-The Times of India With the Prime Minister himself taking up the broom along with his cabinet colleagues, BJP cadres and lakhs of government employees, the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) campaign got off to an energetic start on Thursday. But a look at the jaw-dropping dimensions of the problem makes one wonder whether Modi really has a chance to meet his target to clean up India by 2019? Here are some sobering...

-The Hindu Kochi (Kerala): Exposing the poor sanitary conditions in schools, only 134 CBSE schools from the State figure in the list of 2,721 educational institutions that are listed under the national school sanitation rating. Schools are rated as per its sanitation status in five colour categories pertaining to infrastructure, institutional sustainability, environmental sustainability, health and hygiene and pedagogic aspects. The rating is part of the board's ‘National School Sanitation Initiative' (NSSI)...

-The Business Standard Social attitudes as important as money It is appropriate to use Gandhi Jayanti to launch a fresh campaign, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, to end open defecation, a goal that has eluded three previous missions spanning decades. It is vitally important to address the question of sanitation as Gandhi had - as a question of social reform, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal that government officials set an example is valuable....

-The Indian Express New Delhi: The much-anticipated launch of the Prime Minister's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan from Valmiki Colony in Central Delhi on October 2 has led to the residents of the colony being subjected to a police verification. The colony, housing mostly safai karamcharis of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), has been the centre of hectic cleaning activity for approximately two weeks. With the date of the launch inching closer, the...

-The Business Standard Make schemes mobile and portable, by focusing on people and not products India spends close to four per cent of its GDP on an alphabet soup of welfare schemes and subsidies - it has become a welfare state before becoming a developed state. Despite its significant costs, India's welfare system is neither comprehensive nor very effective - subject to huge leakages and corruption, and not well knit into...