The steady growth of population, which has taken place in India during the past few decades, has had its repercussion on all such matters as the housing, clothing and feeding of the additional numbers brought into existence from year to year, their education and the provision of adequate measures for the protection of their health. The earliest systematic enumeration of the people in India was carried out in different parts of the country between 1865 and 1872. The rate of decrease in fertility trends to lag behind that of mortality. A reduction in the rate of growth of population may be brought about by permitting the death rate in the community to rise. The modern birth control movement differs from the older ones in that the methods practised are safer and permit of wide adoption without offending generally accepted ethical standards.