-The Indian Express   Mewat (Haryana): Mewat district Villages: 443 Population: 10.9 lakh Literacy: 56.1% (women 37.6%) Sanitation status: Lack of toilets in schools identified as main reason for high dropout among girls, over a thousand toilets built in 2008-12. Rajakiya Kanya Madhyamik Pathshala in Mewat district's Shah Chaukha village has 786 girls on the rolls between nursery and Class VIII. In 2008, a toilet was constructed, but within months, it shut down for lack of...

-The Hindu   The figure for households without toilets is 47 per cent for Hindu households as against 31 per cent for Muslims and 16 per cent for CHRIstians and Sikhs, according to NSS data. Extensive new evidence shows that building toilets alone will not eliminate open defecation in India as not everyone who has access to toilet, especially men, believe that it's important to use it. Not having a toilet remains the major...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre has tall plans of making India open defecation-free by 2019 and has asked states to ensure toilets for all, but sanitation experts are sceptical whether so much can be done in five years. Pankaj Jain, the drinking water and sanitation secretary, has written to chief secretaries of all states that the Modi regime is committed to ringing in a "Swachh Bharat" by 2019, which marks...

-IPS News MALKANGIRI (Odisha)- Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India's eastern Odisha state, the Upper Bonda people are considered one of this country's most ancient tribes, having barely altered their lifestyle in over a thousand years. Resistant to contact with the outside world and fiercely skeptical of modern development, this community of under...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Even as an increasing number of violent crimes against women, especially rape, continue to be reported across the country, a 13-year analysis of crime data reveals that a little more than 57 rapes were reported every day. This averages over two rapes every hour, every day during the last 13 years. A total of 2,72,844 cases were reported across 28 states and seven UTs in...