-The Pioneer The Modi Government’s campaign to end open defecation is welcome but building new toilets alone will not solve the problem Politically, sanitation is a hot topic but the focus has to shift to the villages. Open defecation is still a common practice in many villages. The plan is to achieve the Clean India target by 2019 to coincide with the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Every year, health payments...

-GovernanceNow.com Hamlets in four states show how community efforts can combat malnutrition among children. Funds for the initiative, however, are drying up As the trees and bushes give way to Bada Doomartoli, a hamlet of Singhpur village in Nagri block of Ranchi, one can see a bunch of children running around playfully in the verandah of the first house. Their screeching can be heard from a distance. The younger children sit...

-The Times of India MYSORE: With the Centre taking multiple measures to fulfill its clean Ganga mission, the country's premier atomic research body - Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) - has offered membrane-based water treatment system to clean the national river. The department of atomic energy (DAE) in its presentation on Monday at the Indian Science Congress gave details of the system, describing how BARC is already providing technical support to the...

-Livemint.com The environment ministry, with the aim of making water bodies fit for bathing, has decided to tighten water quality norms. It made the draft of the new standards made public on Monday, seeking views within 30 days. In the draft standards, the ministry has presented 14 points to determine the quality of water in a river or water body. They include factors such as total coliform (TC), fecal coliform, pH value, bio-chemical...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Over 60% of houses in mid-size cities such as Moradabad, Gorakhpur, Kolhapur, Bilaspur and Kharagpur with less than one million population discharge waste water to the open drains, indicating how the government has a mammoth task in achieving complete sanitation even in urban areas. Nearly one-fourth of 416 such non-metropolitan cities have less than 20% households that have waste water outlets connected to the closed drainage...