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.

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

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).

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.

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 ...

Hysterectomy is major surgery with a mortality rate of 1-2 per 1000 operations and an even higher complication rate. There is a widespread misconception, even among doctors that removal of the uterus, without removal of the ovaries has little or no long-term health consequences for the woman.

Ethics is an important yet neglected issue in the field of medicine. When discussed, it provokes controversy. In the West we find conscious and continuous debate on this subject. Ethics is not a forbidden word there nor are

Organising camp for providing contraceptive services to a large number of people at one place has been a significant feature of the family planning programme. Table 1 would make the thrust of the camps very clear.