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In much of India, parents pray for a male child. Daughters are seen as a burden and the killing of female foetuses is widespread.

But in the country's remote north eastern state of Meghalaya, the situation is very different.

Here the local Khasi and Jaintia tribesmen value their daughters who inherit all their ancestral property.

Much of the property goes to the Ka Khadduh - the youngest daughter - who becomes the centre of attraction.

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In Meghalaya, the sons get nothing.

But Meghalaya men who have travelled to other parts of India and seen how the males dominate there are beginning to resent their role back home.

"We have been reduced to baby-sitters or housekeepers. We have no role in our society except fathering babies," says Enoch Kharkhongor, a shopkeeper in the state's capital Shillong, now in his mid-twenties.

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Residents say Meghalaya's matrilineal society is already being challenged.

The influence of the rest of India and its culture, carried through Bollywood films, is all beginning to have an effect.

"These Hindi films, full of women-beating, dowry fights and all that, are affecting our values. Our males are getting upset," says Roshan Wajri, a former woman legislator of the state assembly.

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"We have been reduced to baby-sitters or housekeepers. We have no role in our society except fathering babies," says Enoch Kharkhongor, a shopkeeper in the state's capital Shillong, now in his mid-twenties.

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