-ANI The Centre is in the process of formulating a new law for 'Prohibition of Employment as manual scavengers and their Rehabilitation', revising the existing Schemes for Rehabilitation of manual scavengers and Total Sanitation Campaign. A new scheme for conversion of insanitary latrines in urban areas is also being formulated.   Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Mukul Wasnik announced this while addressing the recently held meetings on rehabilitation of manual scavengers. Wasnik called upon...

-The Economic Times The Union Cabinet is expected to take up for approval a bill that deals with manual scavenging and rehabilitation of scavengers.  For nearly two years now, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has been advocating for a new law to deal with the indignities of manual scavenging and for their rehabilitation. Gandhi had, in November 2010, written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking the government to take steps to...

Jatav residents of Ramgarh in U.P. resist attempts by members of a powerful community to grab their land by violent means. IN what could be considered one of the worst incidents of vendetta against Dalits in the National Capital Region (NCR), members of the Dalit Jatav community were beaten up brutally by some members of the dominant Gujjar community in Ramgarh village in the Greater Noida area of Uttar Pradesh...

-The Hindu If only laws could eliminate all that they prohibit, India would have been free of the scourge of manual scavenging decades ago. The Prohibition of Employment as manual scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, which is to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament, is another attempt to prevent employment of people in the cleaning, handling or carrying of human excreta. Despite the renewed stress on rehabilitation in the...

Not a single case has been registered under a 19-year-old law that prohibits hiring of manual scavengers and building dry latrines. The revelations come weeks after the latest census data showed 25 lakh households across the country depend on manual scavengers to remove night soil from latrines. Union social justice minister Mukul Wasnik conceded implementing the Employment of manual scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine (Prohibition) Act, 1993, had been “weak”. “The implementation...