Hoardings put up by the traffic police at prominent places along Bangalore’s traffic-congested road exhort reckless drivers to go slow. Grim statistics loom over traffic snarls – 704 men and women died in traffic accidents in the city in 1997, 726 in 1998 and 168 until June 1999.

The Indian family welfare program seeks to promote the two-child norm by offering couples the opportunity to choose voluntarily the family planning method best suited to their needs.

India is a signatory to the Alma Ata declaration and has committed herself to achieving "Health for All by the Year 2000". Since then, a lot of planning, effort and public expenditure has been devoted to improving the health of the people both in rural and urban areas of the country.

From time to time, Indian demographers have advocated that the age at marriage of girls be raised so as to reduce the reproductive span of women, and thereby, bring down the birth rate.

Literature is replete with images of the reproductive profligacy of the poor in India. In much popular nderstanding, this is frequently adduced as the cause of the poverty of the poor and indeed of the country.

While the world's major killer disease, smallpox, that used to claim millions of lives has been eliminated, the planet has been struck with a more dreaded disease, AIDS or Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome.