tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278279504304651957.post6617422044919641031..comments2024-03-26T19:25:43.970-07:00Comments on South Asia Investor Review: Social Entrepreneur Solving India's Sanitation CrisisRiaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278279504304651957.post-6941164710777862062017-02-20T21:50:21.016-08:002017-02-20T21:50:21.016-08:00Horrible #toilets. lack of #Hygiene, at #India’s #...Horrible #toilets. lack of #Hygiene, at #India’s #aerospace show in #Bangalore. #Modi #AeroIndia2017 http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/what-the-state-of-toilets-at-indias-aerospace-megashow-tells-us-about-our-aspiration-to-be-a-leading-power/ … via @TOIOpinion... it didn’t occur to the organisers that these women would need access to clean toilets. There were just under a dozen toilets for women at the show, each afflicted with its own unique problem. Some had no water, toilet paper rolls or soaps; some had too much water on the floor, forcing the users to roll up their trousers or hitch up their sarees before entering, while some demanded a cross-country trek over unpaved ground, difficult to negotiate in heels.<br />One thing united them all: absolute lack of hygiene. For a show of this level, the organisers had hired local cleaning women to attend to the toilets, instead of professional housekeepers.<br />This makes a mockery of everything we claim and aspire for at so many levels. Let’s take each level one by one. We claim to be a leading power in Asia; our prime minister asserts that our time has come and the world must take notice; and he is exhorting global industry to come and ‘Make in India’. Yet, at the biggest showcase event, the infrastructure is so abysmal that foreign participants make sympathetic noises while putting India back in the third or the fourth world.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278279504304651957.post-66740636852400629112011-10-07T09:28:40.137-07:002011-10-07T09:28:40.137-07:00Malnutrition in India is worse than in sub-Saharan...Malnutrition in India is worse than in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a news report in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/14/hunger-india-actionaid" rel="nofollow">The Guardian</a>:<br /><br /><i>A report out today warns that even in a fast-growing economy like India, failure to invest in agriculture and support small farms has left nearly half the country's children malnourished, with one fifth of the one billion plus population going hungry.<br /><br />ActionAid, which published the report ahead of next week's summit in New York to discuss progress on the millennium development goals, says hunger is costing the world's poorest nations £290bn a year – more than 10 times the estimated amount needed to meet the goal of halving global hunger by 2015.<br /><br />India now has worse rates of malnutrition than sub-Saharan Africa: 43.5% of children under five are underweight and India ranks below Sudan and Zimbabwe in the Global Hunger Index. Even without last year's disastrous monsoon and the ensuing drought and crop failures, hunger was on the increase.<br /><br />----<br />India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, protested, saying the court had crossed the line into policy-making and warning that distributing free food to the estimated 37% of the population living below the poverty line destroyed any incentives for farmers to produce. The court stood firm. It was an order, not a suggestion, the judges said.<br />----------<br />The poker is glowing red hot in the flames of the burning wood. Suklal Hembrom holds a leaf against his stomach and warily eyes the older man sitting on the other side of the fire. Suddenly Thakur Das takes hold of the poker and lunges towards the boy's stomach.<br /><br />Everyone in the village knows what should happen next. The child will scream loudly as the flesh begins to blister. Held down, he will writhe in agony. Again and again, the poker will jab at his belly. The more the child screams, the happier everyone will be, because the villagers of Mirgitand in India's Jharkhand state believe the only way they can "cure" the distended stomachs of their famished children is by branding them with pokers.<br /><br />Das sees nothing wrong with the procedure. Nor does anyone in the village – most have scars of their own. Even though some children have died, the villagers continue because the alternative – providing enough nutritious food to sustain their children or paying for medical treatment – is simply not an option. In common with millions of others in the world's 11th largest economy, they face a daily battle to put even the most basic meal on the table.</i><br /><br />http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/14/hunger-india-actionaidRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278279504304651957.post-68499482026211596712011-10-07T09:18:43.789-07:002011-10-07T09:18:43.789-07:00Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan to champion sanitatio...Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan to champion sanitation campaign in India, reports <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/oct/07/sanitation-mdg-tackle-laggard-hygiene?newsfeed=true" rel="nofollow">The Guardian</a>:<br /><br /><i>Sanitation and hygiene are sensitive and unpopular subjects, but funding them is essential to fighting disease, ensuring basic rights and meeting millennium development goals.<br /><br />It is hardly the most glamorous role for Shah Rukh Khan, yet "the king of Bollywood" has agreed to lend his name to the cause of sanitation and hygiene, the laggards in the millennium development goals.