Twitter celebrates Daughter’s Week after Maneka Gandhi started Online Campaign ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’

• India celebrated August 11 as Daughter's Day and that entire week as Daughters' Week as part of government's 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao'
• Maneka Gandhi tweeted a photograph with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter to kick-off the campaign
• She believes that the campaign will help in the improvement of the society and will encourage people to send their daughters to school

August 17, 2016: India celebrated August 11 as Daughter's Day and that entire week as Daughters' Week as part of government's 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' (Save daughter, educate daughter) programme to check female feticide, improve sex ratio and educate girls across the country. The social media campaign to celebrate daughters, daughters-in-law and granddaughters was started by Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on August 8.

Maneka Gandhi tweeted a photograph with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter to kick-off the campaign. She also invited people to tweet their pictures with their daughters-in-law and grand-daughters with #BBPDaughtersWeek. There was an overwhelming response by the people and Mrs. Gandhi re-tweeted dozens of photos sent to her.

"We are asking people to celebrate the young women and girls in their lives. The time has come to celebrate women. Women are doing much better now, there's more confidence in them. We want to spread the message that the girl child should be valued," said Mrs Gandhi to BBC.

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The statement from the ministry said, "This opportunity is being used by the Ministry to engage citizens to celebrate the young women and girls in their lives, and spread the message of valuing the girl child."

In India, sons are generally viewed as assets as they later become the breadwinners of the family, while daughters are seen as a liability. Sons are also preferred as they carry on the family name, and perform the last rites for their parents, which is an important ritual in many faiths. With the patriarchal attitude deeply ingrained in Indian society, parents run tests to determine the gender of an unborn child, and female feticide remains a common practice in parts of India.

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Mrs. Gandhi believes that campaigns aimed at removing the concept of female feticide and levelling the sex ratio in the country will help in the improvement of the society and will encourage people to send their daughters to school.

Mrs. Gandhi also explains why her campaign singled out daughters, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters. The division was to raise the voices of those Daughters who were denied the right to live, to remind people to treat Daughters-in-laws with love and affection and to appeal to the grandmothers to let the girl child live.

– prepared by Ajay Krishna of NewsGram. Twitter: @ajkrish14

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