Ending open defecation by 2019 will require changing minds, not just allocating money to build latrines for people that will either go unused or not be built at all.
Joshi's decision to step down comes a couple of days after Home Secretary L C Goyal sought early retirement, 17 months before his term was to lapse
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday also said that Rs 3.6 lakh crore have been approved for Jal Jeevan Mission, which seeks to provide Functional Household Tap Connection to every rural household by 2024.
Iyer, popularly called Param, is keen to return to the US where he had spent several years working with the World Bank at its Washington office -- a job he later quit to become road manager for his daughter, a professional tennis player.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Mandya to inaugurate the 10-lane Mysuru-Bengaluru Expressway, independent MP Sumalatha Ambareesh on Friday extended her complete support to the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre.
The work will finish by end of the year.
In the Union budget, Rs 65,011.8 crore has been allocated to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, up from Rs 62,659.12 crore in 2019-20.
Adityanath also asked the the staff to make the atmosphere in the building healthy and clean by avoiding the use plastic.
The real dirt of India lies not on the streets but in "our minds and in our unwillingness to let go of views that divide society into them and us", President Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday emphasising on cleansing minds of divisive thoughts.
Porbandar, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, and nearly 170 towns in Gujarat were declared Open Defection Free on the birth anniversary of the 'Father of the Nation'.
Rediff.com takes a look at the progress of schemes initiated by the government.
The 13th edition of the flagship congregation of diaspora is coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi arriving back to India from South Africa in 1915, to eventually lead the country towards attaining freedom.
The aim of the programme is to increase the water table in the stressed areas through dams, ponds, and afforestation. According to a NITI Aayog study, by 2030, the country's water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual 6 per cent loss in the country's GDP.
On the back of ongoing reforms and stress on manufacturing, India. he said, can look for much bigger share in global exports.
Sanitation is always clubbed with other departments, which lead to its neglect, says Devanik Saha.
'What has taken the wind out of its sails is the government's own expectation management and its inability to strategise on delivery,' says Vikram Johri.
'Here's a list of the things we should be reading more about in the media,' says Mitali Saran.
The 37th India Day Parade organised by the Federation of Indian Associations.
Shashi Tharoor has been removed as Congress spokesperson after the party high command received complaints that he had embarrassed the party with his praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
'Unless Modi uses his power to make people work, he will not succeed. He may cry hoarse but he will not succeed.' V Kalyanam, Mahatma Gandhi's personal secretary, tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com why Modi's Clean India campaign won't succeed easily.
Shazia Ilmi, one of the Aam Aadmi Party's founder members who left that party after the Lok Sabha elections in May 2014, was recently nominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi unit to join the Swachh Bharat campaign. After she came out in favour of the campaign and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there has been speculation about Ilmi planning to join the saffron party. She speaks about her views on BJP, love jihad and her fallout with AAP.
Top Union ministers on Saturday joined a gala event, which had a smattering of Bollywood actors, including megastar Amitabh Bachchan, aimed at publicising the "achievements" of the Narendra Modi government on completion of two years in office.
The PM asked people to pay school fees, buy medicines or items from fair price shops or purchase air and train tickets digitally.
'If the 'ideology' is just Hindutva, meaning cattle slaughter, temple issue, love jihad, joined with random acts on the side of economics and foreign policy, then we are in deeper trouble than we think,' says Aakar Patel.
Can India really succeed when it leaves some of its underprivileged so far behind that they simply do not matter, asks Aseem Chhabra
P Chidambaram rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi's veiled charge that Sonia Gandhi was an "unconstitutional authority."
Prime Minister Modi highlighted the importance of public participation in a democracy and said that the definition of democracy could not be restricted only to elections and the governments.
'Rahul is only making a pathetic public spectacle of his lack of judgment and good sense by hallucinating that somehow, the Congress, or whatever political combine is cobbled together, will displace the BJP at the coming Lok Sabha election by constantly harping on the Rafale deal,' argues retired civil servant B S Raghavan.
'When the national anthem is played it has to be played for 52 seconds.' 'It is mandatory. It is in the law.' 'One or two seconds here and there is fine when kids sing. But you cannot deliberately stretch the national anthem by singing in long aalaps.'
Secretary general of CBCI Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas on what he doesn't like about the new education policy.
'The Opposition has no option but to make it an 'All versus One' fight to even think about winning.'
