While the world's major killer disease, smallpox, that used to claim millions of lives has been eliminated, the planet has been struck with a more dreaded disease, AIDS or Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome.

In India, under the influence of various socio-cultural factors, a large number of parents marry off their daughters during adolescence. [1] In many traditional and conservative societies, sex is still considered taboo and sexual matters are generally not discussed in the family.

In the last decade, several international and national movements have focused their attention, on the long neglected areas of women's reproductive health.

The Government of India has adopted the 1994 Cairo agenda with speed and commitment at the highest level, recognising that improving reproductive health, including family planning, is essential to the development of the family welfare programme.

Inter-spouse communication, though not a new dimension of fertility and family planning research, has remained much less explored in the Indian context than any other correlate of contraceptive use and current fertility.

Following the International Population and Development Conference in Cairo, there is widespread consensus in the international community that family planning programs must be people-centered, and further, that family planning programs should focus not just on contraception per se,but on the repro

The success of a good planning strategy for the overall development of any society (population) depends upon two main factors.

India has an extensive network of hospitals and health centres with a large field staff in the government sector, which has been providing primary health care. Of late this infrastructure has been effective in delivering immunization services to the community.

A major challenge under the new RCH approach is operationalising the paradigm shift to a comprehensive and integrated program into reality.

The number of maternal deaths that take place every day in India exceeds the total number of such deaths that occurs in all developed countries in a month.