Throwing Babies From Roof Tradition - as part of the news and politics series by GeoBeats.

The sight of a toddler getting dropped from a fifty-foot tower would be mortifying to anyone. For a village in India, the sight is part of a long-practiced ritual.

Claiming this makes the baby strong, villages have observed this shocking tradition for nearly 500 years.

Of course, the falling toddlers are awaited by a sprawling bed sheet that acts as a trampoline of sorts, then are quickly passed to their mothers.

As repulsive as this may seem, historically there have been worse customs. One such tradition was accurately depicted in movie 300 which involves discarding unfit newborns.

Even today, some tribes in Amazon practice burying newborns if they are found to have any defects.

In Papua New Guinea, there are tribes that inflict cuts on their young as they believe that the experiences turns them into men.

Although the practice of baby dropping is only limited to a small area in India, it has caused controversy and there are calls by many to ban it. But some argue that every culture, no matter how small, reserves the right to perform rituals.

What do you think - should the governments outlaw such rituals? Where is the line between government control and cultural freedom?