Blog >> Sanitation

How many of us are willing to clean our own toilets?
- Topics: Sanitation
Sagarika Ghosh’s Times of India blog post this week echoes some of r.i.c.e.’s research findings and addresses a very deep reason why India’s sanitation challenge continues to be so intractable: purity, pollution, and caste discrimination. You can read the full...Read More..

Written by Payal Hathi on October 22nd, 2014 In Rohini Nilekani’s recent LiveMint piece, she argues that before we “rush out to build toilets everywhere” it is important to understand both the costs of poor sanitation, and the complexities in overcoming the challenge....Read More..

Check out our UNC posters and presentations
- Topics: Sanitation
As Sangita posted a few days back, we had a great week at the UNC Health and Water Conference last week. I’m posting our presentations and posters here, in case anyone wants to take a closer look at the research...Read More..

Payal’s article for IndiaSpend: The Trouble With India’s $22 Billion Toilet Gamble
- Topics: Sanitation
IndiaSpend, the data journalism website, published an article by Payal. Here is the article. The full text of the article is also pasted below. – The Narendra Modi Government has announced that Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) has to be a mass movement to make...Read More..

r.i.c.e. at UNC
- Topics: Child health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
We just concluded a great week at the Water and Health Conference at UNC! Between the 4 of us attending, we had 6 verbal presentations and 6 poster presentations over the course of the week. We were so thrilled to...Read More..

The article, written by Rukmini S had the funny but tragic but true headline, Toilets on Paper. Here is the section which quotes Payal: The other thing that will change, the government says, is an emphasis on behavioural change. Over the last...Read More..

This is what he has to say! Had he a head for anything other than the trivial, Modi would not have been looking for film stars (and comprador Congressmen) as “brand ambassadors”, but summoning the hard working authors of the...Read More..

Why many Indians can’t stand to use a toilet
- Topics: Sanitation
Atish Patel, while writing for the the Wall Street Journal’s India blog “India Real Time” just wrote an article covering rice research on sanitation. Here are some quotes from the article: The answer though, sanitation experts say, doesn’t lie only in building more...Read More..

The BBC just wrote an article about our research!
- Topics: Sanitation
The BBC just wrote an article featuring a lot of r.i.c.e. research. Check it outhere. Here are some quotes from the article: A staggering 70% of Indians living in villages – or some 550 million people – defecate in the open. Even...Read More..

We are presenting SQUAT (and other papers) at the University of North Carolina
- Topics: Sanitation
We are presenting SQUAT and Switching Study results at the UNC Water and Health Conference. Many of our sanitation related posters are also a part of the poster presentations. If you are there, we would be happy to talk to...Read More..

Shashi Tharoor writes about sanitation and r.i.c.e. research!
- Topics: Sanitation
Author, diplomat and Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor recently wrote an NDTV blog on sanitation quoting liberally from r.i.c.e. research! Here’s what he says: As Health Minister Harshvardhan has pointed out, poor sanitation breeds infections and leads to major public health problems;...Read More..

Economic Times column by Chaitanya Kalbag quotes us too!
- Topics: Sanitation
Chaitanya Kalbag wrote a very interesting column in the Economic Times, the world’s second largest english business daily, on the day of the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission, quoting us quite a bit. We thank him! He said, [The] government pledged...Read More..

NDTV’s BanegaSwachhIndia campaign did an interview with Dean!
- Topics: Sanitation
Dean Spears, our executive director, was on NDTV yesterday to discuss research and policies on open defecation in India. Check out the full video here, which includes reporting from parts of rural India as well. Dean’s segment starts 13:55 minutes...Read More..

r.i.c.e. in the Indian Express and on Anubha Bhonsle’s show India at 9!
- Topics: Sanitation
Check out Aashish and Payal’s article in today’s Indian Express, calling for a Sanitation Sena in India, and they made a very cool cartoon too! Sangita, Jeff Hammer, and Jayamala Subramaniam, rang in the Swacch Bharat Mission on India at 9 with Anubha...Read More..

The government chucked latrine use from ‘Sanitation Pledge’
- Topics: Sanitation
The Government has decided that all of its citizens and the government employees will take a ‘sanitation pledge’ on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary this year. Though the biggest sanitation challenge faced by the country is its rampant open defecation, it...Read More..

reflections on the switching study: children would taunt “Bhangi! Bhangi!”
- Topics: Sanitation, Social inequalities
This week I’m in Sitapur, and it’s nice to be back after a long time. I learn so much here. Today, I was having a conversation about rural sanitation with Baby, a woman who long-time readers of our blog will...Read More..