-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....
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How Women Pay the Price for Population Control -Ruhi Kandhari
-Tehelka Despite the serious toll it takes on women's health, female sterilisation remains the most prevalent form of contraception in India. While memories of the 21 months of Emergency in 1975-77, imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, survives even today in the minds of Indian men as the fear of forced sterilisation, the country's population control policies have shifted over the years since then to target the politically less...
More »Swacch Bharat campaign Promises Toilets in 700 Delhi Slums
-Outlook New Delhi: 700 slum clusters will be provided toilet facilities by Delhi government as part of the 'Swachh Bharat' campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The decision was taken in view of shortage of toilet blocks in jhuggi jhopri (JJ) colonies, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board's (DUSIB) Chief Executive Officer, Amar Nath, said today. DUSIB has already prepared a data base of toilet blocks available in JJ clusters as well as...
More »Money in black -Varghese K George and Pheroze L Vincent
-The Hindu Corruption in India has undergone a qualitative shift from the days of licence Raj to the era of liberalisation. Opportunities for making money have come in handy for politicians, who were also dealing with a new political situation of fragmentation and instability. In the days leading to the 2008 Assembly election in Karnataka, slum-dwellers in Bangalore were startled to see small bundles flying in through their windows at night. The...
More »The Dirty Truth about Sanitation -TR Raghunandan
-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...
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