IT was once thought that fertility below a level could not be achieved without changes in the material conditions of the people.

Thanks to Keith Campbell [1], Dolly the wonder sheep has arrived in Scotland, at he modest price of $750,000. Mankind has been thus dragged yet nearer to the Huxleyean Brave New World.

In this report, we propose new measures of wanted and unwanted fertility based on actual and wanted parity progression ratios, and we apply these procedures to NFHS data for eight states in India.

There can be little doubt that the last two hundred years have seen advances in health which have seldom before been witnessed in human history.

In 1991, an article on the Maternity Care Program in Matlab, Bangladesh, reported a substantial decline in direct obstetric deaths in the intervention area, but not in the control area. The decline was attributed primarily to the posting of midwives at the village level.

On the World Population Day this year, there were two new features which are welcome: the first is the concern for environment in the context of population growth; and the second is the candid admission by the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare that we must get rid of the tyranny of fami

It is now common practice to infer the social status of women from their demographic characteristics. Yet it is not so easy to read through demographic progress, in terms of declines in mortality and fertility, to make unambiguous judgments about trends in women's social standing.

A number of recent studies [A] [D] have documented evidence to show that couples have a decided preference for a particular sex combination of children. For example, in many South Asian countries, including India, there is a strong preference for sons over daughters.

Population projections help in the formulation of policies directed towards meeting desired goals. Such projections cannot be considered as a one time event as new directions for policies and programs can emerge when the exercise is repeated.