The First National Bioethics Conference, November 25-27, 2005 (NBC, 2005), organised by the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME), brought together a diverse group of organisations and individuals in an effort to give a platform for bioethics discourse from across the country. The conference was organised around four issues: ethical challenges in HIV/AIDS; ethics of life and death in the era of high-tech health care; ethical responsibilities in violence, conflict and religious strife; and ethics and equity in clinical trials.