-The Indian Express Rajasthan government's decision to ‘target' free medicines and diagnostics is contrary to the recommended role of government in healthcare. In 2002-03, Abhijit Banerjee, Angus Deaton and Esther Duflo studied health facilities in rural Udaipur, Rajasthan. They found that facilities were poor and absenteeism was rampant. In 2013, we decided to revisit the same public health facilities. The motivation was to study two bold initiatives of the then Ashok Gehlot...

-AFP Katra Shahadatganj: Decorated with marigolds and ribbons, 108 toilets unveiled in a tragedy-hit village are a small step in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push to end open-air defecation for impoverished Indian women. The spotlessly clean toilets were donated on Sunday to the village in northern Uttar Pradesh, where scared and vulnerable women had long been forced to trek nightly into the fields to relieve themselves. "I believe no woman must lose...

-The Hindustan Times Lucknow: Women in Katra Sahadatgunj village of Badaun district will no longer have to wait for darkness to attend the call of nature in the open. Low-cost sanitation NGO Sulabh International on Sunday dedicated 108 toilets built in the village - which has a population of 4,000 people. After the alleged rape and gruesome murder of two sisters who had gone out at night to attend the call of nature,...

-The Indian Express Families have a preferred number of sons at any given fertility level as well as a preferred fertility level.   In his maiden Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lamented the neglect of daughters, restrictions on their movements, parental attitudes that favoured sons, shameful rapes of girls and women, the lack of toilet facilities and sanitation. In a populist vein, he urged parents to treat sons and daughters...

-Outlook Giving a big push to Prime Narendra Modi's ambitious Clean India mission, the government today proposed a major hike in funds provided for constructing household toilets in rural areas and providing better sanitation facilities in schools and anganwadis. In yet another move, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who is also in-charge of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, announced the decision to delink MNREGA from toilet construction programme, saying that the...