Indian public health expert and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen has been freed, after the Supreme Court granted him bail last week. Dr Sen was released from a prison in the central state of Chhattisgarh on the condition that he would surrender his passport and attend court whenever he was summoned. In December a court in Chhattisgarh sentenced him to life in prison for helping Maoist rebels. Mr Sen has denied the...

Late last month we received the exciting news that India now has a population of 1.21 billion. This figure generated less discussion than I expected. Maybe it would have been more mind-boggling a few months ago, before all the scams and scandals inured us to the large number of zeros that a billion signifies. Or maybe we were distracted by the other bad news in the census results — the...

India's Supreme Court has granted bail to leading public health specialist and human rights activist, Dr Binayak Sen. In December a court in the central state of Chhattisgarh sentenced to life in prison for helping Maoist rebels. The lower court had found him guilty of carrying messages and setting up bank accounts for the rebels, who are active in large parts of India. Rights groups in India and abroad had called on the...

Rajasthan has failed its girl children on two counts. Not only has it failed to protect them, it has also been unsuccessful in educating them, according to the Census figures released on Monday. The child sex ratio (number of females for every 1,000 male children in 0-6 age group) has dropped sharply to 883 from 909 in 2001 and the state reports the lowest female literacy rate at 52.66%. Expressing concern...

The 2011 census strengthens fears that Punjab may no more be a land of opportunities, recording the lowest population growth among major north Indian states, at 1.3% per annum. Despite this, Punjab has been able to arrest total fertility rate at 1.91, down from 2, as per the national family health survey 2007. Yet, it may also show that Punjab is not attracting migrants, indicating trouble for both farm and industry sectors....