Almost ten years ago, Jyoti Singh’s brutal gangrape and murder in the heart of New Delhi in December 2012 received an inordinate amount of media attention and coverag

The sad truth is that society in general tends to judge the rape victim, not the rapists. It is she who has to hide her face in shame, not the criminals. And those who are shocked by it believe rape is a closet issue best kept locked in the social cupboard.

Sexual abuse of children is an issue shrouded in ignorance and denial in our country. One of the chief reasons for this conspiracy of silence is the high value, almost idealization, of the family.

Demographic literature is replete with observations of an inverse relation between certain attributes of modernity and family size (Thompson 1929; Notestein 1945; Coale and Hoover 1958; Leiberman 1980, Srinivasan 1986).