Gender discrimination in the employment sector is enduring, an overwhelming majority of women working within the boundaries of informal sectors.

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)

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.

About one quarter of India's population comprises girl children up to the age of 19 years. Today's girl is tomorrow's mother. However, she is discriminated socially, psychologically, economically and in violation of the law.

How does one analytically locate the social phenomenon manifested in India during the last few years since the advent of sex-selection technology in the mid- 70s?