He did everything possible to evade arrest – used aliases, continually changed places of work across states and burnt all incriminating documents – but the law finally got the better of Amit Kumar, India's 'Doctor Horror' who ran an interstate kidney racket with international links in the North Indian state of Uttarakhand. Amit and his brother Jeevan Kumar, also a doctor, were arrested by the Dehradun police from Panchkula in Haryana late on Friday as they were preparing to escape to Nepal.

The ice skating rink in Dehradun – the only international-sized facility in India – is in a state of disuse since its inauguration six years ago. Though it began functioning in 2011, the facility has since been shut, thanks to the high maintenance cost which the Uttarakhand government was unable to bear. In 2015, the Union Sports Ministry had assured Parliament that it would help restart the rink but that is yet to happen. As the rink is not operational, Indian ice hockey and skating players are forced to train abroad or at domestic commercial rinks which are not of international size.

The children of Delhi techie Rajesh Gulati, who was sentenced to a life term on Friday for one of the most infamous crimes in India, never hear of their father. Why? Gulati had murdered his wife Anupama by slamming her head against the wall in a fit of rage and later cut her body into 72 pieces, storing the parts in a deep freezer for two months in 2010. Since their mother was killed, the twins have been living with their maternal uncle who is "taking great care to bring them up sensitively".

A woman was forced to deliver her baby on a bridge in Chakrata area of Uttarakhand’s Dehradun district after failing to find a doctor or staff at a health centre in yet another example of the dismal medical services in remote areas of the Himalayan state.

Take a walk, up or down, a Kiplingesque lane with a backdrop of the Himalayas stretched out across a vibrant blue sky and an undulating Doon valley below. Like most Indian hill stations, Uttarakhand’s Mussoorie is done and dusted with a mess of concrete and overload of tourists. But the Queen of the Hills is turning to its past for a better future. An overlooked and weather-beaten British-era bridle path, named after The Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling, is being propped to revive the town’s mojo. Kipling trekked this trail, the lone link then from Dehradun to Mussoorie, in the 1880s. He set his experience in his popular novel, Kim.

Little known to the outside world, this quaint hamlet tucked in the Uttarakhand Himalayas in India produces in equal measure juicy apples and juicier ghost stories — both linked to each other. Orchards are the signs that nurture the legend of Raja Wilson — the local name for British adventurer Frederick E Wilson, an army deserter from the mid-19th century, who introduced apples and timber trade to this sleepy Himalayan nook.

What would you do if your three-year-old happens to soil his or her pants? You would clean them up gently and help put on fresh clothes. That, however, was not to be with Pinky (name changed) who lives in a government-run children’s home in Dehradun. On January 1, 2014, while the rest of the staff and inmates were busy with the New Year celebrations, Pinky suffered serious burn injuries allegedly after an irate caretaker poured hot water over her as she was angry at the child for soiling her clothes. This and other horror stories have emerged from state-run shelter homes of late.

Far from the latest standoff with China along the eastern border of India, Uttarakhand’s Nelong Valley continues to attract discerning travellers to its picturesque cold desert-like landscape that houses the abandoned bunkers from the 1962 Indo-China War. Perched at around 11,000 feet, close to the China border, the valley lies in the Gangotri National Park area in Uttarkashi district - around 315 km from state capital Dehradun. It was once a buzzing hotspot for the Indo-Tibet trade.

Manual scavenging - or the inhuman practice of handling human excreta manually - continues in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, more than two decades after it was outlawed in India in 1993.

It’s a breezy winter morning and the river banks in Rishikesh - the ‘Yoga Capital’ of India - are abuzz with international tourists as always. But, it’s not just the mystic charm of Yoga, the chants of sacred mantras or the glistening Ganga attracting them this time – it’s the election hullabaloo, too. Tatiana Kwakernaak, who has come to Rishikesh from Australia, looks curiously at the many flags, posters, and banners that have flooded the holy town.

In the heart of the state capital, a British-era well - almost two centuries old - lies shrouded in oblivion and forgotten by most. Built during the 1820s for supplying water to nearby areas, the ‘Shore’s Well’ now lies in a state of utter neglect despite heritage lovers’ repeated calls over the years to authorities for reviving it.

June 16, 2013 is a date etched deep in Sarita Devi’s memories. It was the day when the rain came in droves. There were cloud bursts. The gushing waters of the flash floods, induced by rain, wreaked unprecedented havoc in the Kedar valley in the Indian Himalayas, reducing several villages to rubble and claiming more than 5,000 lives, including her husband's. Along with the other women hailing from disaster-affected villages of the valley, Sarita has since started life afresh and has been earning a living from the handloom products she creates with love and passion.

From being a starry-eyed girl strolling on the streets of Dehradun to posing for international paparazzi at the French Riviera in her debut outing to Cannes, this gorgeous girl has been living a dream and how! Back from the 65th Cannes Film Festival in France, former Femina Miss India Earth and model-turned-actor Niharika Singh shared with HT City her experience at the prestigious film festival where her critically-acclaimed debut movie 'Miss Lovely' was screened.