-The India Express For the health, dignity and safety of women in slums, a comprehensive policy for the maintenance and construction of public toilets is needed. Living in a slum in Bandra West close to the railway station, Vijaya wakes up every morning to anxiety over the trek she and her daughter must take into the open, carrying water cans, to answer nature’s call. They could use the community toilet nearby, but...

Seldom rural citizens get the chance to meet high-level officials who are responsible for delivery of public services and implement pro-poor schemes. But this was made possible thanks to the Accountability Yatra, which is taking place in Rajasthan since December 2015.   It is indeed a rare opportunity to find a District Education Officer (DEO) being asked directly by a simple villager in a public meeting that in how many school...

-The Indian Express Haryana panchayat poll outcome does not reflect the state’s social composition The panchayat elections in Haryana have yielded results drastically different from previous elections. This is because a large number of persons were barred from contesting these elections due to educational and other disqualifications introduced through amendments by the Haryana assembly in September last year. In the widely criticised Rajbala and others vs State of Haryana judgment, the Supreme...

-The Times of India BAREILLY: Used to the "comfortable fields", 90 families quietly demolished the toilets inside their house that was built under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA), preferring to go back to defecating in the open. Authorities, who sent notices to these "defaulters", reckon there may be many more in India's rural and semi-urban belts doing this, unable to break decades of habit. A bunch of others had removed the...

-The Indian Express A renewed funding squeeze may undermine MGNREGA’s recent revival, fear civil society activists. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, may have staged a revival in the last two quarters after showing a declining trend in person-days generation during the first year of the Narendra Modi government. But the turnaround could well be temporary,...