The celebration drew large crowds, and social activist Anant Ingle said it challenged the narrow attitudes that still surround the birth of girls in parts of Indian society.

Beed’s child sex ratio – the number of girls per 1,000 boys aged 0‑6 – fell from 894 in the 2001 census to roughly 800 a decade later, the steepest decline of any district in Maharashtra.

Prenatal sex determination has been illegal across India under the PC‑PNDT Act since 1994, yet the spread of ultrasound technology since the 1980s has produced what demographers call the country’s “missing girls.”

The UNFPA’s 2020 State of World Population report estimated that India has 45.8 million missing females, the second‑largest total worldwide, and that about 460,000 girls were missing at birth each year between 2013 and 2017.

Recent surveys show India’s sex ratio at birth at 929 girls per 1,000 boys in the National Family Health Survey and 933 in the 2023 Sample Registration System, both below the natural range of 950‑970.

Campaigns such as the Lek Laadki Abhiyan, founded by advocate Varsha Deshpande – a 2025 United Nations Population Award winner – target illegal sex‑determination clinics in districts like Beed, trying to curb the cultural preference for sons.