-The Hindu The Uttar Pradesh government should understand that evidence backs the principle of informed free choice Many of us working in the field of public health and social development have been taken aback, if not downright shocked, by the recently announced draft Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilization and Welfare) Bill, 2021 that focuses exclusively on making a two-child norm a law, specifying various incentives and penalties for contravention. The burgeoning negative...

-TheWire.in 'When I made this house myself brick by brick, where were they then?' New Delhi: A few weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the demolition of the residential properties in Khori Gaon, bulldozers began to destroy the settlement under police and Army presence.  Referred to by the Court as an encroachment, the settlement contains over 10,000 homes, with over 1 lakh residents (for scale, this is little under the population of the...

-IndiaTogether.org A survey of nearly 15,000 women in the aftermath of the pandemic-induced lockdown last year reveals specific ways in which women are particularly vulnerable to risks. This could provide valuable input for new interventions, writes Gaurav Gupta. After India's first nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, 2020 a flurry of important, rapid research was conducted by multiple private, public, and social sector organisations to understand the effects of the pandemic....

-The Hindu A simple reading of U.P.’s draft population control law is that it will grossly impinge on the right to reproductive freedom On Sunday, the government of Uttar Pradesh released a “Population Policy” in which it stated its intention to bring the gross fertility rate in the State down from the existing 2.7 to 2.1 by 2026. To achieve this, the government says it will consider the enactment of a new...

Scientific knowledge has immensely helped in combating the dreadful coronavirus and its spread. Within a record short period of time, scientists (including virologists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, etc.) and their research outputs helped the commoners to learn more about the SARS-CoV-2 and how it spreads from one individual to the next one. Common people have now come to know how simple techniques and behavioural change like the wearing of N95 masks, maintaining...