The Thirtieth Annual Conference of IASP was held at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore during 17-19 October, 2008 with the major theme being “Population, Gender and Health” and following sub-themes:

1. Population Policy and Programmes National Rural Health Mission NRHM); Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY); Maternal Mortality and Neonatal Mortality

2. Gender and Health

3. Population Census 2011

4. Urbanization and Health

5. Nutrition and

6. Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS.

In the inaugural session of the conference, Dr. K.C.Chakrabarty, CMD, Punjab National Bank gave the inaugural address while Dr. Purnima Mane, Deputy Executive Director, UNFPA gave the keynote address. 

During this session, six eminent Demographers namely Prof. Tara Kanitkar, Prof. B.D.Misra, Prof. K.S.Srikantan, Prof. P.H.Rayappa, Prof. P.P.Talwar and Prof. P.N.Mari Bhat (Posthumously) were felicitated by IASP for their out standing contribution to Population Science in general and IASP in particular.

The proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference in the form of a published book was released “Population, Poverty and Health: Some Analytical Approaches” was released during the conference. Two other books released in the conference include: “Institutional Provision &Care for Aged : Perspectives for Asia &Europe” by S I Rajan et al and “Sexuality and Sexual Behaviour among Unmarried Young Boys : Explorations from Rural and Urban Settings for Tamil Nadu” by Audinarayana.

During the conference, George Simmons Memorial Lecture was given by Prof. Amy Tsui, Johns Hopkins University, USA and Prof. P.N.Mari Bhat Memorial Oration by Prof. Tim Dyson, London School of Economics, United Kingdom.

Four Plenary Sessions, ten Technical Sessions and four Poster Sessions were organized during the conference with more than 70 oral presentations and more than 80 poster presentations.

The Joint Meeting of Board of Trustees and Executive Committee held at ISEC, Bangalore on 16.10.2008 approved the membership application of 24 Life and 20 Annual members for admission to IASP. And the General body meeting of the IASP was held on Oct 18, 2008.

Dr. C. Chandrasekharan memorial award presentation was organized as commonly done in the IASP conferences. Six papers were presented by the young scholars and the Evaluators selected two papers for the award. The young scholars selected for the award include : Ms. Priyanka Dixit for her paper on Fertility Change and its Determinants in India: A decomposition Analysis and Mr. Avishek Hazra for his paper on Health Insurance and Health Care Utilization in India: An Empirical Study with Special Reference to Social Health Insurance.

The five best posters selected for the Dr. S.N. Singh award include: Praveen Kumar Pathak for the paper on Socioeconomic Inequalities in Utilization of Delivery Care Services in India, Samik Chowdhury for the paper on Economic Burden of Illness among Urban Poor: A Case Study of Selected Slums in Delhi, Rajan Kumar, K for the paper on Fertility Change in Uttar Pradesh: A Parity Progression Ratio Approach, Tina Dutta for the paper on Urban poor, Public Health Amenities and Infant Mortality in Greater Mumbai and Sancheeta Ghosh for the paper on Trends in Cesarean section Deliveries in India.