“Many families from outside can’t afford to wait until the next vaccination day; the Smart Clinic will offer inoculations daily so they won’t have to,” says Mishra, sitting in his office with the ceiling fan whirring. But like much of maternal and newborn health (MNH) in Kapilvastu, in Lumbini Province, and across Nepal, news at the Basic Hospital is not all positive.

Three controversial development projects in Nepal face fierce resistance from Indigenous groups determined to defend their sacred sites and culture.

Roughly 60,000 people are injured by burns in Nepal every year, most of them in rural areas. Recent incidents involving high-profile politicians have turned the spotlight on the issue, at least temporarily, but simple prevention measures are being neglected.

Nepal is celebrated globally for its success in fighting malnutrition from the 1990s until recent years. Most notably, rates of stunting (low height for age) fell from the world’s highest, 68% in 1995, to 36% in 2016.

Worldwide 388 million students, or 1 in 2 schoolchildren, received at least one meal or snack per day at school before the COVID-19 pandemic in what the World Food Programme (WFP), quoting the World Bank, calls the world’s “most extensive social safety net.”

Like any mother, Sharmila Chadara just wanted to get home to see her child. It was this primal urge, and other unrelated factors, that directly resulted in her death on the night of 24 November.