Sagar Kaul

THE world's tallest woman, Siddiqa Parveen, has been given a new lease of life - after Indian doctors successfully removed a tumour from her brain. The 28-year-old - who is estimated to be 7ft 8in tall, but cannot stand upright - suffered from gigantism brought on by a condition known as Giant Invasive Pituitary tumour. Doctors had feared that if left untreated she would lose her eyesight, forcing them to transport her nearly 1,000 miles from her remote village in south Dinajpur district, West Bengal to Delhi. The woman's unique size - which saw her recently crowned the world's tallest woman by Guinness Book of Records - posed medical authorities huge challenges.

CITY Montessori school in India is the world's biggest - with a staggering 47,000 pupils. It is so large a packed Anfield could comfortably attend - with room to spare. The school - known as CMS for short - employs an army of 3,800 staff, including teachers, support staff, cleaners, rickshaw drivers, and even electricians, carpenters and gardeners. It has over 1,000 classrooms, 3,700 computers and goes through thousands of pounds worth of stationary and books each year. Based in the city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, CMS was set up by Dr. Jagdish Gandhi, 75, and his wife Bharti in 1959 with just five pupils. Today, it sprawls over 20 campuses across the city - and is still growing despite doubling in size during the last 14-years alone.

Poorly Indian patients are shunning modern medicine - for gruesome roadside blood letting clinics. The practice of blood letting involved controlled bleeding in an attempt to rid the body of what practioners call "polluted blood". Hakim Muhammad Gyas, 79, runs one such clinic in New Delhi, the Indian capital. He claims this technique can cure most forms of arthritis, heart disease and even the early stages of blood cancer.

These pictures show what is probably the world’s filthiest job. Every day, thousands of manual scavengers in India unplug the dirtiest sewers and drains in the capital city of New Delhi without any safety equipment or protection. This is also one of the deadliest jobs in India, with a high number of fatalities due to infection and gas inhalation. According to Harnam Singh, Chairman of the Delhi Safai Karamchari Commission, (Delhi Cleaning Workers Commission), almost 70 percent of manual scavengers die on the job. Even though India formally banned manual scavenging in 1993, government agencies still use thousands of manual scavengers to clean drains throughout India. These workers make Rs. 180/- a day, and are often provided with poor-quality grain alcohol to numb their senses before getting into the sewers. After a lot of pressure from policy groups the government made it mandatory for contractors to provide these cleaners with long boots and gloves, but they still are long way fr

These are the children fighting for survival in the shadow of India's booming economy. Thousands of youngsters are thought to live on the streets of the nation's capital, New Delhi. Some will be forced into prostitution or begging while others may even have their organs harvested and sold on the black market, locals say. These poverty-stricken children sleep under a grotty flyover overlooked by one of the city's busiest IT districts - a sector which has helped India's economy swell to the 10th largest in the world. Some of these children are bought from their parents who live in small villages by promising them education and a better life for their children however, once these kids reach the big cities, they are sold to gangs and are trafficked to different parts of the country and the world. On the ground these children will always have an adult guardian nearby in case any NGO or police personal ask about their origins. Most of the time, these children have no idea of their birth

When a boy becomes a Mujahid in the Valley his parents know that from that point onwards the only time they will see his face for a long time will be when his body arrives in a coffin. To celebrate such a victory is just like announcing that, yes, we still haven’t learned anything but man this hunt was good. If the policy is to kill anyone who picks up a gun then this is a never ending hunt which will keep on going for generations. At times the number might be big and at times too small but, rest assured, there would be a Mujahid holding a gun somewhere in the Valley, always.

CHILDREN in India are cramming into these makeshift school buses - made from a cage placed on the back of a rickshaw. The rickety bicycles can seat up to TEN kids and ferry them to and from schools across the capital New Delhi. The vehicles - reminiscent of the child catcher car in blockbuster Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - whizz through the city's notorious grid lock each morning and afternoon.

A group of school children in India are taught in their makeshift classroom - under a railway bridge. The noisy underpass doubles as a classroom for two hours each day after heroic shopkeeper Rajesh Kumar Sharma, 42, built it himself. The rudimentary learning space is situated under a Metro train bridge in a slum area of New Delhi called Yamuna Bank. It consists of two black boards painted on a wall, two broken chairs for the teachers and simply rugs for the students to sit on. Rajesh - who set up the school after worrying about children from nearby slums missing out on an education - now has around 40 kids attending daily aged between four and 12. This video also recently appeared on Russell Howard's Good News comedy TV program.

A GRIEVING husband is building the ultimate monument of love to his late wife - a carbon copy of the Taj Mahal in India his garden. Faizul Hasan Kadari, 77, can see the towering structure from his humble home in rural Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh state, India. He set upon the plan to recreate a smaller 50ft by 50ft version of the iconic wonder in Agra following his wife Tajammuli Begum's death in December 2011. So far Faizul has spent £10,500 of his life savings building the 5000-square-feet structure. he has also sold of family heirlooms and raided his pension to fund the build.

Roona Begum was 18 months old, living in a remote village, when she was discovered by an outside agency that noticed her unusually large head. She was admitted to a hospital in New Delhi with a diagnosis of hydrocephalus, and required immediate life saving surgery. An international group of students raised money for her surgery through a Kickstarter campaign. Fortis Hospital in New Delhi agreed to provide free medical care, and British dailies such as The Sun and The Mirror used these photos to generate funds through its subscribers - allowing for her complete medical costs to be covered. Roona has already gone through several successful surgeries and is currently on her way to recovery. Roona's story is one that ended on a happy note. The doctors that first saw her were amazed to see her alive since, according to them, children with such severe hydrocephalus rarely survive beyond 12 months.