Because in traditional Hindu culture menstruation is associated with a variety of social taboos, prolonged menstrual bleeding produced conflicts within families. The whole idea of fertility regulation was still extremely new in this setting and many husbands and other family members were angry when they found out that women had decided on their own to use the method and had gone to the clinic in secret.

If you want to scale-up, the first thing you have to do is to expand your own team.

In the late 60s, 70s and possibly early 80s, social scientists were interested in researching the diffusion of innovation and studying the link between applied research and policy and program development. Recently there has been less interest in these issues and we feel that this interest must be rekindled.

There is strong mentoring of women in the academy. Corporations appear more willing to resist affirmative action to advance women, and boards and shareholders are more tolerant of this approach.

I would like to see policy makers and international donor agencies realize that it is not enough to give money for demonstration projects. From the very beginning plans should be made for the scaling-up of successful innovations.

I often say that shareholders should feel very responsible for how responsive corporations are to the public trust.

It really pains me greatly to hear from graduate students that graduate education is a lower priority here.