Like it or not, my cultural mores were formed by Star Trek, and 80s sitcoms. It's what I think of as normal... watch some Japanese movies/drama and you'll see completely different and changing mores. Interestingly, for the last several years all of Asia seems to be watching Korean drama.
I think this is referring to the "recognition" process, where if a kid is born out of marriage, the parents have to recognize it as their own to have the full legal attachments.
This means for instance that a father can refuse to recognize a kid, and won't have any legal obligation if no action is taken by the mother or the kid. Technically it's the same for the mother, but most of the time she has to recognize the kid for obvious reasons.
Article's statement should be qualified, as parents can voluntarily recognize their child (this will happen for normal non wed parents), or be forced to do so by the family (they needs to go through legal procedures though). Marriage doesn't matter that much in this case, it's just easier socialy speaking.
But the western culture does have an impact, for the past couple of decades or so. While it is the norm, people have now started accepting deviations from the tradition.
The time's not far when the western ideologies will become the new "normal" in India.
