ABSTRACT
The young woman quoted above listens regularly to the radio serial, Taru, broadcast by All India Radio (AIR), the Indian national radio network. Her father, Shailendra Singh, is a rural health practitioner (RHP) in Kamtaul Village in Bihar State, and a respected public figure (in summer 2002 he was elected a Ward Commissioner). Singh’s health clinic is called a Titly (Butterfly2) Center, and is part of a network of 20,000 rural health practitioners, organized by Janani, a nongovernmental organization that promotes reproductive health care services in the poor Indian States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Chattisgarh. These four States have a population of 190 million people; the highest fertility, infant mortality, and maternal death rates in India; and the lowest literacy and contraceptive prevalence rates.3
