Batting legend Sachin Tendulkar became UNICEF's first brand ambassador for South Asia on Thursday and vowed to work towards promoting hygiene and sanitation in the region.
Eighty-five village sarpanchs from across India have been invited as special guests to witness the Independence Day celebrations at Red Fort, in recognition of their contributions to rural transformation.
Sanitation is always clubbed with other departments, which lead to its neglect, says Devanik Saha.
Bio-toilets developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation on Tuesday earned praise from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who said that these could go a long way in solving the problem of open defecation in rural India.
On the one had are sanitation oriented social enterprises and on the other are awareness raising campaigns by government.
With over 600 million people in India or 53 per cent of Indian households defecating in the open, absence of toilet or latrine is one of the important contributors to malnutrition, a World Bank report has said.
Some of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi-run schools are 'horror houses', the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) remarked after it conducted surprise inspection and found them without adequate security and sanitation facilities.
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.
The monthly Rs 2500 payment for poor women is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore while the pension scheme of Rs 2000 for every senior citizen will cost around Rs 4100 crore. The Yamuna clean up will cost over Rs 10,000 crore while a similar amount is required to upgrade Delhi's hospitals. Ultimately, the new BJP government will have no choice but to ask the centre for financial support, notes Rashme Sehgal.
A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma issued notices to the Kerala government and the victim in the case and sought their replies within two weeks.
Ahead of the upcoming elections, political parties have started announcing incentives to benefit women, but what do women truly seek for genuine gender parity, asks Nivedita Mookerji.
There should have been a focus on sanitation and not on littering or garbage. Absence of sanitation affects the health of children, explains Aakar Patel.
For more than half of all Indian households, the very personal act of defecation is an open affair, says Joel Rai
'The good governance which the Congress government claims has resulted in a regime where women in Rajasthan are afraid to go out of their homes.'
Modi pitched for revamping urban governance while linking it to the 'Digital India' mission and 'Swachh Bharat' campaign.
The company will engage various NGOs for the construction of toilets as well as undertake awareness campaigns for better sanitation, it said adding that a total of around 100,000 households would be benefited by the sanitation initiative.
Top officials, including cabinet secretary, principal secretary to the prime minister, health secretary and NITI Aayog member Vinod Paul, attended the meeting.
If AAP dominates both state and local elections, the move for unification may become the illness for the BJP instead of the medicine it was supposed to have been.
'That is the one headline the world is reading about India this week, and it is a potentially damaging story...' 'I don't think a panic mentality has set in, but this story is one that investors and market watchers are absolutely seized with.'
However, two districts -- Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar in Punjab -- which did not record a fresh case in the last 28 days, reported new COVID-19 cases on Monday, it added.
It seems like the Twitter-selfie craze compels the PM to put on a mega show every few months
An increase in government spending on the healthcare sector - from the current 1 per cent to 2.5-3 per cent of GDP - as envisaged in the National Health Policy 2017 could reduce out-of-pocket expenditures, as per the Economic Survey 2020-21. The rise in public spending can lead to a reduction in expenditures from 65 per cent to 30 per cent of overall healthcare spend, it noted. The Economic Survey said that for the country to effectively respond to future pandemics, the country's health infrastructure needs to be agile. Given its potential to provide healthcare access in remote areas, telemedicine needs to be harnessed to the fullest by especially investing in internet connectivity and health infrastructure, it added.
It's BJP's religion to attack others, says Arvind Kejriwal.
On the ground, rural medical infrastructure and more crucially, women's access to reproductive health services is practically non-existent in Uttar Pradesh, reports Geetanjali Krishna.
In a bid to promote the ambitious 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' (Clean India Mission), Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani made a surprise visit to a government school in Delhi and participated in a cleaning drive.
Making water available is always a serious challenge in the summer for all public authorities. This year, the challenge is higher when hand-washing at every opportunity has become a necessity. So keeping potable water lines running without a glitch has become most necessary.
Launching the scheme, Modi said during the nationwide lockdown, the talent from cities returned to villages and it will now give a boost to development of rural areas. The 'Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan' will be implemented on a mission mode in 125 days in 116 districts of six states -- Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha -- that received the maximum numbers of migrant workers back.
The Opposition can only question us if we stop them from campaigning. The opportunities are equal for all, he said.
Dolly, who is leading from the front in Amritsar, wakes up early, plans things for her husband's campaign, oversees resources, does nukkad meetings and keeps busy -- all without getting into the limelight. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com's fascinating insights into the battle for Amritsar!
Wielding the broom, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched the country's biggest-ever cleanliness drive that is expected to cost over Rs 62,000 crore, asserting that the "Swachh Bharat" mission is "beyond politics" and inspired by patriotism.
These 10 cities have maintained cleanliness throughout
Despite Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis' ambitious plan, 40 per cent of the state is reeling from drought and its water tanker economy is booming. As of February 2019, the state government declared drought in 151 of the 358 talukas.
Only 40 of the 160 projects under the Namami Gange Mission -- a Rs 20,000 crore project for cleaning the river -- have been completed.
Uttar Pradesh still remains far behind the Indian average on most health indicators, says Dipa Sinha.
At a time when more and more of government spending is done by states, the impression you get from these large advertisements could well reflect the slogan of Emergency days: the nation is on the move, says T N Ninan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inducted 19 new ministers into his Cabinet on Tuesday has carried out major changes in the portfolios of his top ministers.
There are conflicting signs on India's investment cycle.
If money allocations, investment commitments are a sign of better things to come, the state can be optimistic.
In the 66th year of the Indian Republic, eight people died of cold every night in the nation's capital.
'These are challenging times and we get energised by that.' 'I don't feel that 'I am tired now and I should relax', because even if someone calls us at 12 o'clock I have to answer his call.'
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