-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...

-Livemint.com Despite the rush in the construction of toilets since the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s launch on 2 October, India has the highest rate of open defecation in the world The Swachh Bharat Mission hopes to make India open-defecation free by October 2019. But, despite the rush in the construction of toilets since the scheme’s launch, India has the highest rate of open defecation in the world. According to a new...

-Frontline.inJean Dreze is a well-known Indian economist working in the field of "development economics". Born in Belgium, he studied mathematical economics at the University of Essex and completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi) in 1982.He has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of Economics and is currently visiting professor at Ranchi University as well as honorary professor at the Delhi School...

-TheWire.in At a time when food has provided so much grist for the identitarian and nativist mill, it is important to infuse into public discourse a modicum of reason through facts. For long, India has been mythologised as a vegetarian, and particularly beef-eschewing, society. Such a representation has further been ideologically explained (and justified) by a wide range of scholars, politicians and popular discourse by constructing India as a society primarily shaped...

-Down to Earth The report emphasises the need to normalise menstruation by looking at behaviour, infrastructure, politics and perception In an aim to make India open defecation-free by 2019, many aspects of sanitation have been undermined, such as usage, maintenance and water availability. A 2015 report by Dasra, a Mumbai-based philanthropy foundation and the Bank of America highlights another key aspect ignored when it comes to sanitation. According to the report based on data...