India is home to the largest number of AIDS orphans in the world
Children in HIV/AIDS-affected households begin to suffer even before a parent or caregiver has died. Household income plummets, schooling is interrupted and many children are forced to work or care for a sick parent. But India has no national policy to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on children in particular
Children on the mean streets of Chennai
Unprecedented rains in Chennai over the last few months have destroyed the homes and possessions of hundreds of poor slum and pavement-dwellers. The worst-affected are children
The problem of child labour intensifies in UP's carpet belt
The campaign against child labour began in the carpet belt of Uttar Pradesh in the late-1970s. Three decades on, what has changed? Our correspondent travelled through the Mirzapur-Bhadohi belt, where children are hard at work making tufted carpets for the global market
Back to school
Part of a campaign to eliminate child labour in five districts of Maharashtra, the staff of Tandulwadi's government school and the local community have transformed the school and lured dropouts and child labourers back into its cheerful classrooms
Sting operation to find 'missing' girl-child
Sting operations are not conducted by the media and law-enforcement agencies alone. The Satara-based CSO, Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal, has nabbed seven doctors red-handed for violating the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act and revealing the sex of foetuses
Delhi's skewed sex ratio: "24,000 girls go missing every year"
Delhi's sex ratio has become more and more skewed over the years. One study of families which already have one or more daughters shows just 219 girls being born for every 1,000 boys
Semi-literate, and saving lives
Nine months ago, in one of India's least-developed districts, Malika was born, premature and underweight, with pneumonia, umbilical sepsis and hypothermia. This is the story of how she survived, thanks to the efforts of village health worker Gandhara Bhagde
Children of the sea
For weeks after the tsunami, children in the fishing villages around Chennai displayed signs of trauma, and viewed the sea that had engulfed their homes and disrupted their lives with fear. Four months after the disaster, they're returning to school, and returning also, to the giving sea
Rehabilitating children: Adoption is not the answer
In Gujarat, the government banned the adoption of children orphaned by the quake. In Orissa after the supercyclone, women and orphaned children were housed in Mamta Grihas within villages. After the tsunami, the adoption of orphaned children is being seriously discussed, even though it's clear that children flourish in their own cultural context
On the road with village health workers
Ankur, a home-based neo-natal care programme based on the acclaimed SEARCH model, is operative in 11 villages of Osmanabad district in Maharashtra. The programme is making a tangible difference to the health of infants and mothers. Freny Manecksha goes on night calls through the twisting lanes of Chauhanwadi with two village health workers