Enduring conundrum: India's sex ratio

Fondly remembering him as 'Census Mitra, the book pays tribute to the scholarship and extraordinary gender concerns of Prof. Asok Mitra, whose expertise in the Census analysis often went beyond the confines of demography to directly caution the state on the deteriorating decline of the female sex ratio in India. It traces the events that inspired and guided the social scientists of his time and radically changed the pattern of demographic research to give it a shift from mere data analysis to one of social concern.
The book contains five different articles analysing the diverse trends that underline the enduring conundrum of sex ratio in the country. The contributors are acknowledged experts on the subject of their concern and some of them have been privileged to have been associated with Prof. Mitra in his seminal contribution to women's studies and in his search of policies for gender equity. Seen in the immediate background of the 2001 Census, the book acquires special significance as it draws upon the grim lessons of the 1961 Census; Mitra's critical analysis of the same compelled the government to review Census data in the light of the diverse inputs it offered for developmental policies.
Apart from paying tribute to Prof. Mitra, it is also the intent of the book to advocate that the theme of sex ratio presents a sensitive indicator which can break through unilinear theories of the changing status of women or the state of society with its existing dominant paradigms of development or globalisation.