-The Hindu More than half the households in the country still lack access to sanitation. In its villages, some toilets built under past schemes exist only on paper. In 2019, India will observe the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who gave the clarion call, "Clean up your own mess." But even 67 years after Independence, our cities and towns present a sorry picture replete with mounds of garbage, rotting sewers and...
More »SEARCH RESULT
India needs hygiene education as well as new toilets -Nitya Jacob
-The Guardian Narendra Modi may be feeling flush enough to spend millions on putting a loo in every home, but people also need to understand why they should use them From being the humble recipient of human waste, the toilet has reached the exalted status of being the subject of speeches by India's Narendra Modi. The prime minister promised to put a toilet in every home by 2019 in his independence...
More »Report accuses India-born businessman of unchecked land grabbing across continents -Jitendra
-Down to Earth Sivasankaran's land grabbing spree has threatened millions of livelihoods, says report Indian origin businessman Chinnakannan Sivasankaran has engaged in aggressive land grabbing of more than half a million hectares across Africa, Asia and South America, putting millions of livelihoods at risk. This was revealed in a detailed report released by Barcelona-based non-profit GRAIN on Tuesday. The report says Sivasankaran diverted 0.56 million hectares of food-producing land to production of palm...
More »Why India's sanitation crisis needs more than toilets -Soutik Biswas
-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....
More »Where Do They Squat? -Santosh Mehrotra
-Outlook Build toilets. But more important, get communities to change ways. Vidya Balan, the Bollywood star and ambassador of the Indian government's programme for building household toilets, asks the mother-in-law who is busy toying with her bahu's ghunghat at the wedding ceremony: "Do you have a toilet at home for the daughter-in-law to use?" Mum-in-law replies: "No." Vidya then asks her, "Then why are you extending her ghunghat so much when you...
More »