government school teachers. Their fear was not of poverty, but of losing their jobs for having a fourth child. The incident stems from Madhya Pradesh's twochild rule for government employees, enforced from January 26, 2001, which disqualifies staff with more than two children. In 2022 alone, 954 teachers in Vidisha district received notices for violating this law. This is not an isolated policy.