Delhi female births rise hailed

India's capital, Delhi, recorded more female than male births during 2008, for the first time in many decades. Latest government data shows for every 1,000 males, 1,004 girls were born in Delhi in 2008.

One of the main reasons for the earlier skewed male-female ratios was seen to be the greater number of abortions of female foetuses.

The news has been hailed as a gender revolution in a country that has been struggling to get the balance right. Delhi is now second only to the southern state of Kerala, which has the highest number of female births.



Now activists hope that those days have been consigned to history. They say that it is the news that they have been waiting for.

Although the government made scanning pregnant mothers to determine the sex of foetuses illegal, the practice continued.

Dr Dharm Prakash of the Indian Medical Association, which ran a campaign against aborting girl foetuses, welcomed the report. "The community has responded to our request that girls should be born," he said.