In recent years there has been a growing concern in many countries, including India, that public health and family planning programs have placed insufficient emphasis on the quality of their services (Ickis 1992; Khan et al. 1994; Mensch 1993; Miller et al. 1991).

Sterilization for men and women is the most commonly used contraceptive method both in India at large and in Uttar Pradesh.

Long after you have driven away from the cluster of villages around the Usilampatti belt of Madurai, the images of bright-coloured hair ribbons, fragrant jasmine flowers in neatly combed hair, deep vermillion bindis on the forehead and the silver anklets worn by little girls with sparkling, wide,

Sterilization is the most popular method of contraception in India. The 1992-93 National Family Health Survey found that of the 36.2 percent of eligible couples using any modern method, most (30.7 percent) had been sterilized and only 5.5 percent were using temporary methods (IIPS 1995).

The notion of quality in the public health system is becoming increasingly an issue for policymakers and planners in India. The Eighth Five-Year Plan identified the poor quality of family welfare services as one of the factors

Infanticide has been practiced in all continents, but little dependable primary data exist on this subject. Presented here are the findings on female infanticide for a rural, south Indian population.

It was in 1991, when we were invited to a dialogue on female infanticide by the then Minister for Social Welfare of Tamil Nadu, shortly after the publication of a study on the subject by Aditi, that the Foundation* began its involvement with the issue.

Consequent upon the publication of the 1991 census preliminary results, one of the widely debated issues in India has been the declining sex ratio (defined as the number of females per 1000 males) in the country.

Violence is a state, of exploitation, discrimination, upholding of unequal economic and social structures, the creation of an atmosphere of terror, threat or reprisal and forms of religio-cultural and political violence [1] It can be perpetrated by those in power against the powerless or by the p

While talking about law and homosexuality, I am reminded of a story of a washerman and his donkey. The donkey refused to move with the heavy bundle of clothes on his back from his house to the pond. The washerman nailed a carrot to a stick, which was tied in front of the animal's mouth.