THE Indian fertility graph mirrors the falling rate. Urban women who have 1 child less, on an average, are spearheading the fertility downslide. Women in their 40s have an average 5 children each, but childbearing women now produce at an average only 3.4 children each.

While in the rest of the developing world, about 80 per cent of married women use contraception, only 41 per cent of Indian women do.But they donot have access to adequate birth controle methods. Sterilisation -- tubectomy -- is the most popular form of female birth control.