Blog

Work with r.i.c.e. and 3ie on a project to learn about latrine use measurement!
- Topics: Sanitation
We are delighted to announce that we are seeking applications for a team to carry out a new project — in partnership with 3ie and the WASH team at the Gates Foundation — that can help us learn about how to...Read More..

We are very excited to share that Dainik Bhaskar – the most widely-read Hindi newspaper in India – published an article written by Nikhil! And soon after, Satyagrah @Scroll.in published another article! We are on a roll in the Hindi...Read More..

“Mad rush for toilets under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan flouting citizens’ rights”, writes Kumkum Dasgupta from HT
- Topics: Sanitation
[caption id="attachment_29424" align="alignnone" width="474"] photo credit: Nikhil Srivastav[/caption] On October 2nd, 2014, the prime minister of India announced his ambitious target of ending open defecation in India by 2019. Now, two and half years after the prime minister made the...Read More..

Diane & Dean’s book awarded the Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences
- Topics: Child health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
Congrats to Dean and Diane for winning the Joseph W. Elder Prize from the American Institute of Indian Studies for their soon-to-be-published book Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development, and the Costs of Caste. The prize is named after...Read More..

Swachh Bharat Mission since its inception has been facing a drought in terms of policy solutions. Given that 2019 is the target for achieving an open defecation free India, the program has already lived half of its life and yet...Read More..

Payal, Dean, and Diane's article, "Can collective strategies motivate behavior change to reduce open defecation in rural India?" was recently honored with the Jeroen Ensink Memorial Prize from Waterlines Journal. See the announcement and full paper here. The award was...Read More..

How to continue the pit emptying momentum
- Topics: Child health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
I'm pasting below a list of practical action ideas that Robert Chambers has proposed after the pit emptying demonstration in Warangal. These are activities that governments and organizations can take up alike, to break down taboos around pit emptying related to caste and...Read More..

Maternity benefits – not yet universal
- Topics: Child health, Maternal health
At the start of the new year, we were excited to see forward momentum on the national maternity entitlements program: the prime minister announced that the program would be made universal and cover all districts beginning January 1st, 2017 (up...Read More..

Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation Secretary empties a latrine pit!
- Topics: Sanitation, Social inequalities
The Times of India reported yesterday that the Secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Param Iyer, emptied a latrine pit in Warangal district yesterday. Read why r.i.c.e. believes this is an important step forward in our op-ed in The...Read More..

Accountability Initiative releases its 2017 budget brief on Swacch Bharat Mission-Gramin
- Topics: Sanitation
Accountability Initiative has released its 2017 budget brief report on SBM-Gramin. According to the report, GOI allocation of SBM-G have increased over threefold since 2014-15. In FY 2016-17, 98 percent of the total expenditure incurred between April and January 10...Read More..

Influencing the beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of others through research is tough, and often unsuccessful. But this reader's comment on Diane's recent article in The Hindu on women eating last inspires us to keep on trying....Read More..

Two r.i.c.e. articles in this week’s EPW!
- Topics: Sanitation, Social inequalities
Our article on pollution, latrine pits, and untouchability has been published in this week's EPW! This article discusses the findings of the Switching Study, which we started several years ago. So it's great to finally see this in print! India has far higher open...Read More..

The Hindu just ran a four-part series covering the Social Attitudes Research for India (SARI) Survey. SARI uses a sampling frame based on mobile phone subscriptions, random digit dialing, within-household sample selection, and statistical weights to build representative samples of adults...Read More..

December 12: Join Sangita in a webinar addressing gender-related challenges in remote mobile data collection
- Topics: Gender
r.i.c.e. has recently launched the Social Attitudes Research in India (SARI) phone survey to track social attitudes over time and experiences of discrimination on the basis of gender, caste, and religion in India. We study discrimination and social exclusion because...Read More..

Mike Geruso, member of rice's board, was the presenter yesterday at Penn's Business Economics and Public Policy seminar series. He presented his research on "Upcoding: Evidence from Medicare on Squishy Risk Adjustment", co-authored with Timothy Layton. I have read Mike's...Read More..

Nikhil’s new article in Scroll
- Topics: Decision Making, Sanitation, Social inequalities
Nikhil's new article in scroll is now online. The article explains the link between India's open defecation problem and manual scavenging. Nikhil has tried answering some of the critical questions that the problem of open defecation poses for us. Read...Read More..
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