Demography India, Vol. 50, Special Issue: Emerging Research from Population Research Centres (PRCs), December 2021

From the Chief Editor’s Desk

Greetings!

India is a country known for its social diversity. However, diversity is not only confined to social and cultural spaces, but also in population and health outcomes, and access to health care facilities. This poses a serious challenge for the population and health policies and programmes. In this light, the underpinning strategy of one size fits all needs a critical evaluation to improve various policies and programmes. The convergence and integration of various programmes within population and health sectors as well as outside also assumes enormous significance. Keeping in view the national, regional, and local needs of the country, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India established a network of 18 Population Research Centres (PRCs) in different parts of the country. These PRCs have carried out excellent research works in the past in shaping the population and health policies and programmes. This issue of Demography India presents some of the recent works emerging from these PRCs.

We take this opportunity to congratulate all authors for their sincere and pertinent research works and like to thank many reviewers for helping us in bringing out this special issue. Thank are due to Dr.U.V. Somayajulufor this initiative on behalf of IASP and the support of his team. I would also like to thank members of the Editorial Board without whose support this volume would not have been possible. Last but not least my deep appreciation for Dr. Harihar Sahoo for managing the review process, communications, and publication of this issue of Demography India. We sincerely welcome any suggestions and comments to improve the Journal.

Prof R. B. Bhagat
Chief Editor, Demography India