-The Times of India GANDHINAGAR (Gujarat): Though Gujarat claims to be the vanguard of Indian states working for the swachchta revolution championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has discovered an untidy record. In its report, 'Local Bodies of Gujarat' - released on Tuesday and covering the period till year ending March 2013 - the CAG points out failures of the state in the execution of the...

-The Telegraph In India's towns and cities, the Swachh Bharat campaign will be looking to clean up not just the filth but also red tape and funds diversion. For the first time, the Centre aims to deal directly with the urban local bodies in funding projects without routing the proposal-clearance-sanction process through the state governments. At stake is the Rs 67,000 crore that the Union urban development ministry plans to spend under the...

-The Hindustan Times The country is ostensibly in the throes of a great social movement for sanitation. Gandhi's name is evoked, Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads from the front, ministers lift brooms for cameras, and officers, college and school children take oaths against littering and to clean their surroundings. Earlier the PM pledges in his Independence Day speech toilets for girls and boys in all schools. It appears that the squalor of...

-Tehelka.com Cleanliness of Indian cities cannot be ensured without job security, safety gear and competitive wages for sanitary workers. In a unique address to the nation on 2 October - Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary - Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his commitment to devote 100 hours every year to sweeping the floor, picking up the waste and dusting his windows. He also urged everybody to do the same so that Indian cities...

-Accountability Initiative/ RaghuBytes Unless you have a blocked nose, I strongly suggest that you do not drive from Bhubaneshwar the capital of Orissa, to Kandamahal, a remote tribal district, particularly in the evenings. At twilight, when you begin to wind into the interior, you are greeted with the sight of the behinds of the entire population squatting on the roadside, faces turned away and shitting. We quickly wound up the windows...