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

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

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

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