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.

Legal reforms have been at the centre of the agenda for strategizing gender justice in India. This has been so, right from the time of nine-teenth century social reforms movements, through the period of nationalist struggles, down to the contemporary women's movement.

This paper discusses contraceptive use and discontinuation among women in north Vietnam, in the context of a strong culture preference for sons and a stringent two-child population policy. Among a random sample of 1432 married women aged 15-49 in a rural province in north Vietnam in l994, nearly

In the absence of a basic questioning of women's status and role in society, birth control, abortions-and even maternal health care end up merely replacing an old set of traditions with new ones.

Health is a major issue in the women's movement, along with the struggle for justice, dignity and equality.

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.

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994 reiterated the need for appropriate health care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and produce a healthy infant.

Should we fear the destruction of our culture because a 30-year-old woman from Chandigarh plans to `rent' her womb?

This idea underlies traditional care during pregnancy. It may be true that in pregnancy a woman has more access to food and other things. But, communities have ways to oversee foetal growth and development. They subject women to restrictions and recommendations regarding diet and activities.

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.