News stories by Ranjita Biswas

KOLKATA, India, Aug 28 (IPS) - 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'.

KOLKATA, Apr 19 (IPS) - 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 the menstrual cycle.

KOLKATA, Dic 13 (IPS) - 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.

KOLKATA, Nov 05 (IPS) - More than 2,500 Indians have died in the course of clinical trials in recent years, government figures reveal.

KOLKATA, India, Aug 03 (IPS) - 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.

KOLKATA, India, Jul 16 (IPS) - 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.

KOLKATA, India, Jun 11 (IPS) - 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.

GUWAHATI, India, Apr 23 (IPS) - 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.

GUWAHATI, India, Apr 21 (IPS) - 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.

GUWAHATI, INDIA, Jan 13 (IPS) - 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.