More than 460 people, mostly children, have died after a fresh outbreak of encephalitis in northern India. The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder travelled to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to find out why the town is struggling to cope with the disease. Ward number 12 at Gorakhpur's main Hospital is overflowing with sick children, two or three squeezed into a single bed. Many of them are visibly sick and are having to be administered...

When the entire country celebrates Diwali this year with spectacular fireworks, there will be silence in the homes of dozens of families in Sivakasi, the national fireworks capital. These families have members who have either been killed or grievously injured due to blasts at the firecracker units.  This year alone, 26 people working in the units have lost lives in blasts, while many more were injured. The latest and the fifth...

Infant deaths resulting from a recent clinical trial in India have led to a media outcry. But few have considered how explosive these revelations actually are, or the problematic use and application of the Right to Information Act. When India’s Right to Information Act came into force in 2005, the legislation’s text acknowledged the conflict that could arise from revealing certain information, pointing out that there was a need to ‘harmonise’...

With institutional healthcare being prohibitively expensive, more women in rural India are choosing to deliver at home than in Hospitals and healthcare facilities, says a new report brought out by Chittorgarh-based NGO, Prayas, in partnership with Oxfam India. The 'Study of the trends in out-of-pocket payments in healthcare during National Rural Health Mission period (2005-2010)', released on October 12 in the national capital, was conducted across five Indian states - Assam,...

India recorded 98,621 rotavirus-inducted diarrhoea deaths in 2008, which is about 22% of global toll from the infection.  Nigeria - the second worst-hit country - recorded about 41,000 deaths, or less than 50% of fatalities as compared to India.  Pakistan (39,000) and Bangladesh (9,000) figures among the top 10 worst-affected nations grappling with rotavirus infection, says a study that appeared in medical journal, "The Lancet Infectious Diseases". It shows 453,000 deaths occurred...