With the increase in the urbanization and industrialization, the concept of family in India, which once was to create and maintain a common culture among the members of the family, is undergoing changes.

The Indian family welfare program seeks to promote the two-child norm by offering couples the opportunity to choose voluntarily the family planning method best suited to their needs.

The traditional theory of demographic transition developed by Professor F.W. Notestein and his colleagues has occupied the center stage in the demographic literature for quite a long time. This theory was developed on the basis of the demographic experience of the developed world.

Over the past couple of decades, if not more, Kerala, a state in southern India, has drawn both international and national attention for its achievements in demographic transition with fertility reaching below replacement level and under 5 mortality comparing with most of the developed countries.

Reproductive health services thus imply the enabling of individuals, both males and females, to decide freely and responsibly, the number, spacing and timing of their children. For this they must have the information and the means to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health.

Highlighted by sensational titles such as "The endangered sex" (Miller, 1981) or "More than 100 million women are missing" (Sen, 1992), studies have long drawn attention to the unfavourable life chances of females versus males in various parts of East and South Asia.

India is a signatory to the Alma Ata declaration and has committed herself to achieving "Health for All by the Year 2000". Since then, a lot of planning, effort and public expenditure has been devoted to improving the health of the people both in rural and urban areas of the country.

Kipling was paying tribute to the Vicereine who established the Fund associated with her name. This was an organisation which employed medical women (or 'lady doctors') to run a chain of hospitals and dispensaries all over India and Burma.

In l995, nurses and doctors in many of the public maternity ward in the state of Tamil Nadu in India were routinely inserting IUDs immediately following childbirth and abortions, as part of the target-orientated family, planning policy.

While talking about law and homosexuality, I am reminded of a story of a washerman and his donkey. The donkey refused to move with the heavy bundle of clothes on his back from his house to the pond. The washerman nailed a carrot to a stick, which was tied in front of the animal's mouth.