Can the promise of a car or a mixer grinder help keep India's population in check? Well, that's what health authorities in the northern state of Rajasthan apparently believe. They are offering a cheap car, among other things, as a prize in an attempt to sign up some 20,000 people to meet an ambitious sterilisation target. Time will tell whether this turns out to be another gimmick or an innovative incentive. But...

Writes to Azad expressing concern over its inclusion in public health programme The Union government's decision to allow the use of injectable contraceptives, as part of the public health programme in the country, would be a harmful step that will affect the health of women, Member of Parliament and Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat has said. In a letter to the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

A sustainable population stabilisation strategy needs to be embedded in a rights-based and gender-sensitive local community needs-led approach. An authoritarian top-down target approach is not the answer. The evolution of government-led population stabilisation efforts in India goes back to the start of the five year development plans in 1951-52. A national programme was launched, which emphasised ‘family planning' to the extent necessary to reduce birth rates to stabilise the population at...

The Supreme Court today dismissed a petition by an NGO seeking to bar the over-the-counter sale of i-pill, an emergency contraceptive tablet, saying it was the same as abortion at home. The i-pill prevents pregnancy if a woman has it within 72 hours of sexual intercourse. While dismissing the plea by Krupa Prolifers as “not scientific”, the three-judge bench said admitting the plea may “scare people and send a wrong...