KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

A court in India's north-eastern state of Manipur has issued arrest warrants for nine policemen charged with killing an unarmed man. The men are accused of murdering Sanjit Meitei in "cold blood" in Imphal in July 2009. A pregnant woman also died. Manipur police said Mr Meitei opened fire before police shot back in self-defence. Four other people were injured in the shooting. Video footage and photos later emerged, pointing to an unprovoked...

A wreath of lesions coils up Sunita Tulavi neck; lesions she says were caused in the course of a three-day interrogation at a Border Security Force camp in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district. “They blindfolded me, tied my hands and then electrocuted me with wires wrapped around my neck and stomach,” said Sunita, a resident of Aloor village, “They questioned me for three days and then released me. My sister is still...

In Maharashtra, attacks on citizen-activists have increased with the greater use of RTI; four activists have been killed in the last seven months IN the late 1970s, a woman named Shobha Shirodkar was the victim of a hit-and-run in Mumbai. It was no accident. It was a case of murder because Shobha, who was the principal of a prestigious school in the city, had opposed the land mafia and was believed...

Two more tribal women have been stripped and forced to parade naked in front of large crowds in the Indian state of West Bengal, police say. The incidents were in the same area - the Birbhum district - where a similar case took place four months ago. Locals say that the women were being punished for "having close relations" with men from other communities. Birbhum police spokesman Humayun Kabir told the BBC that...