"Have More Children," Chandrababu Naidu's Bizarre Advice For Andhra
AMARAVATI, Jan 25: In a country where the government has for long advocated "Hum Do Hamare Do" -- the slogan aimed at reinforcing the message of family planning -- Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu appealed to the people of his state to have more children, or at least take the responsibility to give birth to at least one child.
Mr Naidu, who is the chief of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh, said it is necessary to create awareness to encourage people to have more children.
"These days youngsters don't want to marry. Even if they agree to marry, they don't want to have children. That is a dangerous trend,'' he said and added that India's pride is its family system and we need to safeguard it.
"We have to say it again and again and make people aware," the TDP chief said in Amaravati today.
There was a time when Andhra Pradesh had surprised the country by successfully implementing the family planning programme when in just 10 years, the fertility rate, or TFR as it is called, was halved.
This is not the first time Mr Naidu is advising people of his state to have more children. He had suggested this in 2015 as well.
Addressing a self-help group of women, Mr Naidu said that "China, Japan and many countries in Europe are facing the problem of no population growth".
"Right now, India is in a comfortable position, but it can become a problem in the future as birth rate is lower than the death rate nowadays," the Andhra leader claimed.
Mr Naidu pointed out that earlier, those with more than two children were barred from contesting the panchayat elections in the state but "now we want to encourage people to have more children".
"So we have taken a policy decision that even if you have four children, it is okay", he added.
Courtesy: www.ndtv.com
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
