Mother-in-laws can change the game, says Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's special insight on International Women's Day was to stress on the role that mother-in-laws can play in protecting the girl child.

"A mother-in-law can make a lot of difference. If she says she wants a daughter in the house, then no one will be able to hassle a daughter," he said.

The prime minister was speaking at a ceremony om Rajasthan's Jhunjhunu district to expand the 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' (BBBP) programme from the existing 161 districts to 640 districts all over the country.

At the event, he spoke about the power of women and distributed certificates to the best-performing districts under BBBP.

Modi also launched the National Nutrition Mission (NNM), which was followed by the launch of NNMICDS Common Application Software.

The mission strives to reduce poor nutrition and low birth weight, bring down anaemia among young children, women and adolescent girls and to reduce the prevalence of stunting among children.

In his speech, the prime minister also showed concern for the girls in Haryana, a state where the sex ration is skewed.

However, he said, there was some consolation that even though the situation is still quite bad, significant improvement has been noted.

Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi, who was also present during the launch, said that a "historic" bill would be introduced in Parliament to check trafficking of women and children.

Modi also honoured the district administrations of Sikar and Jhunjhunu for improving the sex-ratio.

Jhunjhunu was slumming it at the bottom of the list when it came to sex ratio.

Before the BBBP campaign, the sex ratio in the district was alarming. In 2011, there were only 848 females for 1,000 males, which fortunately has gone up further to 952:1000, he said.

The prime minister's visit assumes significance as the state is going to Assembly polls seven months from now, and with a miserable victory in the by-polls just a month ago, the prospects do not look too great.

Earlier in the day, the prime minister also held a public rally with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, where he interacted with women and girls who have benefited from BBBP.