Stories written by Ranjita Biswas

India: A Race to the Bottom with Antibiotic Overuse

In 2011, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned: "Combat Drug Resistance - No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow.” The slogan was coined in honour of World Health Day, urging governments to ensure responsible use of antibiotics in order to prevent drug-resistant viruses and bacteria, or ‘super bugs’.

When Not To Go To School

In large parts of rural India, the absence of separate toilets for growing girls is taking a toll on their education. Many are unable to attend school during their menstrual cycle.

Indian Gays Prepare to Fight Again

Human rights have taken a step back in India, activists say after the Supreme Court overturned a ruling of the High Court that had earlier lifted the ban on gay sex.

Over 2,500 Deaths During Indian Clinical Trials

More than 2,500 Indians have died in the course of clinical trials in recent years, government figures reveal.

India Moves to Protect the Rented Womb

India’s matinee idol Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan announced recently that they had their third child through surrogacy. Gossip columns said that Gauri Khan, a mother of two teenagers, had tried to conceive for the last couple of years and at last resorted to surrogacy.

Stronger Laws to Deter Acid Attacks on Women

Preeti Rathi was just 25 years old when she passed away in a Mumbai hospital exactly a month after a man threw acid on her while she stood waiting on a railway platform.

Indian Women Talk About Sex – in Cyberspace

When 30-year-old Rita Datta (not her real name) decided on a whim to take a computer literacy course, she fell through the metaphoric looking glass into a virtual reality where the most taboo subject in India was transformed into the most simple and natural topic of conversation: sex.

Their Missing Daughters

It is as if they have given up hope of ever seeing their girls again. They are an Adivasi family from a remote village in Assam state in India, nestled in the Himalayan foothills. The picturesque surroundings belie the hollowness they feel within.

Poachers Close in on Last Rhino Retreat

The year 2013 opened on a disastrous note for the one-horned rhinoceros of the northeastern Indian state of Assam. At the beginning of April, officials in the Kaziranga National Park (KNP), one of the last retreats left in South Asia for these endangered creatures, reported that 17 rhinos had been poached.

Bloody Entertainment Draws Thousands

It’s the time of the year when people of Hajo, a small town 30 kilometres from Guwahati, capital of the eastern Indian state Assam, get eager to witness the famous Bulbul fight. The Red vented Bulbul is a familiar bird on the Indian subcontinent.

ENVIRONMENT: Weed Threatens Indian Rhino’s Last Refuge

While shoot-at-sight orders are now effectively keeping rhinoceros poachers at bay, an aggressive weed is threatening the one-horned ungulate in one of its last retreats - the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in eastern Assam state.

At Neamtighat on way to Majuli.  Credit: Ranjita Biswas/IPS.

Erosion Threatens an Island Culture

Majuli island on the Brahmaputra river in the eastern Indian state of Assam is quickly losing its landmass to erosion. Majuli has long been regarded as one of the largest inhabited river islands in the world along with Ilha de Marajo of Brazil.



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