Bengaluru: On world mental health day on Sunday, Karnataka minister for health Dr K Sudhakar made a curious statement saying that modern Indian women want to stay single and are unwilling to give birth to children.
Terming it as a paradigm shift which is "not good", Dr Sudhakar went on to add that Indian women are unwilling to give birth even after marriage and desire children by surrogacy. He blamed “western influence” on Indian society and added that youngsters do not want their parents to live with them anymore.
"Today, I am sorry to say this, lots of modern women in India want to stay single. Even if they get married, they don't want to give birth. They want surrogacy. So there is a paradigm shift in our thinking, which is not good," he said during the World Mental Health Day at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS) here, according to PTI.
A medical doctor himself, Sudhakar said "Unfortunately, today we are going in a western way. We don't want our parents to live with us, forget about grandparents being with us."
On the issue of mental health in India, the minister said every seventh Indian has some kind of mental issue, adding, stress management is an art and Indians can fall back on tools of yoga and meditation taught by our ancestors.
"Stress management is an art. This art we need not learn as Indians. We need to preach to the world how to handle stress, because yoga, meditation and Pranayama are the wonderful tools which our ancestors had taught the world thousands of years back," he said.
About Covid-19 and mental health, Sudhakar said the relatives were not able to touch the bodies of their near and dear ones, which caused them mental agony.
"The pandemic made the government start counselling Covid patients. Till date we have counselled 24 lakh Covid patients in Karnataka. I don't know any other state which has done this," Sudhakar said.
He hailed the union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving 94 crore vaccines till date since the launch of vaccination drive as the country undertook the Herculean task of vaccinating the entire population free of cost.
"We are the only country which is offering vaccines free of cost. Elsewhere, people are made to pay between Rs 1,500 to Rs 4,000 per vaccine," he added.
