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One of the two infants who were bitten by rats at Indore’s Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Hospital died on Tuesday. Hospital authorities, however, claimed that the baby died from pneumonia and not the rat bite.

The infants were bitten by rats on Sunday and Monday in the neonatal intensive care unit, according to a report by the medical superintendent of the college to which the hospital is linked. The report, accessed by Scroll, also stated that nurses in the neonatal unit had noticed the rats days ago but failed to report them. As a result, no inspection was conducted.

The hospital authorities have suspended the nurses and removed the nursing superintendent who was responsible for monitoring cleanliness. The agency responsible for pest control and cleanliness at the hospital has been fined Rs 1 lakh.

The infant who died was three days old and had been admitted to the hospital after being diagnosed with congenital birth defects in the oesophagus, trachea and rectum. Read more.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K Kavitha has resigned from the party and stepped down as a member of the Telangana Legislative Council. This came a day after she was suspended from the party for alleged anti-party activities.

Kavitha was suspended after she accused her cousins, former minister T Harish Rao and ex-MP J Santosh Rao, of amassing assets while making her father and party chief K Chandrashekar Rao a “scapegoat” in the alleged Kaleshwaram project scam.

On Wednesday, the former MLC that her father was forced to take a harsh decision against her due to pressure from Harish Rao and Santosh Rao. She added that she would not join any other political party. Read more.

The Bombay High Court has directed activist Manoj Jarange-Patil and other organisers of the Maratha quota protest to file affidavits responding to allegations of large-scale damage to public property during their protest. The directive came a day after Jarange-Patil ended his five-day hunger strike, following the Maharashtra government's resolution granting Kunbi status to Marathas in the Marathwada region.

The Kunbis form a sub-caste within the Maratha community, and are included in the Other Backward Classes.

Jarange-Patil had been demanding Kunbi caste certificates for all Marathas to secure reservations under the Other Backward Classes category.

During the hearing on Wednesday, the court also questioned the Maharashtra government about reports of vandalism during the agitation. Read more.

Over a billion people around the world are living with mental health conditions, data released by the World Health Organization on Tuesday showed. Anxiety and depression are the most common of these conditions, two reports released by the global health body found.

The reports highlight that women are disproportionately impacted, with 581.5 million women facing mental health disorders as compared to 513.9 million men. One of the reports said that women who have experienced intimate partner violence or sexual violence are particularly vulnerable to developing a mental health condition.

The second report estimates that 7.2 lakh persons had died by suicide 2021, making it a major cause of death among young people. It highlighted that suicide rates are more than twice as high in men as in women. Read more.

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