Pantoka is a beehive of activity. The spirit of protest in this small hamlet on the India-Nepal border is not a simple case of topical environmental awakening; it is a desperate struggle for life in which more than 1 lakh lives are at stake. Today, the first day of June, the citizens of Bihar's Raxaul sub-division in East Champaran district will stage a massive blockade on National Highway 28A, shutting off...

After a government report confirmed major ethical violations in trials of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccines on Indian schoolgirls, senior doctors are calling for transparency in clinical trials conducted under private-public partnerships. The report is yet to be placed in the public domain, but its contents were revealed early May by senior doctors who assisted in its preparation, sparking outrage among public health advocates and women’s rights groups. HPV is an umbrella...

If you can’t beat them, join them. The fight for land between villagers and industrialists gets a unique twist in coal-rich belts of Karanpura valley — comprising cheek by jowl blocks Barkagaon and Keredari (Hazaribagh) and Tandwa (Chatra) — with residents asking the Centre’s permission to commercially exploit the area’s natural resources instead of allowing investors from outside. Karanpura is the state’s green bowl for vegetables, but it sits on rich coal...

Its population is expanding at breakneck speed, yet its schools are empty of girls Some call it India's "gendercide". In the past three decades up to 12 million unborn girls have been deliberately aborted by Indian parents determined to ensure they have a male heir. Once, parents desperate for a son achieved the same end by infanticide. But modern medical technology, and the complicity of the medical establishment, has sanitised the process...

In a secluded hospital bed in this bustling Indian metropolis, a woman who has lain brain dead for 37 years after a brutal sexual assault is at the centre of a national debate on mercy killing. India’s Supreme Court has ruled that Aruna Shanbaug should live, while at the same time supporting passive euthanasia - or the withholding of medical treatments that are keeping her alive. The court’s decision to rule out...