Blog >> Sanitation

Thanks so much to Payal for sharing Nilanjana Sen's new article at Fair Observer about caste & sanitation in India.  It talks about how India's history and continuing practice of untouchability makes the adoption of simple latrines a unique challenge. ...Read More..

This paper by Jeffrey and Dean reports a cluster randomized controlled trial of a village sanitation intervention conducted in rural Maharashtra,  designed to identify an effect of village sanitation on average child height. The paper got published on 20th April,...Read More..

Waterlines recently published Dean, Diane and my paper on the relationship between social fragmentation in villages and the persistence of open defecation in India.  We use quantitative data to show the correlation between perceptions of village conflict, both general and...Read More..

Using government data, policy brief by Accountability Initiative  reports on trends for SBM Gramin along  parameters such as allocations and expenditures, physical progress of toilets built, expenditures incurred under Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities.  The report shows that construction...Read More..

The Global Health Frontiers series on sanitation talks about the effect of poor sanitation on physical and cognitive development of an individual. The film has featured an interview with our MD, Sangita Vyas and Research and Policy Manager, Nikhil Srivastav....Read More..

Rahul Jacob wrote a piece today in the Business Standard, highlighting r.i.c.e.’s research and calling on the government to convince people to use latrines if the SBM is to have any impact on public health, rather than simply meeting latrine...Read More..

  Dean's article in Global Nutrition Report's website talks about how measuring open defecation and promoting toilet use in India can help children grow to their full potential. Hence, helping make World Toilet Day a Happy World Toilet Day! Read...Read More..

Today is Gandhi Jayanti, which marks the first anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission. r.i.c.e. marked the occasion a few days ago by hosting a Conference on Purity, Untouchability, and Open Defecation: Starting a Conversation for a Swachh Bharat. At the...Read More..

If you would like to attend the conference, you must register by here by 25th Sept. Last year, the Government of India launched the Swachch Bharat Mission, aimed at eliminating open defecation by 2019. How can the widespread adoption of latrine use...Read More..

Everyone concerned about the prospects of the Swachh Bharat Mission should check out this new paper in BMC Public Health by lead author Parimita Routray and some of the top thinkers in sanitation, available at this link here: They reach many of...Read More..

India, on Sunday morning, set two new Guinness World Records –for the most individuals performing Yoga at a single venue, and individuals from the largest number of nationalities performing it simultaneously. The prime minister took everyone by surprise when after...Read More..

Yep. Its at the India Habitat Center, on  Sunday. Here is the link for the event. When the video is available on the internet, we will link it here....Read More..

Please go to livemint and see Nikhil and Aashish's op-ed on the struggles being faced by the new Swachh Bharat Mission. They compile a lot of data from the website of the Swachh Bharat Mission to present the case that the...Read More..

This week, FiveThirtyEight blog highlighted a newly-released working paper by Dean Spears and I. The paper, now posted as part of the National Bureau of Economic Research's working paper series, studies the infant mortality externalities of poor sanitation. The paper, "Neighborhood Sanitation...Read More..

Anil K. Rajvanshi, an Indian academic and the Director of an agricultural institute in Maharastra, recently wrote an article titled ‘The Un-Swachh Truth’ in the Huffington Post. The points which the author takes up in the article resonate with our...Read More..

The government's plans to monitor toilet building as a part of the Swacch Bharat Mission were highlighted this week in USA Today.  The article quotes from the SQUAT report to make the point that simply building toilets will not be...Read More..