A top health bureaucrat in Gujarat has suggested working on designer babies who can grow up to be Nobel laureates and help “change the world”, The Indian Express reported on Sunday.
“...we should work on the gyanendriya [sense organs] and karmendriya [organs of actions] of as many children as possible,” Jayanti Ravi, Gujarat’s health commissioner, said on Saturday. “It could be in the form of music, texture, touch or smell.”
She added, “It will make our babies develop fabulous neural networks. We can have designer babies who will grow up to be Nobel laureates, creative thinkers and can truly change the world.”
Speaking at an event, Ravi said, “I have over the years realised that it is very important to nourish the baby within you before it is born...with a lot of nourishment which is not just food for the belly, but a lot of stimuli for the brain.”
In May, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had said its Garbh Vigyan Sanskar project planned to deliver “customised” babies for parents, that were smarter, taller and fairer. “Our main objective is to make a samarth Bharat [strong India] through uttam santati [perfect offspring]. Our target is to have thousands of such babies by 2020,” a project official had told The Indian Express.
Top office-bearers had then said the project was launched in Gujarat over a decade ago, and was taken up at the national level in 2015.
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