it was hard to explain to those young men why i was so moved. was it because they had saved a life? was it because the child had come so close to dying? or was i weeping for those other babies? girls, all of them, who had been thrown away or murdered,

in the 30 years i have been following this story.

the woman confessing to killing newborn baby girls, dharmi devi, is a midwife. and she was not the only one. i shot this footage nearly 30 years ago. i was a young reporter

back then, hungry for stories. i had heard about a case of infanticide in katihar, close to my hometown, so i set off into the villages of bihar to see if it was true. were baby girls still being killed at birth? at the time, almost all babies in rural bihar were born at home. so, i began by talking to the women who delivered them. the midwives. what i found then still shocks me.

hakiya was the first of the midwives to speak plainly on camera.

hakiya is talking about upper—caste families. the midwives came almost entirely from the lower castes. they often told me they did not want to kill baby girls. but refusing orders from these families was unthinkable.

after hakiya spoke up, other midwives found the courage to tell their stories. rani was the next to confess. of all the midwives, she looked the most troubled.

rani died a long time ago. so did hakiya and dharmi. but there was one midwife who would not confess.

i did not know it at the time, but it was this midwife, siro devi, whose story i would follow for the next three decades. i was not the only one troubled by these killings. in the �*90s, anila kumari ran an ngo that worked with the midwives.

long before they confessed to me, it was anila who had earned their trust and guided me into their world. she was also among the first to document the scale of the killings. in 1995, while working on a report, anila had spoken to 35 midwives, including some of the women i had filmed.

if the 1995 report's estimates are accurate, more than 1,000 baby girls were being murdered every year in one district by just 35 midwives. according to the report, bihar at the time had more than 500,000 midwives. the names of the midwives were changed to protect their identities. hakiya is mentioned, rani is there and so is siro.

siro had been a midwife since she was a child. she was doing this work

when i met her 30 years ago. she's still doing it today.

year after year, i went back to visit siro and saw how hard it was for her to make ends meet. she was the sole breadwinner, raising two sons and three daughters... ..three daughters who all needed a dowry in order to be married. a dowry could be anything — cash, jewellery, utensils. but for many families in india, the girl has to bring something as a condition of marriage. it is the dowry system

that makes sons into assets and daughters into liabilities. all the midwives told me this is the reason why so many baby girls were killed at birth. over the years, a trust had grown between us. but only once in three decades

did siro confess that she had killed baby girls with her own hands.

by the time i filmed the confessions, some of the midwives working with anila had started saving baby girls from being killed by their own families. these girls would be young women now, almost 30. some of them had been adopted, but no—one knew where they were.

encouraged by the training they had received, this small group of midwives saved at least five baby girls and brought them to anila. one child died. the otherfour were put up for adoption. according to anila, one girl stayed in patna, one went to america, one to the uk, and one girl was adopted

by a family in pune. the report from the �*90s made no mention of the girls who had been saved. but it contained the name medha shekhar.

in the 1990s, medha was working in patna, documenting cases of infanticide. soon after, the babies rescued by the midwives started arriving at her ngo. she helped send at least one of those babies to an adoption agency in pune.

hello, there. thursday promises to be another unusually warm september day for large parts of the uk, although in the north of scotland, it may not be quite as warm as it was on wednesday when aviemore got above 25 degrees celsius — some nine or ten degrees above the seasonal average. but notice — lake vyrnwy languished at 14 degrees because in those parts of mid wales we saw a bit more cloud lingering for a good part of the day. some of that cloud returning from the east as well, so england and wales seeing a pretty cloudy start, actually, in some places. but that cloud tending to retreat by the afternoon towards the east coast, some cloud rolling onto the coast of eastern scotland. elsewhere, though, some good spells of sunshine, just a very, very small chance of seeing a shower across southern counties of england. but it really is only a very small chance. now, where you're exposed to the breeze along the north sea, temperatures may only get to 17 or 18 degrees. compare that with 25

in parts of southeast england. and then through thursday night, we do it all again, we bring more cloud back in from the east, may turn a little bit misty and murky in places. that cloud will hold the temperatures up — 15 degrees in london as we start friday morning, maybe 8 or 9 in aberdeen and glasgow, a little bit cooler where we start with clear skies overhead. but the focus of our weather does start to shift as we go through friday. we start to turn our eyes to the south with this developing area of low pressure, and that will start to bring some showers and some thunderstorms across parts of southern england, perhaps getting into the midlands, perhaps into the southern half of wales as we go on through the day. eastern scotland, northeast england holding on to a lot of mist and murk and low cloud. that will peg the temperatures back. conversely, western scotland and northern ireland should see plenty of sunshine. now, into saturday, those showers and thunderstorms in the south perhaps becoming more frequent, pushing a little bit further northwards. still rather cloudy for coasts of eastern scotland

and northeast england, western scotland and northern ireland seeing plenty of sunshine. but those temperatures generally down just a little bit by this stage. and then by sunday, our area of low pressure really makes its move, bringing showers or longer spells of rain, particularly across england and wales. the odd shower and some extra cloud in eastern scotland, but generally in the north of the uk it will stay largely dry.

live from washington. this is bbc news. boom. thousands more hand—held radios used by hezbollah in lebanon erupt in deadly explosions. sparking new fears of rising regional tensions. the us federal reserve cuts interest rates for the first time infouryears, and by more than expected. and kamala harris gains ground against donald trump in a new poll. for trunk to when he has to get new people. strong as his basis in ravenous, kamala harris is picking up points, he's not. hello, i'm lucy hockings. israel's defense minister, yoav galant, says the country is opening a new phase in its year—long war, with the centre of gravity shifting to the north. his comments came after

a second day of explosions in lebanon, this time involving walkie—talkies