-Huffington Post Accountability Initiative finds rural India lacking in awareness of Swachh Bharat schemes. A survey of 7,500 rural households has found that 29% of Swachh Bharat toilets exist only on paper and of those that have been built, 36% are unusable. The survey was conducted by Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research in December 2015, across 10 districts in five states. The states included Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya...

-The Indian Express Swachh Bharat completes two years, but eliminating open defecation is a distant goal. October 2 marks the second anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Announcing a goal of eliminating open defecation by 2019 was a great idea, but now that we are 40 per cent through India’s flagship Sanitation campaign, it is a good time to assess how much progress the SBM has made. Unfortunately, it is impossible...

-The Hindu Kerala leads in household toilet coverage, three cities from Karnataka find place in the new list. Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh have the maximum percentage of villages that are ‘Open Defecation Free’ according to the criteria of the Swachh Bharat Mission. While the northeastern State scores a hundred per cent, as per the current tally, Himachal Pradesh scores 55.95 per cent. Other better performing States with village-level achievements are Haryana and Meghalaya with...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet Swachh Bharat initiative may be celebrating two years with much fanfare on Sunday but just a fifth of the respondents in a recent nationwide survey say local municipalities have improved garbage collection or cleanliness. The study found the hygiene has visibly improved in only four states – three of them ruled by the BJP while the rest of India reported marginal or no...

-PTI Invoking Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha against the colonial rule, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today mooted ‘Swachhagraha’ movement for a clean India which he said is not something that can be achieved by budget allocations alone. He also took a jibe at those who claim that the ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign launched by him has failed by showing pictures of garbage on roads and other places, saying at least there is awareness now on...