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.

While a couple, and more specifically women must have access to knowledge and services to regulate fertility, this right is distinctly different from the objectives of the policies of population control.

In 1931, the Fundamental Rights Resolution passed by the Indian National Congress adopted gender equality as a guiding principle.

Following the International Population and Development Conference in Cairo, there is widespread consensus in the international community that family planning programs must be people-centered, and further, that family planning programs should focus not just on contraception per se,but on the repro

The health status of women is a reflection of their social status. In order to get a clear picture of the health status of Indian women, we need to have reliable data on mortality, morbidity, nutritional status, problems related to reproduction, access to and utilization of services, etc.

Every society has its own traditional beliefs and practices related to health care. Beliefs in supernatural powers, i.e.

Medical and public health experts advocate breastfeeding as the best method of feeding young infants for a wide variety of reasons.

THERE is enough evidence to show that often, development policies adopted by governments have widened the disparities amongst sections of people.

For the year 1993 (latest available) Registrar General of India reports a death rate of 9 per 1000 population. World Bank (1993, p.290) reports the same figure as a death rate for the countries that the Bank classifies as high income economies (HIEs).

The Times of India dated 13 January 1994 featured on its front-page news of a tragic event. ‘A sixty-year old advocate... leaped to his death from the eighth floor of the Bombay Hospital and died of multiple injuries... (This followed) the revelation that he was HIV positive ...