दिल्लीको वायु प्रदूषण मापदण्डभन्दा २० गुणा बढी

नयाँदिल्ली  : भारतको नयाँदिल्लीमा विश्व स्वास्थ्य संगठनले तोकेभन्दा प्रदूषणको स्तर २० गुणा बढेपछि अधिकारीले स्थानीय बासिन्दालाई सकेसम्म केही दिन घरभित्रै रहन र प्रदूषणका स्रोत मानिने गतिविधिलाई कम गर्न सहयोगी भूमिका खेल्न आग्रह गरेका छन् ।

दीपावलीअघि नै शहरमा बाक्लो तुँवालोले ढाकिएपछि यहाँका बासिन्दामा त्रास फैलिएको छ । दीपावली मनाउँदा पटाका पड्काइने भएकाले वायुको गुणस्तर झनै खस्किने ठानिएको भन्दै विज्ञहरूले पूर्वचेतावनी दिएका छन् । प्रदूषण कम गर्न शहरभित्र भइरहेका निमार्णकार्यलाई नियन्त्रण गरिएको छ । सबै विद्यालयहरूमा तीन दिन बिदा दिइएको छ ।

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Thriving toilet economy of India’s financial capital

Figures speak for themselves in India’s most populous city. Census 2011 data revealed that nearly 42% of Mumbai’s total population of nearly 1.3 crore, i.e. nearly 55 lakh people, live in slums and are thereby excluded from some of the most basic amenities — including guaranteed access to safe and clean toilets and water.

In 2011, when Jeremy Clarkson, the presenter of BBC’s hit auto show, Top Gear, lampooned the state of sanitation in India by driving around prime cities in his lavatory-fitted Jaguar, the show attracted widespread condemnation. Clarkson was accused of being racist by disgruntled Indians from around the world, whose fragile sensibilities were hurt by the unexpected and ill-humoured exposé that uncovered India’s repulsive reality. It even led to diplomatic outrage, with the Indian High Commission in London demanding an apology from the BBC for making India the butt of such “tasteless toilet humour.”

That a large section of India’s population — both rural and urban — is forced to defecate in the open because of the lack of basic sanitation facilities, is a fact, which has become so obvious, that we have become inured to it. So much so, that it disturbs our collective conscience only when a foreigner makes it the focus of global ridicule. Sadly, even this occasional outrage is never focussed on the real issue, never followed by decisive action, as we tend to close our noses and look away, leaving crores of Indians to continue to lead a life of indignity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), has without any doubt seen India make rapid progress since 2014, but we are still a long way from the cherished goal of making the country open defecation-free (ODF). Like its predecessors, the focus of SBM too, is squarely on toilet construction without considering community participation and inculcating a sense of ownership among the users.

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Harassment, lack of toilets cause pre-term births in India

Water scarcity, harassment, lack of toilets – a new study has identified some of these factors as reasons for pre-term births in India.

The study from the University of Iowa says that women who spend more time fetching water, use a shared latrine, and endure harassment are more apt to give birth to a pre-term or low-birth weight babies. The findings by researchers in the University of Iowa College of Public Health came from a study that examines the complex relationships between water and sanitation access and social conditions on birth outcomes among women in India.

Globally, preterm birth (PTB) and low infant birth weight (LBW) are leading causes of maternal and child illnesses and death. In low-income countries, the challenges women face to meet their basic water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) needs may be a major contributor to adverse health outcomes.

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Learning from India’s massive, country-wide people’s movement to end open defecation

By Rolf Luyendijk, Executive Director, WSSCC

India may be the world’s largest democracy, with 815 million eligible voters with access to the ballot. Much less a source of pride is the fact that, historically, so few Indians have access to a toilet. This situation is changing fast, however.

As of 2014, for 550 million people in India with no toilet access, open defecation was widespread. Contamination of soil and water and exposure to disease and illness contrived to arrest all hope of escaping poverty’s grip.

Now, just four years later, the Government of India reports that the number of people in India with access to toilets has grown by 400 million. It is a dramatic change for the better, but how did this happen?

In fact, it has been a long time coming. While leading a non-violent movement for India’s independence from the British in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi spoke about the need to improve hygiene and cleanliness in the country. “Sanitation is more important than political independence,” he said. Last month, in an address on waste management and cleanliness, India’s President Pranab Mukherjee, reiterated Gandhi’s decades old exhortation.

