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Vanangana, a women’s group, recently organised a campaign against domestic violence in Banda district in Uttar Pradesh. To provoke the women themselves to break their silence on this issue. Vanangana, in 30 villages, performed a play based on a real incident and followed it up with discussions.

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.

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.

The women's movement in India launched campaigns against rape, domestic violence, sexism in advertisements as well as against state repression during caste and communal riots in the early eighties.

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?