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.

DEVELOPMENT is about protection of human rights of the concerned populations. It pre-supposes active participation of the populace in the decisionmaking processes while social justice remains one of the most important and cherished goals of development.

In recent years there has been a growing concern in many countries, including India, that public health and family planning programs have placed insufficient emphasis on the quality of their services (Ickis 1992; Khan et al. 1994; Mensch 1993; Miller et al. 1991).

Analysis of three years of data from a malaria clinic operated by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in the Government Medical College Hospital in Jabalpur, central India, showed a high malaria prevalence among pregnant women, which was statistically highly significant (P <0.0001) c