India's Supreme Court has rejected a plea to end the life of a woman who has been in a vegetative state since 1973. Aruna Shanbaug suffered severe brain damage and has been paralysed since a brutal rape in 1973. But the court said the medical evidence suggested that she should live. However, in what correspondents are calling a "landmark" judgment, the court also said some cases of euthanasia could be sanctioned if doctors...

The attorney-general of India today urged the Supreme Court to permit Aruna Shanbaug, a Mumbai nurse who has been in a coma for over 38 years, to live in her present state and not stop food to end her life. Shanbaug, 60, has been in a persistent vegetative state since a murderous attack by a ward attendant of Mumbai’s KEM hospital who tied a dog chain around her neck and tried...

Bant Singh, a scarred survivor of class violence in rural India, has an indisputable claim to be a voice for India's impoverished and muted millions. The folk singer lost both arms and a leg in an attack five years ago after he dared to challenge high-caste landlords in his area of the northwestern state of Punjab who had raped his 17-year-old daughter. Set upon by a gang armed with iron bars, he...

A shocking statistic has revealed that India is highly vulnerable to harassment towards women, with one woman molested every 26 minutes. The study by the South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring said one woman is raped every 34 minutes, while among 15 million girls born every year, one-fourth don’t get to celebrate their 15th birthday. Many villages, despite dearth of basic amenities, have ultrasound machines to check the...

India's food prices are likely to ease, bringing down food inflation from stubbornly high levels, over the next two months as supplies of onions and other vegetables are expected to pick up, industry officials said Thursday. The country's food inflation rate surged to more than 18% in December as vegetable prices, particularly those of onions, spiked after unseasonal rain damaged crops. India's food inflation rate has slightly eased since then, but...