MDG debate has raised new issues. Some of them are discussed below.

AREA SPECIFIC APPROACH

India is a vast country with diverse patterns of socio-economic development. As a result of that the demographic situation in India is highly fragmented. Lessons learnt from one setting cannot be used in other settings. After the success of population control programmes in Kerala many demographers and planners started talking about Kerala model in 1990s but it has now become clear that since the socio-economic, infrastructural, and geographical conditions of high fertility states (UP, Bihar , Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh) are markedly different from those of Kerala, the Kerala model cannot be applied to all states mechanically. States with their specificities will have to develop their own models of action. Seemingly opposite factors such as affluence and poverty may produce the same result in the form of fertility transition; affluence through rational choice model; and poverty through Malthusian pressure. Of late, Himachal Pradesh has emerged as the lowest fertility state. The case of Himachal Pradesh needs detailed examination.

In this context the following remarks of Prof. Ashish Bose are worth considering:

The implication is that there is little scope for a uniform all-India population programme, whether in regard to the actions which operate on the birth rate or in regard to the actions which operate on the death rate. Yet, to a very large extent, our family planning programmes are more or less uniform throughout the country. Virtually the same package is delivered to the high population growth areas as to the low population growth areas.