Health issues in India
“Modi deserves another chance as this country’s head,” a sanitation worker remarked in February. He was responding to a gesture that made headlines because of its unprecedented humility, wherein the Prime Minister washed the feet of five sanitation workers during a visit to the Prayagraj Kumbh Mela. The Prime Minister tweeted that he would “cherish” […]
How can India expect to substantially improve public health when pollutants such as arsenic are commonly found in water supplies?
Worldwide, two billion people lack access to basic sanitation services at health facilities – leaving them vulnerable to the health risks that can arise because of unhygienic conditions. This is according to a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The report’s findings reveal how a quarter […]
Narendra Modi made tackling India’s sanitation woes a cornerstone of his 2014 election campaign. With the launch of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan after the BJP’s victory in the polls, it seemed as though the government was moving towards fulfilling its promises. Almost five years on, how has the Mission benefited India and to what extent […]
An incident at a temple in Karnataka has spotlighted one of India’s major public health issues when it comes to infectious disease: food poisoning. More than 130 worshippers at a temple in the Chamarajanagar district became sick after eating food offered during the service. Eleven people died and eight are in critical condition at the […]
On World Toilet Day, United Nations figures on open defecation and toilets across the world should ring alarm bells. Four billion people still lack access to basic sanitation facilities. Each day, nearly a thousand children are dying due to preventable water and sanitation-related diarrhoeal diseases. What’s the situation in India? “Four years since Swachh Bharat’s […]
Swachh Bharat, or Clean India, is typically seen as just an endeavour to place toilets in villages and encourage hand washing. While these things seem like simple measures to improve sanitation, the knock on effect of doing so could have far more wide ranging consequences. Three of seven most common causes of disease and death […]
Stunting during childhood reduces earnings later in life, in bad news for the millions of Indian children who suffer from the condition. Stunting refers to when a child is not tall enough for their age. The condition is generally caused by malnutrition or repeated infections. Prevalence of the condition in India is high, affecting 38.4 […]
“It is dirty everywhere”, this is how Amish Das describes his home: Boragaon, a landfill site which sprawls across 94 acres of wetland in Guwahati City in northeastern Assam. Amish, whose story was recounted in a feature for The Independent last year, has lived in Boragaon his entire life. His living is made through scavenging, […]
Dalsukh, a sanitation worker, went down a manhole on June 12. He did not come back up again. Descending into the manhole to clean it was Dalsukh’s job. A sanitation worker in the Ahmedabad district of Gujarat, he was cleaning drains near the Riyaz Hotel in Jamalpur. According to DNA India, CCTV footage showed Dalsukh […]
