One of the purposes of family planning programmes in developing countries is to provide for the unmet needs of couples for contraception.

The quinacrine trials raise a host of questions regarding the safety of this method of sterilization and the methodology used to assess this.

The currently available methods of fertility regulation do not meet all the varied needs of women and men in differing geographical, cultural and religious settings and at different times of their reproductive lives.

Otempora! O mores! This cri decoeur will perhaps be evoked in those reading the spate of reports lately, on surreptitious "trials" on the non-surgical sterilization of women with quinacrine, being carried out by NG0s and private doctors in a host of places in the country.

On the World Population Day this year, there were two new features which are welcome: the first is the concern for environment in the context of population growth; and the second is the candid admission by the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare that we must get rid of the tyranny of fami

In recent decades, the most common means by which couples regulate fertility have changed from methods requiring control or cooperation by men, e.g., condoms, withdrawal and periodic abstinence, to those for which women bear primary responsibility e.g., virtually all-reversible modern methods.

Rapid advancements in medical technologies in recent years have opened the road to wide-ranging interventions in the sphere of reproduction. Significant among the technologies which facilitate such interventions and thereby