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Thursday, January 29, 2026
TopicOpen defecation

Topic: open defecation

On World Toilet Day, a look at India’s sanitation data and the ground realities

Kairvy Grewal -
Every year on 19 November, the UN celebrates World Toilet Day to create awareness about the 4.2 billion people who are living without ‘safely managed sanitation’.

Study finds Indian households with female children reduce practice of open defecation

Kairvy Grewal -
The study found a reduction in open defecation owing to a firstborn child being a girl far greater in poor urban households than richer ones.

More people in rural India defecate in open than what govt’s household survey shows: Study

Sangita Vyas -
India’s Demographic and Health Survey that asks household-level questions greatly underestimates open defecation among households with latrines.

Roshni, the Shivpuri Dalit girl killed for ‘open defecation’, wanted to become a doctor

Samyak Pandey -
Roshni, 12, and her minor nephew Avinash were beaten to death in MP for allegedly defecating in the open, triggering a wave of shame and anger in the country.

This Delhi village was declared open defecation-free by its BJP MP in 2018. Except it isn’t

Fatima Khan -
North-West Delhi MP Udit Raj had declared Jheemarpura ODF in May 2018, but residents still complain of a lack of toilets and other infrastructure.

Use of public toilets costs slum dwellers 104 times what those with own toilets spend

Fatima Khan -
Study suggests the high user charges are undermining the benefits of the Modi government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

The Indian state where development is more on a par with Pakistan than India

Ratnadeep Choudhary -
Like Pakistan, Uttar Pradesh is home to about 200 million people, which it can’t seem to take care of very well.

Modi wants open defecation-free India but his own adopted village paints a dirty picture

Ruhi Tewari -
Rural Development Ministry data shows Modi's village Nagepur in Varanasi is not open defecation-free, scores zero out of three.

Gujarat ‘open defecation-free’, but CAG flushes Modi govt’s claim down the toilet

Nandita Singh -
The CAG report, tabled in Gujarat assembly, shows nearly 30% of the households in 120 gram panchayats do not have toilets. 

Bangladesh and Tanzania have a lesson or two for India on open defecation

Bloomberg View -
Like Bangladesh and Tanzania, India can adopt strategies that generate shame and disgust to trigger collective action.
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Opinion

Why sharp selloff in Japanese bonds has a message for India’s budget

Andy Mukherjee -
Although its overall GDP will soon be bigger than Japan’s, on a per-capita basis India is still 12 times poorer.

Ursula von der Leyen’s Indian clothes vs Trudeaus? It’s cultural appreciation not performance

Arijit Singh is the bridge between 3 generations—Rafi to Ritviz

Economy

India’s looking at 14 million metric tonnes of e-waste by 2030, recycling can’t keep up—NITI Aayog

Udit Bubna -
Country's used lithium-ion battery problem is also set to grow sharply in next decade. India 3rd largest e-waste producer with 7% global share but currently recycles only about 10% of it.

Defence

Indian Army ties up with US drone company that made its name in the Ukraine conflict

Debdutta Chakraborty -
Shield AI will provide V-BAT vertical takeoff & landing drones along with licences for software, which will be integrated into aircraft and made available to select Indian partners.

National Interest

Non-alignment is coming back in a new avatar: Trump-peedit alliance

Shekhar Gupta -
No nation other than China can negotiate one-on-one with Trump on an equal footing. That’s why the middle powers who so far formed the core of multilateral bodies now feel orphaned.

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