Let's have small families for a stronger India."Projections say India will surpass China as the world's most populous nation in 50 years when it is expected to have 1.5 billion people.Every measure of progress India has made since independence has been countermanded by the spiraling population: food production has trebled, yet many people go hungry; literacy has increased, but so has the sheer number of illiterate people.Efforts to encourage family planning among the poor suffered a setback in the 1970s when the government sponsored a mass sterilization campaign, in which poor people were duped or paid to undergo vasectomies and tubectomies.The emphasis has changed in the past decade toward educating women, raising their status and providing better health care. Nongovernment organizations tour rural areas distributing condoms and discussing birth control, but sex education is not taught in the schools.. In the tightly controlled city state of Singapore, free speech comes with strings attached. In the tightly controlled city state of Singapore, free speech comes with strings attached. The authorities have decided to introduce a "Speaker's Corner", but orators will first have to register with police and could face a criminal investigation if they speak too freely. Ho Peng Kee, a Home Affairs minister, said people must register their intention to speak at a police station and produce documents proving they were Singaporeans. Their names would be kept on record for five years, he added.

Mr Ho said: "If a person says something that is against the law, if he libels, if he says something that intimidates people, then of course there must be an investigation."Singapore's tiny political opposition has ridiculed the notion of a Speaker's Corner, expected to be set up in August, as so many restrictions will apply.Singapore's Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial for anyone deemed a threat to national security, is also expected to be something of a disincentive to the expression of radical views.. The Tamil Tigers are poised to recapture Jaffna town in the far north of Sri Lanka today after a devastating assault on government positions yesterday, combining suicide tactics with powerful artillery barrages. The Tamil Tigers are poised to recapture Jaffna town in the far north of Sri Lanka today after a devastating assault on government positions yesterday, combining suicide tactics with powerful artillery barrages. In an assault of massive intensity, Tamil fighters launched wave after wave of suicide attacks to smash government positions at Ariyali, three miles from Jaffna, the biggest town in the Jaffna peninsula. According to the Tigers they also seized a crucial bridge, and cut Highway 9 - the main road linking the far north of Sri Lanka to the south - driving a wedge between government forces.The Sri Lankan government said the assault began at 3am, two days after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - who are fighting for an independent state in the north and east of the island - offered the government a ceasefire on condition that its troops vacate the peninsula.The government wasted no time in rejecting the offer, and in parliament yesterday the deputy defence minister, General Anurudha Ratwatte, said: "We will fight till the last man rather than vacate Jaffna."The end may now be close. The "suicide waves" of infantry, in which lines of young guerrillas, many of them women and children, hurl themselves at the enemy and the lines behind them trample on their fallen bodies, is one of the techniques by which the Tigers have succeeded in destroying the morale of the Sri Lankan army's raw recruits.Underwritten by an affluent and loyal Tamil diaspora around the world, the Tigers now seriously outgun government troops, as yesterday's artillery bombardment showed. The Sri Lankan government's feverish arms-buying spree of the past fortnight, in which Israeli helicopter gunships were at the top of the shopping list, now appears to have come too late. Likewise the decision to increase taxes to raise $20m (£13m) for the war effort.What happens now? India, beset by conflicting urges, stands dithering on the sidelines, but the Sri Lankan army's desperate position may now force it to act.

India is extremely reluctant to intervene militarily: its attempt to end the conflict by sending in a peace-keeping force 13 years ago ended in humiliation and the assassination by the Tigers of the Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. But with 27,000 Sri Lankan troops now at the mercy ofthe Tamil Tigers, India's hand may be forced.Yesterday there was hectic diplomatic activity in Colombo and Delhi aimed at saving the soldiers' lives. India has a fleet of its transport aircraft ready in south Indian air bases, which can organise the rescue of soldiers if necessary. Indian diplomats in Colombo confirmed that talks were in progress but refused to be drawn on details.If Jaffna falls, it will be by far the worst humiliation theSri Lankan army has suffered in the 17-year civil war. Even an evacuation of troops may only be possible with the Tigers' permission.. Muslim rebels holding 21 mainly foreign hostages in the Philippines will decide today whether to release a sick German woman, but show no signs of being about to free the rest of the group.

Muslim rebels holding 21 mainly foreign hostages in the Philippines will decide today whether to release a sick German woman, but show no signs of being about to free the rest of the group. The appointment by the Manila government of two new negotiators, including a former Libyan ambassador to the Philippines with experience of securing hostage releases, had raised hopes of a peaceful resolution to the 18-day saga. But Rajab Azzarouq, the Libyan diplomat, and Ghazali Ibrahim, a Muslim cleric, returned empty-handed from their first meeting with Abu Sayyaf rebels on the southern island of Jolo yesterday.The 21 - nine Malaysians, two Filipinos, three Germans, two French nationals, two South Africans, two Finns and a Lebanese woman - were kidnapped from a Malaysian resort island off Borneo and taken by boat to Jolo. A Philippine presidential envoy, Roberto Aventajado, said that the guerrillas had submitted "a few demands" to the negotiators. He declined to say what theywere, or whether they included a ransom.Abu Sayyaf is known to want the release from prison in the United States of two Muslim extremists, one of whom masterminded the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York.