-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Do you know every time you buy diesel or petrol you pay six paise and four paise per litre respectively for proper toilet facilities at petrol pumps? Petroleum ministry officials and petrol pump owners confirmed that this provision exists for generating revenue for maintenance of toilets. However, the latter claimed that the monthly revenue is not enough to meet the requirement. The allotment condition for petrol pumps...

-Hindustan Times None of the states had 100% access to toilets. Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar was in a spot on Tuesday when he claimed that rural areas in five states had become Open Defecation Free (ODF). But the findings of Swachh Survekshan, commissioned by the Union Drinking Water and Sanitation ministry, that he released, belied his claims. The survey conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI) with 1.4 lakh households in 4626...

-The Hindu BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and NDA-ruled Bihar were among the worst performers The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation on Tuesday released the findings of the survey of 1.4 lakh rural households, undertaken by the Quality Council of India (QCI) between May and June this year. The survey, covering 4626 villages across all States and Union territories, claimed that 62.45% of the households had access to a toilet. The survey also pointed that...

-The Indian Express The Niti Aayog's report, submitted before the United Nations, acknowledges that anti-poverty programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) helped weaker sections of the society. Vindicating the UPA government’s stand on pulling people out of poverty, India’s Voluntary National Review Report on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals to the United Nations has said that sustained growth of 8.3 per cent from 2004-05 to 2011-12,...

-The Hindu Of the country’s 217 million children, nearly 50% endure multidimensional poverty, says Oxford survey About 31% of the world’s “multidimensionally poor” children live in India, according to a new report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), a poverty reduction project grounded in economist Amartya Sen’s ‘capability approach’. “In terms of countries, fully 31% of the 689 million poor children live in India, followed by Nigeria (8%), Ethiopia (7%)...