Indian Literacy rate is up; life expectancy is up; family size is stabilizing. These are the heartening news from the recently concluded Census of India. But there is one grim exception- India’s already skewed infant sex ratio is getting worse. The sex-ratio is most distorted in the states of the northern Gangetic Plain, such as Punjab. Haryana, West Bengal, remains the direst of all, with only 830 girls per 1,000 boys. More worrying, places that used not to discriminate in favour of sons, such as the poorer central and north-eastern states, have begun to do so. The new census showed a worsening sex ratio in all but eight of India’s 35 states and territories (though those eight include some of the most extreme examples, for instance, Punjab). Female literacy, improving general health care, improving female employment rates are slowly redefining motherhood from childbearing to child rearing-an indication that the country has reached a point of inflection. The daughter deficit will create a society that is much less stable and much more volatile than it would be with a more balanced ratio. But the continued disappearance of India's women and girls is putting the future of India's security partnership with the West at risk. The sustainability of peace and stability - for India and the region - will be progressively undermined in lockstep with the devaluation of India's daughters.