On a hot summer’s day in 1982, while walking through a jungle path in Bankura, West Bengal, anthropologist Naraya

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.

Undernourished women tend to deliver low birth weight babies (Karmer, 1987) and to have pregnancy complications (Baird, 1947). Perinatal mortality and prematurity rates were found to be high among short statured women (Barros, 1987).

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

Highlighted by sensational titles such as "The endangered sex" (Miller, 1981) or "More than 100 million women are missing" (Sen, 1992), studies have long drawn attention to the unfavourable life chances of females versus males in various parts of East and South Asia.

INDIA IS A VAST country with a population of more than 844 million. The tribal populations of India constitute a significant proportion of India's total population. There are more than 400 tribal population groups constituting

Though fertility is a biological phenomenon there are a number of other factors influencing the levels and differentials of fertility among tribals.

Though fertility is a biological phenomenon there are a number of other factors influencing the levels and differentials of fertility among tribals.