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India says Late-Night TV & Guns will Help Slow Birth Rate - Times Online »

Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Health and Family Welfare Minister, has called for the country to redouble its efforts to bring electricity to all of its huge rural population.
The introduction of the electric light and television sets to those vast areas that still did not have them would discourage procreation, he argued.
“If there is electricity in every village, then people will watch TV till late at night and then fall asleep. They won’t get a chance to produce children,” Mr Azad said. “When there is no electricity there is nothing else to do but produce babies.”
He added: “Don’t think that I am saying this in a lighter vein. I am serious. TV will have a great impact. It’s a great medium to tackle the problem … 80 per cent of population growth can be reduced through TV.”
India’s population is expected to exceed that of China in the next 20 years and experts are warning of violent internal conflicts over resources unless urgent action is taken.
With hardline policies such as China’s one-child-per-couple mandate ruled out as politically inexpedient in the world’s largest democracy, the question of how to cap the population explosion has encouraged lateral thinking. In the Shivpuri district of the central state of Madhya Pradesh, an area known for its machismo culture, authorities offer fast-tracked gun licences to men who have vasectomies.
Mr Azad has also suggested incentives to encourage people to wait until they are in their 30s before marrying. Such a plan would shake up cultural norms in a country where child marriages, a key factor behind high birth rates, remain common.
The minister called on India’s television channels to provide high-quality programmes, arguing that enticing content would offer alternative late-night entertainment.