India: Television Could Help Slow Population Growth

Indian Health Minister C.P. Thakur recently announced an oddball effort to reduce population growth in India — make televisions cheaper.

Apparently Thakur believes that the only reason Indians are having sex is because they don’t have anything else to do. If they were able to watch television, on the other hand, they might have sex less (I’m not making this up.)

The Times of India quoted Thakur as saying, “Entertainment is an important component of the population policy. We want people to watch television.”

Of course if Indian television is as lousy as American television, cheap TVs could have the opposite effect. Regardless, access to cheap family planning will probably reduce family sizes in India a lot more than access to cheap televisions.

Source:

Turn off sex and turn on TV?. Reuters, August 30, 2001.