This year, approximately 113 baby boys are born in China for every 100 baby girls; 112 boys per 100 girls in India, 111 in Vietnam. The looming social crisis stemming from the significant gender imbalance in the countries of East and Southeast Asia has been in the media spotlight for a long time.

Anyone who has seen an old American classic “Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) probably remembers the scene where one of the protagonists, Al Stephenson, a banker who just returned from the war in the Pacific, tells his incredulous colleagues: “Our bank is alive. It’s generous.

It’s Good Friday (well, chronologically second, orthodox installment of it anyway) and more econolinks are on the way.