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The numbers show that the government's guidelines on establishing whether a region is trul....
A "blinkered approach" to urban planning and entrenched caste discrimination has ensured t....
An 'ODF' village has seen a caste crime of staggering brutality over what is ostensibly, o....
"We are insensate to what is happening right in front of us,” says photographer Sudharak O....
"Hundreds of workers complained that they were transported to and from their work places f....
Notified manual scavengers in Karauli were not selected despite government guidelines to p....
Kumbh's sanitation workers talk about their experience with Modi and their ambitions.
The church has played a role in emphasising the dignity of labour, as has the primarily ca....
In Naxal-dominated areas, the Swachh Bharat Mission – like all other government schemes – ....
“What’s the worse that can happen? We will die. But that’s not so bad for someone who goes....
In Biate, children are taught the importance of keeping the town clean from a young age.
While SC communities were given a preference for the posts in the past, the jobs have now ....
While government-employed sanitation workers are marching for their rights, their counterp....
Three men entered a sewage line. Only one came out alive. Then the project manager "asked ....
The Swachh Bharat campaign is a clever shift in narrative from non-availability and inadeq....
Chandankhera’s story is one of self-sufficiency with the help of constant community engage....
The nine-day Rath Yatra may be a festive occasion for the people of Puri, but it means add....
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To ensure continued usage of toilets, simply constructing them is not enough. Sustained co....
While municipal authorities threaten legal action if toilets are not constructed, benefici....
The Supreme Court had issued orders in 2014 to identify the families of the sanitation wor....
In villages where the number of households as per the baseline survey is less than the act....
While state intervention in Tamil Nadu is feeble when it comes to manual scavenging, activ....
The government claims 99% of Uttar Pradesh is open defecation free, but the ground reality....
For those who survive, rehabilitation and compensation are hard to come by.
An unverified claim on paper that each household that appears on a 2012 list, which may or....
Family members of the five men who died while cleaning a sewage tank in west Delhi's DLF C....
"Nobody wants to do this work. We know how dangerous it is, how disgusting it is. But what....
Sanitation workers in the city have been protesting, demanding better pay and working cond....
According to information obtained under the RTI, of the Rs 55 crore last released under th....
A "green corridor" is a special route to enable immediate medical care and facilitate time....
“Who else will do it, if the Valmiki community stops cleaning the excreta? They know their job well, and have been doing it for centuries.”
A previous survey concluded that Tamil Nadu had fewer manual scavengers than it actually did. A new survey to rectify its predecessor's mistakes just concluded. Will it reach a different conclusion?
Apart from not being paid regularly, the municipal corporation has also failed to provide safety equipment and uniforms to the powrakarmikas in most places.
Without safety equipment, workers inside manholes are exposed to three dangerous environments conspiring together: chemical, biological and legal.
A case study of Angul in Odisha highlights just how much urban centres rely on lower castes when it comes to sanitation.
Even this number accounts for only 121 districts in the country and focuses on a few kinds of manual scavenging.
Members of the Chakliyan community in Kerala's Kollam district have been working as manual scavengers for centuries, but the state continues to ignore them.
The sewer jetting machines are efficient in only clearing the blockage in the sewer pipes, solid wastes including the night soil are still manually cleaned.
The Wire speaks to rehabilitated manual scavengers as identified by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and finds their condition and profession unchanged.
ON GROUND: Recognising the gross underreporting of the number of manual scavengers in the government’s official statistics, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is carrying out fresh surveys.
In Japan, cleaning is a public service to be performed by everyone, not relegated to one marginalised section of the society.
Where India Goes is essential reading not only for policy-makers and development professionals, but for anyone interested in the paradoxes of development in the early 21st century.
At least nine such deaths have occurred in Delhi in the past 45 days.
While the government has said it wants to end manual scavenging, budgetary allocations for rehabilitation and better technologies are declining.
K. Nagamma, the wife of a sanitation worker who died in a septic tank, and her daughters recount their struggles against a system that confines them – quite literally – to the gutters
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Until recently, parai was an instrument almost always played during funeral processions – and always performed only by Dalits.
A new grouping of Dalits is conducting a yatra in Gujarat to meet the state's elected representatives and ask them what they are doing for the community.
"Nai Disha is an initiative that rehabilitates manual scavengers, especially women, and provides them with vocational training to find alternative livelihoods."
The 2016 Magsaysay Award winner's journey is one of courage, passion, perseverance and hope.
In an interview, the 2016 Magsaysay Award winner discusses the struggles of India's sanitation workers and the reasons why the country has yet to end the barbaric practice of manual scavenging.
On a 125-day journey across India, 'Bhim Yatra' has been highlighting the poor implementation of the Anti-manual Scavenging Act in the country.
Despite the announcement of the milestone on Gandhi Jayanti, crucial levels of verificatio....
According to government data, several households in villages that had been declared ODF di....
The incident took place in Bhavkedhi village in the morning, Sirsod police station inspect....
The apex court questioned the Centre on why protective gear is not provided to the people ....
This number only accounts for deaths in eight states.
Chairing a meeting of the state-level monitoring committee for implementation of Manual Sc....
At the launch of 'Right to Sanitation in India: Critical Perspectives', panelists talked a....
In the last three years, 88 people have died in sewers and septic tanks, Union minister Ra....
One labourer was killed and two others went missing on Friday after being swept away as th....
The workers say they were sacked for demanding better working conditions, provident fund a....
A third worker is currently in critical condition and undergoing treatment.
his will probably be the first time that sections that have felt marginalised over the las....
