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Family Planning in India
With India’s population coming in at 1,198,003,000 we can see the immense over population they deal with.[1] Even though it has decreased within the past few years with the help of family planning their high fertility rate and over population is still a problem in this country. Family planning in India is based on efforts largely sponsored by the Indian government. During the period of 1965-2009, contraceptive usage had more than tripled (from 13% of married women in 1970 to 48% in 2009) and the fertility rate had more than halved (from 5.7 in 1966 to 2.6 in 2009), but the national fertility rate is still high enough to cause long-term population growth. India adds up to 10 lakh(100,000) people to its population every 15 days.[2][3][4][5][6]

Contraceptive usage
Just like in America, the public sector of India offers five types of contraceptive methods which are female and male sterilization, the IUD, oral contraceptive pills and condoms. [7] However within the past year two new methods of contraception have been introduced they are The CopperT-380A, which enables protection for a period of 10 years; and Emergency oral contraception, which unlike America is available only by prescription, these two methods are expected to decrease the number of unwanted births and unsafe abortions.

In 2009, 48.3% of married women were estimated to use a contraceptive method, meaning that more than half of all married women did not.[4] About three-fourths of these were using female sterilization, which is by far the most prevalent birth-control method in India.[4] Condoms, at a mere 3% were the next most prevalent method.[4] Meghalaya, at 20%, had the lowest usage of contraception among all Indian states. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were the other two states that reported usage below 30%.[4]

Barriers
Unfortunately low literacy rates about women in India is a cause of low contraception use as well as the lack of ability of birth control methods. Although awareness of contraception is near-universal among married women in India.[8] However, the vast majority of married Indians (76% in a 2009 study) reported significant problems in accessing a choice of contraceptive methods.[4]

Comparative studies have indicated that increased female literacy is correlated strongly with a decline in fertility.[9] Studies have indicated that female literacy levels are an independent strong predictor of the use of contraception, even when women do not otherwise have economic independence.[10] Female literacy levels in India may be the primary factor that help in population stabilization, but they are improving relatively slowly: a 1990 study estimated that it would take until 2060 for India to achieve universal literacy at the current rate of progress.[9]

Family planning programmes
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is the government unit responsible for formulating and executing family planning related government plans in India. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is made up of the following departments, Department of Health and Welfare, Department of Ayush, Department of Health Research, and the Department of AIDS Control.[11]An inverted Red Triangle is the symbol for family planning health and contraception services in India.

Historical background
The first person to openly speak about family planning and sex education in India was Raghunath Dhondo Karve. [12] During the time of July 1927 until 1953  he published a Marathi magazine Samaj Swasthya (समाजस्वास्थ्य) where in it, he continually discussed issues of society's well being through population control through use of contraceptives so as prevent unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions. He proposed that the Indian Government should take up a population control program, but was met with opposition.

In the early 1970s, Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, had implemented a forced sterilization programme that had failed. The forced sterilization would officially call for men with two or more children to submit to sterilization, but unfortunately many unmarried young men, political opponents and poor men were also believed to have been sterilized. But since then contraceptive usage has been rising gradually in India. In 1970, 13% of married women used modern contraceptive methods, which rose to 35% by 1997 and 48% by 2009.[3] The national family planning program was launched in 1951, and was the world's first governmental population stabilization program. By 1996, the program had been estimated to have averted 168 million births.[13]

Fertility rate
Although the fertility rate (average number of children born per woman during her lifetime) in India has been declining, it has not reached replacement rate yet. The replacement rate is defined as the total fertility rate at which newborn girls would have an average of exactly one daughter over their lifetimes. In more familiar terms, women have just enough babies to replace themselves. Factoring in infant mortality, the replacement rate is approximately 2.1 in most industrialized nations and about 2.5 in developing nations (due to higher mortality). Discounting immigration and population momentum effects, a nation that crosses below the replacement rate is on the path to population stabilization and, eventually, population reduction. The fertility rate in India has been in long-term decline, and had more than halved in the 1960-2009 period. It has went from 5.7 in 1966, declined to 3.3 by 1997 and then again to 2.7 in 2009.[5][6]