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POPULATION PRIZES FROM U.N. ASSAILED
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By BERNARD D. NOSSITER, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: July 24, 1983
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Two $12,500 awards given by a United Nations population agency to
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India and to China's family Advertise on NYTimes.com
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planning chief have been denounced as a travesty by a United States
economist whom the agency enlisted as an adviser. MOST POPULAR

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The economist, Theodore W. Shultz of Chicago, said that the United Nations Fund for
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Population Activities had ignored the recommendations of private consultants and
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rewarded two nations that have used brutal methods to curb population growth. Mr.
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Shultz, a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, told the agency to
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remove his name from any material involving the prize. Syndrome
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In a letter to Rafael M. Salas, the Fund's executive director, Mr. Shultz said the awards 6. David Brooks: The Baucus Conundrum
would damage family planning programs. ''The harm was done by awarding the prize to a 7. 36 Hours in Berlin
public official in China where public policy is responsible for the appallingly high rate of 8. Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among
female infanticide and a prize to the head of state of India despite her cruel mandated Dropouts

sterlization,'' Mr. Shultz wrote. 9. Classical Music Review: Los Angeles Glows at
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Forced Sterilization
Slavery

During the emergency rule she imposed on India from 1975 to 1977, Mrs. Gandhi's Go to Complete List »

Government was accused of forcing men in villages to undergo sterilization. China, whose
family planning minister, Qian Xinzhong, received the other award, uses a system of
punishment for couples who have two or more children. Women carrying a second child
who refuse an abortion can lose 20 percent of their pay.

Mr. Shultz, in a telephone interview, said this policy had caused ''a large increase in female
infanticide.'' Mrs. Gandhi has said the charges against her were exaggerated, but they are
among the reasons given for her defeat in elections in 1977. The Chinese Government has
said female infanticide stems from a ''feudal mentality'' and that those who practice it
would be punished. 10 food poisoning risks
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Mr. Schultz said he was one of five advisers chosen by the United Nations Fund for Exploring the health benefits of pets
Population Activities to help a committee of diplomats who chose the winners of the prize.
He appeared at a meeting in New York last March after studying the files of about 80
nominees, he said. The diplomats, he said, announced they would only consider heads of
state or high officials for the prize, which is given for ''the most outstanding contribution
to the awareness of population questions.''

''None of the qualified nominees is a head of state or high public official,'' Mr. Shultz said
in the interview. ''The decision of the committee was totally self-serving. As state-
appointed members, they decided to court the favor of those to whom they are beholden
regardless of the excellent qualifications of other nominees.'' U.N. Defends Awards

Mr. Salas, the director of the United Nations Fund, defended the awards in a telephone
conversation from Tokyo. He female infanticide is outlawed in China and its ''official
policy is family planning.'' He said Mr. Schultz's charge that the harshness of this program
encourages killing of female children ''is an inference.''

Mr. Salas acknowledged there ''were such accusations'' of forced sterilization in India
under Mrs. Gandhi in the past, but added, ''There is no such complaint in India today.''
Mr. Salas said his committee had limited its consideration for this year's awards to ''public
statesmen,'' but he denied the judges had engaged in selfpromotion.

The chairman of the committee, Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, declined to

make any comment. The other diplomats who served as judges came from Australia,
Mexico, Yugoslavia, Japan, Egypt, Burundi, Colombia, China and Tunisia.

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