-Hindustan Times On World Population Day today, the ministry of health and family welfare should be congratulated for committing to enlarge the scope of contraceptive choices to rejuvenate the family planning programme in the country. This move fulfils the long awaited need for expanding the basket of choice in the public healthcare system. To deliver quality family planning services in a spirit of voluntarism and within a rights and accountability framework, the...

-The Hindu The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana was introduced to provide partial wage compensation during pregnancy, but various issues plague its implementation The latest official figures indicate that India is well short of meeting the Millennium Development Goals that pledged to reduce the country's maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three quarters and the infant mortality rate (IMR) by two-thirds. The Sample Registration System (SRS), 2013, records MMR at 167 per 1,00,000...

-The Hindu The recently released draft National Health Policy 2015 highlights the "challenge" of population stabilisation in six of the 11 States. Following massive protests over the death of 13 women who underwent the Sterilisation procedure of tubectomy in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh last November, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has written to all States reminding them that every person should be counselled about the different family planning options available....

-The Hindu Chhattisgarh deaths turn the spotlight on the undue stress on female Sterilisation The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has written to all States to ensure that every individual opting for family planning, is provided options in a "spirit of voluntarism." Following protests over the focus on female Sterilisation and the deaths of 13 women in Chhattisgarh this past November, the Ministry has shot off a letter to the States...

-The Hindu Other States in India can study how the family planning programme has worked in Kerala and incorporate those features in their own programmes The recent tragedy of several women losing their lives in the state-sponsored tubectomy camp in Takhatpur, Chhattisgarh, has caused severe damage to the national family planning programme. This, however, is not an invalidation of the importance of Sterilisation as an integral part of the programme, but only...