Annie Banerji

Elections in countries that are home to almost half of the world’s population made this the biggest election year on record and will shape how the world is governed in 2025.

From Taiwan’s general election in January to the U.S. presidential race in November, more than 2 billion people – an all-time record – went to the polls in 2024.

Pollution readings in India's capital New Delhi hit their highest in this pre-winter season, forcing the government to restrict vehicle movement and construction, and urging schools to give classes online.

India's Central Pollution Control Board showed Delhi's 24-hour air quality index (AQI) reading hit 494 on a scale of 500 on Monday.

Cool-season winds and burning fields unleash an annual scourge of toxic air that kills tens of thousands of Indians a year, say researchers, urging tighter air quality standards to save lives.

About 7.2% of all deaths in India are attributable to a daily exposure to small and hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5, according to a July study by The Lancet.

A landmark report that revealed widespread sexual harassment and exploitation of women in a southern Indian film industry must be a "wake-up call" for men in cinema, said Bina Paul, a founder of a female rights group that pushed for the investigation.

The report by the three-member Hema Committee has rocked "Mollywood" - as the Malayalam film and TV industry is known - since its release last month, with a series of sex abuse allegations against some top male celebrities, resignations by men in powerful posts, as well as police investigations.

Digital rights activists and online content creators welcomed a decision by India's government to rewrite a contentious broadcast bill that they feared would have censored speech on the internet.

But they warned the government could still keep some of the more onerous provisions in new versions of the bill that could curtail India's flourishing digital landscape as the country becomes increasingly connected online.

Food delivery driver John Jay Chan has had no protections from the record-breaking heatwaves that have hit the Philippines in recent months, but he must continue to work nine-hour days to provide for his family.

"We understand that the nature of our work means we're exposed to extreme heat," said Chan, a 30-year-old father of two, who has been a motorbike gig worker for the past six years.

A year after women staged mass protests against working conditions at India's popular home services app, Urban Company, female gig workers face a tough present and a highly uncertain future.

A decade ago, Urban Company emerged as a beacon of hope for women wanting to gain economic independence in a country with one of the lowest numbers of female workers in the world — on their own terms and in their own time.

India's top court is expected to decide on Monday whether to cancel the results of a college medical entrance exam and order a re-sit after the competitive test was hit by a wave of allegations, including that the paper was leaked.

More than 2.4 million people took the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate), or NEET-UG, in May, competing for more than 100,000 spots in government and private colleges.

For more than four years, Sanna had the same daily routine - wake up at dawn, study up to 14 hours a day, eat and sleep - all in an effort to crack a tough exam to get into one of India's premier public medical colleges.

But after two unsuccessful attempts, she has lost hope she can win a highly sought-after spot, especially after the national entrance exam was hit last month by allegations of irregularities, including paper leaks. 

The death of an Indian farm labourer in a gruesome machine accident in Italy is "just the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to the exploitation of migrant workers by rich Western nations, United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, said.

Satnam Singh died in a hospital in Rome last month, two days after his right arm was severed by machinery in a melon greenhouse where he worked close to the Italian capital.