Demography India Vol.23, Nos. 1&2 (1994)

From the Chief Editor’s Desk

THERE has been a change of crew in the management and editing of Demography India officially since mid 1994 and functionally since the beginning of this year. I have taken over charge as Chief Editor of this journal from Dr. M. E. Khan who has been serving in this capacity for the past three years and has contributed significantly towards the quality of the journal both in its content and the format. Mr. R. P. Tyagi continues to function as the Managing Editor and provides a continuity to the journal and its continued publication from Delhi. I wish to place on record the valuable services rendered by Dr. M. E. Khan and the outgoing members of the Editorial and Advisory Boards and formally welcome the newly elected or nominated members to these committees.
Under the auspices of the newly elected team of members of the Executive Committee of IASP with the dynamic and professionally stimulating guidance of Dr. Pravin Visaria, who has been elected as the President of the Association for the period 1994-96, the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Association was held at Lucknow from 25 to 27 March 1995, at the State Institute of Health and Family Welfare. It was a well attended conference with over 100 participants including some scholars from abroad. The theme of the Conference was 'Fertility Transition in India'. Over 70 papers were presented in full or abstract form which were discussed in 11 substantive sessions. The presidential address was delivered by Dr. Pravin Visaria on the first day as a part of the inaugural function on the topic 'Demographic Transition and Policy Responses in India'. There was a special session on the recently conducted National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in India on the first day. The first George Simmons Memorial lecture was delivered by Prof. B. D. Misra on 'Factors Affecting Success of Family Planning in Uttar Pradesh' on the last day of the conference and a special lecture on 'The Impact of Family Planning Programme on Fertility in India in the context of Socio-economic Changes' was delivered by Dr. W. Parker Mauldin of the Population Council, New York, who participated fully in the Conference. The proceedings of the Conference with selected papers are expected to be published under the auspices of the Association. The General Body meeting of I ASP was held on 27 March after Conference, a stormy session as usual! The conference was considered a success by all the participants with the weather turning unusually cool for the Lucknow summer.

It is appropriate to inform the members of the scientific community interested in the field of population of India particularly in the components of fertility, growth of children, child mortality and family planning on the excellent data base generated by the recently conducted National Family Health Survey (NFHS). It is a nationally—representative household sample survey which convered the population of 24 states and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, comprising more than 99 percent of the population of the country.

A total of 88,562 households and 89,777 eligible women (ever married and in the age range 13 to 49) were interviewed in the survey. The field work was conducted on a state by state basis during April 1992 to September 1993. The International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Bombay has been functioning as the nodal agency for the survey which was undertaken by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi with financial assistance from the USAID. As Director of UPS until September 1992,1 had the privilege of being associated with the major decisions about the survey: its need; constitution of the steering, technical and finance committees, who should do what; design of the questionnaire; sampling plan and modes of analysis and publication of results. I was also directly connected with my colleagues Profs. Tara Kanitkar and T. K. Roy in supervising the collection of data in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal that were included in the first phase of the survey wherein data collection was completed by July 1992. In my opinion NFHS is one of the best organized sample surveys in the country. The time lag between collection of data in the field and publication of the results has been the shortest for such large scale surveys in the country. By the time of the IASP conference in March 1995 in addition to the Introductory Report on India, six state reports have been published viz. for Goa, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. In a major departure from the earlier traditions, the Government of India has decided to place the data set in the public domain for each state after the publication of the state reports. The data sets in SPSS format can be secured from the Director, International Institute for Population Sciences, Bombay. Details with regard to payments to be made etc. can be obtained by writing to Dr. K. B. Pathak, Director, UPS, Bombay. During the discussions at Lucknow Conference about the survey and its findings it was observed by many that the data collected especially on fertility, child mortality, immunization and family planning practice are of very high quality for most of the states. There is enough material in this survey to keep the analysts busy for years to come. I am hopeful that the community of demographers will gear up their tools and enthusiasm to make the most of this excellent data set.

K. Srinivasan
Chief Editor, Demography India