-IANS Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday expressed concern that the government's Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) is being seen as a "token sanitation campaign" and rued that women were demanding mobile phones but not toilets. "Women demand mobile phones, they are not demanding toilets... Sanitation is the much more difficult issue," Ramesh said at the launch of Asia-Pacific Regional MDGs (Millenium Development Goals) Report 2011-12. Ramesh said women's self-help groups (SHGs) should...
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Jairam wants social barrier in sanitation broken
-The Hindu “If Shyam Benegal [film director] can come up with a toilet version of Manthan[movie that focused on milk cooperatives] we can break a certain social barrier” towards solving a problematic issue like sanitation, felt Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of Rural Development. Launching the Asia-Pacific millennium development goals report of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific, Mr. Ramesh recalled howManthan that featured Smita Patil had changed women's...
More »UN reports improved access to safe drinking water, but poorest still lagging
-The United Nations The internationally stated goal of improving access to safe drinking water across the globe is likely to be achieved well ahead of the 2015 deadline, but large numbers of people in the world’s least developed regions will still not benefit, according to a United Nations report released today. Reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 is one...
More »Inclusive growth: Malnutrition-education link by DP Chaudhri & Raghbendra Jha
The approach paper for the 12th Five-Year Plan with focus on faster, sustained and inclusive growth is candid and forward-looking. On poverty reduction, the document notes, without comment, the annual trend decline of 0.8% accelerating to 1% during 2004-05 to 2009-10, against a promised target of 2% in the 11th Plan. It emphasises that India will easily meet the millennium development goals (MDGs) of halving poverty by 2015, over 25...
More »Food Ministry moves cabinet note on National Food Security Bill
-PTI The Food Ministry has moved a Cabinet note on the National Food Security Bill which aims to provide legal entitlement to subsidised foodgrains to two- third of the country's population, sources said. The proposed bill, which would cost the government exchequer Rs 94,973 crore a year in subsidies, may be taken up for the Cabinet discussion soon as the Centre is keen on introducing it in the ongoing session of...
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