-The Indian Express The death of 12 women after tubectomies at a Sterilisation camp organised by the Chhattisgarh government in Bilaspur underlines how India's family planning burden rests disproportionately on women's shoulders. This despite the fact that male Sterilisation is actually a relatively easier and risk-free procedure. Consider this. In Chhattisgarh in 2011-12, the most recent year for which data is available, 1,27,114 tubectomies were performed against just 6,765 vasectomies - this...

-The Hindustan Times Raipur (Chhattisgarh): Eleven women have died and dozens more are in a critical condition after a government-run Sterilisation programme in Chhattisgarh designed to control the country's billion-plus population went wrong, officials said on Tuesday. More than 50 women are seriously ill after suffering complications from the surgery in Bilaspur district over the weekend, authorities in Chhattisgarh said. "Reports of a drop in pulse, vomiting and other ailments started...

-Tehelka Despite the serious toll it takes on women's health, female Sterilisation remains the most prevalent form of contraception in India. While memories of the 21 months of Emergency in 1975-77, imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, survives even today in the minds of Indian men as the fear of forced Sterilisation, the country's population control policies have shifted over the years since then to target the politically less...

-PTI Srinagar: When the floods wreaked havoc in Kashmir and plunged most parts of the Valley into darkness, few doctors at a lone maternity care hospital in Srinagar, lent a ray of light to people's lives by performing birth surgeries under candlelight. Doctors at the Lal Ded Hospital, whose ground floor was submerged by flood waters from Jhelum, performed six deliveries under the candlelight as the electricity supply to the hospital was...

-BBC   It's early morning and local commuters are queuing up for tickets at the Kirti Nagar railway station in the Indian capital, Delhi. Along the tracks, another crowd is gathering - each person on his own, separated by a modest distance. They are among the 48% of Indians who do not have access to proper sanitation. Coming from a slum close-by, they squat among the few trees and bushes along the railway tracks...