JOIN US The man behind the ‘Selfie with Daughter’ initiative on Saturday said although PM Narendra Modi’s praise was encouraging, but more work needed to be done in Haryana to give impetus to the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ campaign.
The efforts of Sunil Jaglan, the village head of Bibipur in Jind district of Haryana, whose efforts were praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech at the UK’s Wembley Stadium. He had launched the ‘Selfie with Daughter’ campaign in June this year.
Jaglan said in Haryana, the state with the lowest sex-rate ratio and even at the Central level, an independent department should be set up to monitor and ensure effective implementation of campaign for the girl child.
“Modiji repeatedly talking about this initiative at world level is helping infuse and provide more encouragement to what I am doing back in Haryana,” Jaglan said. “At various platforms, our prime minister is repeatedly talking about how ‘Selfie with Daughters’ has become a worldwide movement. In January, the PM launched ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao’, a nationwide campaign, from Panipat in Haryana.
“Despite the fact that it is Modi’s pet initiative, the Beti Bachao campaign is not getting that impetus in Haryana. I feel the state needs to do much more..,” he said.
He said though on particular days, the government organises functions in connection with the campaign, “more work needs to be done on ground level. I feel more activities related to the campaign should be taking place at village level”.
“As Women and Child Development Department (nodal department for implementation of Beti Bachao campaign) is already burdened with other things, I strongly feel that there should be an independent department to deal with this. There should be a team which will work on this round the year,” he said.
He said Bollywood actor Parineeti Chopra, who was in July appointed as the brand ambassador of Beti Bachao campaign in Haryana, should be asked to take an active part. “After an event at Gurgaon in July in connection with the campaign, she has not visited the state after that,” Jaglan said.
The village head also said that a chapter on female foeticide and related topics should be made part of the school curriculum and taught to children, ideally from Classes VI to VII.
Jaglan said he is writing a book on ‘Selfie with Daughters’, which will deal with a gamut of issues pertaining to problems which arise due to gender imbalance and specifically talks about Haryana.
Modi, who was addressing an Indian-origin gathering at Wembley Stadium in Lon
don on Friday night, described the 'Selfie with Daughter' campaign as an "international movement".