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How to Improve Sanitation Across an Entire City: the Case of Visakhapatnam

Half of the one billion people in the world who still defecate in the open live in India. Poor sanitation in India is not just a rural issue: at least 157 million urban poor Indians lack access to decent toilets and one in 10 deaths in India are related to poor sanitation.

The port city of Visakhapatnam, also known as Vizag, is the largest city and an industrial center in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) has just completed a three-year programme in this city, funded by USAID, which has made a major difference to the lives of 250,000 residents and created a model for how cities in India can make rapid strides to improve sanitation.

At World Water Week in Stockholm, WSUP will talk about the conclusion of this highly successful project and how its experiences can inform future work towards achieving universal access to sanitation in India.

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India scraps tax on sanitary pads in boost for girls' education

NEW DELHI, July 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - India scrapped a controversial tax on sanitary pads on Saturday, a move hailed by campaigners who say it will help more girls to go to school during their periods and boost their job prospects. Activists say removing the tax on pads tackles one of the biggest barriers to education for girls, who are often forced to stay at home due to a lack of access to clean hygiene products, while also facing stigma and a lack of toilets in schools.

Periods are among the leading factors for girls to drop out of school in a country where four out of five women and girls are estimated by campaigners to have no access to sanitary pads. “I am sure all mothers and sisters will be very happy to hear that sanitary pads are now 100 percent exempt from tax,” India’s interim finance minister, Piyush Goyal, told reporters at a news conference in New Delhi.

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Why Are Indian Kids Smaller Than African kids? Hint: It’s Not Race

By Sanjay Wijesekera

5 month old Manish, at a Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre, Guna, Madhya Pradesh. In 2013 when this picture was taken, Madhya Pradesh alone had 5% of all open defecators in the world, and 50% of children under 3 were stunted.

A story on the high incidence of malnutrition among children in India reminded us of a curious phenomenon that for years had puzzled development and health professionals. Despite India’s growing economic power and successive governments who paid serious attention to increasing food supply, children in that country remained smaller than those in less well-off countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

It took years of research and large-scale case studies - some of which were published by UNICEF, USAID and WHO in Improving Nutrition Outcomes with Better Water, Sanitation and Hygiene - to pin it down. There is a very widespread lack of adequate and diverse food intake among young children, which needs to be addressed, in both India and poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, in India there is an additional and unexpected villain in the piece: a lack of toilets.

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Toilet-Ek Prem Katha

"Sanitation if More Importance than Independence. " said by Mahatma Gandhi
......
"If you will change nothing, nothing will change you." wow. 
Yes, we can change the health and hygiene of billions with the simple sanitation solution i.e. TOILET.
....

It's time to be a part of Keshav and Jaya's anokhi love story! Presenting the trailer of Toilet- Ek Prem Katha. 

Catch the movie in theatres on 11th August, 2017.

Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym4EJQ7XORk

“We don’t talk about it at all !” The taboo of menstruation in rural Maharashtra

Priyanka, 13 and a chirpy adolescent girl studying in a government school in a village called ‘Rohini Gaun’ 25 kms from Wardha in Maharashtra blushes and says, "We don’t talk about it at all!". That is how deep seated the taboo around menstruation is in rural India and our society as a whole, where mothers do not discuss it with their daughters or even among themselves. It is something to be 'hidden' from each other and the men folk of the household as if it never happened!  Priyanka gushes and says, "I got my menses when I turned thirteen few months ago and till that very time, I had no information about what menstrual cycle is." She says her mother told her nothing to prepare her for the change in her physiology and her life in general. "Menstruation onset turned my life upside down in more ways than one," Priyanka says regretfully, as if she felt she had been better off before it began.

In rural India as a whole, menstruation is a taboo writ with stigma not permitting discussion or even information seeking. Because of the shame and superstitions associated with this monthly biological occurrence, these women are impacted by poor menstrual hygiene. On an average a woman has 3000 days of menstruation in her lifetime, which begins from 8-16 years and ends in her late forties or early fifties, with very real and practical needs like material for absorption of menstrual blood, facilities for proper disposal of used materials with privacy and dignity.

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घरमा चर्पी छैन, हातहातमा मोबाइल

स्रोत: कान्तिपुर दैनिक श्रावन 2, 2069