Women and girls in India have more than matched with men and boys and have contributed significantly to economic growth and social upliftment of the country. The just-released data from the Indian 2011 census has refocused the world’s attention on the dark side of India’s demographic change a low and falling ratio of girls to boys. For the last 40 years, each successive census has found the number of young girls shrinking relative to boys. Even though women and girls are stepping out of the traditional occupation of agriculture and are marching ahead in the service sector, manufacturing and I.T. industry, they continue to maintain their hold on traditional arts and crafts. Amusingly, the deterioration in the child sex ratio has occurred in spite of rising living standards and improvements in every other indicator of human development such as average life expectancy, infant mortality, male and female literacy, fertility rate, and schooling enrollment of children. 

Keywords :Economic growth;Social upliftment;Demographic change; Infant mortality; Literacy