New mobile app under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to collect data on use of toilets

Details asked by the app not sufficient to give information on proper use of toilets, says expert

Bihar elections 2020: Who is talking about safai karmacharis?

The Bihar govt refuses to identify manual scavengers; the latter continue to face abuse and death threats 

India does need toilets more than temples

Modi’s toilet remark has sparked a political row, but no one is paying attention to India’s sanitation challenge

Blind spot in Namami Gange

By 2019, when Swachh Bharat Mission comes to an end, some 30 million septic tanks and pits would have been dug along the Ganga. It's time the …

Usage of toilets in India is over 95 per cent, reveals new NSSO survey

This finding is, however, from a two-month rapid survey, considered too short by experts

Churu says yes to hygiene

The district is all set to become the first in Rajasthan to completely stop open defecation. Will others follow?

Fixing old houses on Himalaya

German architect Andre Alexander has been restoring old buildings in the Tibetan capital Lhasa for 15 years now. Over the past few years he has …

Swachh Bharat Mission Phase II guidelines released

Safe toilets, with well managed black and grey water, are the need of the hour, particularly in rural areas

Why alluvial flood plains of north Bihar need alternative sanitation system

Flood is a recurring threat to the sustainability of open defecation free status in Bihar. Unique toilets, built on elevation, can show the way ahead

Is India really open-defecation-free? Here’s what numbers say

15% of the total population in India defecates in the open in India, according to WASH report 2021

Sanitation workers on COVID-19 front lines: How to save the warriors?

Several incidents in the last few months have shone spotlight on abysmal conditions under which sanitation workers function — without …

MGNREGS won't subsidise rural toilets, says Gadkari

New study shows the small improvement achieved in sanitation between 2001 and 2011 not enough to improve health outcomes

Kitchen strike for toilets

Women of a Maharashtra hamlet give husbands an ultimatum-build toilets or go without food

No sops for rural Indian

No extra funds for MGNREGA, sanitation; allocations reduced for rural roads and housing programme

New Age Approach

We need to go back to the drawing board to reinvent a green toilet. If necessary, to go back to our past and find technological innovations that …

Drowning In Human Excreta

Sanitation for urban India means building flush toilets and linking them to sewer systems. But the price of chasing this dream is leading to an …

"Subsidy culture has killed local agriculture"

Thupstan Chhewang, Chief Executive Councillor and chairperson of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) speaks to Down To Earth.

Ladakh on the move

Ladakh is the one region in India where sustainable development is the only way ahead. Dry toilets, water efficient crops, cooperative farming, a …

COVID-19: How distant laws, uneven measures afflict sanitation workers

The pandemic has further aggravated the dichotomy of livelihood and safety of sanitation workers 

Mission possible

The Centre gives India just about eight years to free its villages of open defecation. This seems unlikely. But the states of Sikkim, Haryana and …

Ecologically mindless

The flush toilet system and the sewage system, which goes with modern day personal hygiene and cleanliness, are part of the environmental problem …

Can faith heal?

Billed as the largest gathering of humanity in recorded history, Maha Kumbh has commenced in Allahabad. Over the next few weeks, pilgrims will …

Nature's subsidy

Bio-toilets in trains are either unavailable, non-functional or misused: CAG report

The audit team identified 199,689 cases of deficiencies or complaints about bio-toilets

Common sense when nature calls