The country needs to build 2.3 million (23 lakh) toilets every month – or a formidable 56 toilets every minute – to meet the government’s target, the report said. Is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mega Swachchagraha campaign, that aims at building a toilet for every home till by 2019, lagging far behind its target? A survey carried out by Down to Earth Hindi magazine claims even Modi’s own Varanasi constituency […]

MADHYA PRADESH: In Madhya Pradesh’s Guradiya Varma village, about 120 kilometres from Bhopal, 21-year-old Anita Kaleshriya is an inspiration for many. Enthused by a workshop on cleanliness organised by a local group, she built a toilet in her house in May last year with money from her government scholarship fund. “During the workshop I made up my mind that we have to have a toilet at home now. I asked […]

In Pic :California’s Orange County Water District (OCWD), has a plant that recycles used water and returns it to the drinking supply. It is expanding production to 100 million gallons per day, enough for 850,000 people. A third successive year of California’s worst drought in a century has the Golden State’s reservoirs at record lows. Agriculture has been affected, hitting the local economy, while some small communities risk running out of […]