In the recent assembly elections, we were once again inundated with information about how much of a difference the women’s vote made to the outcome.

It was the tragic death by suicide that has laid bare the daily trauma of the three sisters from a landless household married to an affluent family with demands for dowry from impoverished parents.

With the increase in the urbanization and industrialization, the concept of family in India, which once was to create and maintain a common culture among the members of the family, is undergoing changes.

In 1978, the Bangladesh family planning program launched a national program of outreach services that continues to the present. Young married women were hired and trained to visit women in their homes, offer contraceptive services, provide information, and support sustained use over time.

Inter-spouse communication, though not a new dimension of fertility and family planning research, has remained much less explored in the Indian context than any other correlate of contraceptive use and current fertility.

High family size desire and low acceptance of family planning constitute, the two main factors underlying the high fertility of the Indian population. Excessive loss of children in early childhood in rural areas is considered to be contributory to both of the above factors.

India's efforts to promote family planning have produced a significant increase in the couple protection rate (CPR) which has increased by about 33 percent during the last 22 years-from 10.4 percent in 1970 to 43.5 in 1992.

The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (PWDVA) is an Indian law enacted to safeguard women from domestic violence within familial or domestic relationships.

The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, is an Indian law enacted to prevent and punish the practice of sati, where a widow immolates herself on her husband's funeral pyre.

The search for explanations for the high rate of fertility in India has led many to theorize the link between poverty and fertility. Several micro-studies have affirmed the hypothesis of positive association between poverty and fertility.