The stark white room is echoing with dreams. "I want to become a doctor... I am engineer... I want to become a nun... (this evokes a riot of laughter) I want to become a dress designer... My dream is to become a social worker ....

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.

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

This report examines the linkages between wife-beating and one health-related consequence for women, their experience of fetal and infant mortality.

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

The British first discovered female infanticide in India in 1789. Jonathan Duncan, then the resident in Benares province was asked by the Bengal council to settle the revenues in the province acquired by the raja of Benares.

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.

A society is judged by the way it treats its women and children. So is a judicial system. Nothing is more horrifying than the sexual abuse of a child: nothing more reprehensible than a judicial system that subsequently victimises the victim, police behaviour that adds terror to agony.