-The Times of India New Delhi: A toilet that runs on solar power, has a water ATM to provide drinking water and vending machines for snacks and sanitary napkins: The city's first smart toilet, inaugurated on Sunday by the New Delhi Municipal Council at Rafi Marg to mark the second anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, has all that and more. NDMC chairman Naresh Kumar said the smart toilet design would be...

-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...

-The Times of India Chennai: Voicing concern about closures of government primary schools in Tamil Nadu, members of the Samakalvi Iyakkam, a child rights movement, urged the state government not to close or merge schools citing poor strength. They also demanded for the reopening the schools that were closed or merged in the last 10 years. Quoting RTI replies, members of the NGO, in a press meet here on Tuesday, said as...

-Livemint.com At least 150 villages in Karnataka have already qualified as drought affected, with more being added as rainfall continues to be deficient, according to a Cabinet minister Bengaluru: The Karnataka government could well be on its way to declare the state as drought-affected after nearly two months of dry spell, according to two people familiar with the move. At least 150 villages in the state have already qualified as drought affected,...