<br /><br />Basic sanitation, covering subjects such as toilets, latrines, handwashing and waste, is not an MDG in its own right, instead falling under MDG7 on ensuring environmental sustainability. But sanitation and hygiene have been the poor cousins in the global Wash (water, sanitation and hygiene) work and programmes, outfunded by as much as 13 to one, even though it could be argued that most water-related diseases are really sanitation-related diseases.<br /><br />As the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said in June, sanitation is a sensitive and unpopular subject, so it is unsurprising it fails to garner much public or official attention – although the UN declared access to water and sanitation a fundamental right in 2010 and there is a UN rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation.<br />----------<br />The problem is stark. As many as 1.2 billion people practice what the UN politely describes as "open defecation". They go to the toilet behind bushes, in fields, in plastic bags or along railway tracks. The practice poses particular problems for women and girls, who can be subject to physical and verbal abuse or humiliation. Sexual harassment and rape are also a risk for women who wait until dark to relieve themselves.<br /><br />There is a link between sanitation and girls' education as well. Separate toilets at school mean more girls are likely to attend in the first place, and more are likely to stay on after puberty to complete their education. The UN's Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), based in Geneva, suggests that some money from education budgets should go towards providing toilets for students and teachers, with separate facilities for girls, to maximise the impact of the increase in education spending.<br /><br />Better sanitation would also save lives, as 1.6 million children die every year from diarrhoea, a disease that could be prevented with clean water and basic sanitation. The UN says improving the disposal of human waste can reduce illness due to diarrhoea by 34%. When combined with hand-washing, this impact can be doubled.<br /><br />As Timeyin Uwejamomere wrote on the Poverty Matters blog this week, a lack of basic toilets and waste management is a severe public health hazard, especially in a dense urban environment where diseases like cholera can spread like wildfire. He noted that in sub-Saharan Africa more children die from diarrhoeal diseases caused by a lack of sanitation and safe water than they do from measles, HIV and Aids, and malaria combined.<br />-------<br />In a sign that sanitation is receiving greater attention, the WSSCC is holding its first-ever global forum on sanitation and hygiene, starting on Sunday in Mumbai, bringing together activists, business leaders, health professionals and governmental officials. This follows a drive launched by the UN in June to accelerate progress towards the goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation.<br /><br />Indicative of the increasing focus on water, sanitation and hygiene, the UK's Department for International Development is increasing bilateral aid on the problem. Based on Guardian analysis, spending will go up to £113.8m by 2014-15 from £82.9m in 2010-11, a 32% rise. So hats off to Shah Rukh Khan for his willingness to sign on to the Wash cause.</i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278279504304651957.post-84060761742006547182009-10-28T23:19:52.774-07:002009-10-28T23:19:52.774-07:00This is from CNN today:
New Delhi, India (CNN) --...This is from <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/28/intl.india.toilet.bride/index.html" rel="nofollow">CNN</a> today:<br /><br /><i>New Delhi, India (CNN) -- Most Indian mothers want their daughters to marry decent men who make a good living. Now, in parts of rural India, women have a new -- and rather unusual -- demand for matrimony: a toilet.<br /><br />"No toilet, no bride," has become a rallying cry for women raising a stink about the lack of a basic amenity.<br /><br />They see it as a human rights issue, especially in villages where plumbing can be nonexistent.<br /><br />It was that way in Sunariyan Kalan in the northern state of Haryana. Sumitra Rathi said village women had no choice but to relieve themselves without privacy.<br /><br />They would go before sunrise or hold it in until darkness fell once again to avoid being seen. Or they would walk out to the fields and endure embarrassment. They don't want their daughters to face the same indignity.<br /><br />"Many of them do make serious inquiries from the families of grooms about latrines," she said.<br /><br />As a member of the local council, Rathi has helped build toilets in 250 houses in Sunariyan Kalan since 1996.<br /><br />Still, about five dozen homes lack covered bathrooms.<br /><br />The problem is so big in India that the country would need to construct 112,000 toilets every day if it wants to meet its sanitation goal by 2012, according to the Ministry of Rural Development.<br /><br />Even as India emerges as a global economic power, millions of its citizens still live in poverty. The government estimates that less than 30 percent of villagers have access to latrines, which poses serious health risks and increases the threat of deadly diseases like typhoid and malaria.<br /><br />To help overcome the enormity of the sanitation challenge, the government is offering incentives to encourage villagers to build bathrooms. The poorest<br /><br />of the poor in Haryana stands to receive Rs. 2,200 ($48) for each toilet they install, said P.S. Yadav, a state coordinator for the sanitation campaign.<br /><br />The incentives are especially attractive to women, for whom the problem transcends health issues.<br /><br />Local women, often illiterate, have taken a keen interest in bathroom construction, said Roshni Devi, the council chief in Haryana's Kothal Khurd village.<br /><br />And through it, they have gained a sense of self, making the lowly toilet seat feel more like a lofty throne.</i>Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.com