Sci-Hub has been blocked in India

It's also 'blocked' in the UK, to the extent that I had one more click, on the vpn button, to read the article. (Veepn free browser extension seems to work well - I've used that for a year or two).

That's not 'blocked'. That's just blocked, no quotation marks needed. Most countries' blocking attempts can be bypassed via VPNs, but that doesn't make the frameworks that let this happen any less threatening.

I'd strongly advise against free VPNs; they are a massive security and privacy risk.

Here's recent news about another free vpn that took screengrabs of users' sessions: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/a-...

As the saying goes, if you're not paying for the product, the product is you.