-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...

-The Indian Express The prime minister's Jan Dhan Yojana (JDY) is, in many ways, an improvement over previous financial-inclusion schemes. And with an aggressive target to cover 15 crore households with basic banking services, including an overdraft facility, debit card as well as accident and life insurance cover, it is the most ambitious attempt yet. However, to achieve its promise, the JDY needs to focus on implementation. As suggested by the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Overriding objections raised by senior officials, rural development minister Nitin Gadkari has ordered far-reaching changes in the job guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) which has provided seasonal work to one in three rural households in the last eight years. Documents obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by activists show file notings by a senior official in the ministry arguing that Gadkari's announcements run contrary to the...

-BBC When Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech, vowed to eliminate open defecation, India took notice. After all, it was unusual for a prime minister to use the bully pulpit in India to exhort people to end this appalling practice and build more toilets. A staggering 70% of Indians living in villages - or some 550 million people - defecate in the open. Even 13% of urban households do so....

-Outlook Build toilets. But more important, get communities to change ways.   Vidya Balan, the Bollywood star and ambassador of the Indian government's programme for building household toilets, asks the mother-in-law who is busy toying with her bahu's ghunghat at the wedding ceremony: "Do you have a toilet at home for the dau­ghter-in-law to use?" Mum-in-law replies: "No." Vidya then asks her, "Then why are you extending her ghu­nghat so much when you...