-ThePrint.inThe idea that all public initiatives to improve well-being are failing or dispensable is evidently wrong.In recent years, a debate has raged in India on what is the level of poverty in the country and whether it has changed, either to reflect the arrival of a new India or the persistence of an old one. Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s government stopped producing official estimates of poverty when it abolished the...
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'When a brother goes down a sewer to clean it, we look the other way' -Sudha G Tilak
-The Hindu Business Line Hounded for her documentary on the horrors of manual scavenging, filmmaker Divya Bharathi holds up a mirror to social indifference A conspiracy of silence — that’s how filmmaker Divya Bharathi describes the uneasy quiet that shrouds the death of men and children in sewage tanks. Earlier this month, when six men choked to death in Delhi, the reaction was on expected lines — nothing beyond knee-jerk moves, she...
More »The failure of Swachch Bharat Abhiyan: we need a better way to manage trash -Mohan Guruswamy
-National Herald Four years after the Prime Minister announced the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan with much fanfare, it is apparent that we cannot clean up the rotting trash that has become so common on our streets Four years after the Prime Minister announced the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan with much fanfare, it is apparent that we cannot clean up the rotting trash that has become so common on our streets all over the country?...
More »The 'c' in Swachh Bharat is caste and Modi needs to address it -Pritha Chatterjee
-ThePrint.in Manual scavenging is a reality and Dalit women, particularly, will be forced to shoulder the burden of cleaning dry pits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi frequently tweets appreciation for on-ground workers of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA). One such widely shared post was an image of the secretary in the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, Parameswaran Iyer, going down a double-pit toilet in a rural home and cleaning it. He was lauded...
More »Labelling versus outcomes: on Swachh Bharat Mission -Nikhil Srivastav
-The Hindu Studies on the Swachh Bharat Mission don’t confirm the government’s claims On October 2, 2017, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) completed its third year. Over Rs. 60,000 crore has been spent on the programme, but despite its scope and importance, there is very little objective evidence about its performance So far the numbers that have been widely cited by the government are from its own administrative data and the Swachh Survekshan...
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