India, July 21 -- A father killing a daughter might appear shocking to some urban denizens of Delhi and the rest of the civilised world. Not to me, though. It is as routine as the everyday violence that girls and women in India face, as they do in many other countries across the world. Indeed, no country is free of gender violence.

India has just about begun to turn its back on a scourge that has haunted its girls for the past several decades - the sex selective abortion of female foetuses, a virulent form of son preference. Many thought this method of daughter killing was an improvement over female infanticide; it arguably absolved one of the guilt stemming from wilfully ending the life of a newborn child. Assisted by state-of-the-art d...