Nominated by the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Droupadi Murmu, 64, received 64.03% votes in the presidential electoral college, which comprises parliamentarians and state legislators.

While it is laudable that the Indian government has made the effort to initiate a holistic reproductive health programme, its failure to address issues of sexuality that arise in this context is puzzling.

There is a need to document women's perceptions regarding the quality of their health care, including abortion services, since most studies to date have approached this issue from the viewpoint of service providers, policymakers, or the state (Jesani and Iyer 1995).

The high female infant mortality rates (Miller, 1985); the practice of female infanticide (Krishnaswamy, 1988); the neglect of female children with regard to access to health services, nutrition, (Sen and Sengupta, 1983 and education (Mankekar, 1985); and the sexual abuse of girls (Bhalerao, 1985

We use data from the 1981 and 1991 censuses of India to examine (a) sex ratios among infants aged under 2, (b) child mortality (q5) by sex, and (c) estimated period sex ratios at birth (SRB) calculated by reverse survival methods, to see whether bias against female children pers

Women use images of earthen pots breaking, flowers or fruits falling, to symbolize the loss of pregnancy. kachha ghada phoota (UP Rajasthan), phool jhade ( Madhya Pradesh), kaacho padi gayo (Rajasthan), garbha-alasyam (Kerala) are some of the terms used to describe miscarriages.

This essay advocates a reproductive health care strategy, to revitalize the country's family welfare program. A major shift in focus is needed in the population policy and programs in order to incorporate a gender-sensitive

India can take legitimate pride that it was one of the earliest nations to introduce a population policy, yet fertility control remains a most contentious problem of electoral politics of India in the 1990s.

The issues of equality of access to health care has two related questions - access whom and access to what? They seem to have a simple answer: there should be access to health care services for anyone in need of it.