The sanitation worker has been identified as 37-year-old Kishan, a resident of Shri Ram JJ....
The incident took place on Wednesday when the labourers were cleaning a choked valve in a ....
The government has also provided skill training to 13,585 people and given Rs 950 crore ai....
The Bihar, Haryana and Telangana governments have denied the existence of even a single ma....
Launched in June this year, #Grit has reported on the lives of manual scavengers across th....
The BJP government has turned its sanitation mission into a photo-op while neglecting thos....
Over 20 sewer deaths have occurred in Delhi over the last one year.
According to the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, 600 people have died in the last one-and-a-half....
The survey to identify manual scavengers in all districts of Delhi has to be completed wit....
The Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) has become a single-minded toilet-building exercise, wi....
If people cleaning sewers and septic tanks die on the job, their employers will booked for....
Around 1,000 people, including students and activists, gathered at Jantar Mantar on Tuesda....
For the fourth year in a row, sanitation workers are protesting the delay in wage and arre....
The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, a statutory body set up by an Act of parlia....
The National Human Rights Commission ordered the Delhi government, and the Delhi governmen....
The identified manual scavengers will be trained in housekeeping over a period of three mo....
#Grit tracks manual scavenging related questions in parliament.
Minimum protective gear, maximum risk, no holidays, no pay and the ever-lurking disease and death – this is the fate of safai karmacharis in Pavagada in Karnataka’s Tumkur district.
Even though the survey results are likely an under-representation, they have proved the authorities' previous assertions on the outlawed profession not existing in the city false.
In 2017, MCDs had told the Delhi high court that the outlawed profession is no longer practiced here.
Excerpted from Sujatha Gidla's Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family And The Making Of Modern India
A photo series by Chintan
Latest news reports from the world of work.
The pledge also says, “from today, I will throw garbage and dirt in the dustbin, will not dirty my country and not let anyone dirty the country”.
Latest news updates from the world of work.
"Subscribe to The Life of Labour, a compilation of important labour developments from around the world by Thomas Manuel. It will be delivered to your inbox every Sunday at 10 am."
Overcoming resistance to toilet usage requires addressing values, norms and beliefs that w....
The Union government is claiming to have achieved something that a majority of Indians kno....
It should be axiomatic that one human right ought not to be realised by violating other hu....
The Indian approach to ridding the country of open defecation has been highly centralised ....
When the social contract that says a state protects its citizens is violated – as it was w....
Can photographing an unacceptable practice like manual scavenging help end it?
Recent septic tank deaths in Tamil Nadu have highlighted how much still remains to be done....
Prestige, combined with convenience, can help set in toilet use as a durable practice, but....
State coercion to usher in toilet use may cause resentment in those who prefer open defeca....
In Chhattisgarh's Pahidihi, open defecation – unlike the use of toilets – is a familiar en....
Toilet use in India substantially lags behind toilet construction. Why is that?
Around five million individuals are currently dependant on sanitation work as a source of ....
We need to devise solutions to India's sanitation problem that are not only innovative but....
The Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin's achievements are built on shaky data left behind by the....
WASH sector NGOs need to confront and determine the line between sanitation labour and opp....
To have a more comprehensive understanding of manual scavenging in India, it is essential ....
Rather than continue using the umbrella term 'manual scavenger', a comprehensive classific....
While no one can argue that India may moving in the right direction in terms of sanitation....
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan will not be successful till it starts looking at the relation betwee....
In addition to mechanising sanitation systems and supporting a professional sanitation wor....
(Or, to wit, The Aadhaarless Story of a Taxpaying Nagarik of Asswachh Bharat)
Manual scavengers' 'employers' often behave as if they have property rights over the workers, which fits the legal description of slavery.
A fortnightly column from The Wire’s public editor.
As urban growth outpaces the imagination of our planning authorities, it has become increasingly clear that on-site sanitation solutions will continue to play a crucial role in Indian cities.
An approach that focuses only on toilets as technology and preaches ‘cleaning’ as a voluntary service, ignoring the fact that only a particular caste is made to work in sanitation, reinforces the caste system.
If the government does not act with speed, sensitivity and consideration once this ongoing survey is complete, this will be the eighth time that it will let down the manual scavenging community in India.
Mechanisation only downplays the prejudice towards the caste-based occupation, which then manifests in other ways.
If we refuse to even acknowledge manual scavenging, how are we ever going to stop it?
The international recognition of caste-based discrimination as a form of racial discrimination may have some tangible effect on the rights of the Scheduled Castes in India.
Data on caste-based violence in metropolitan cities confirms the grim reality that sits at odds with the narrative of an aspiring global superpower.
It is not as though people don't know that septic tanks and manholes are deathtraps, yet manual scavenging continues.
While United Nations special rapporteur Leo Heller's report argued that the question of water supply and drinking water had also been overlooked, the Centre sharply rejected these claims.
We are at a juncture where it is possible to think of a ‘clean India’ without looking at the issue of urban sewage workers who clean the society’s filth.
How would Gandhi have responded to the glaring contradictions in India today?
Two responses to the 'March for Science' arbitrarily separate the role of the sciences and the social sciences in understanding the world. This is almost regressive.
Defending our borders is important; defending our freedoms is equally important. And that is what a university is for.
"Karnataka wants to make manual scavenging legal, but as the documentary Kakkoos shows, there are several overwhelming reasons to oppose it."
Virginia Woolf
January 25 is 136th birthday of Virginia Woolf. Here we provide an opportunity to test your knowledge about her
What is Virginia Woolf's nationality?
American
,British
,French
,Russian
,Canadian
,Which is her first novel?
Jacob's Room
,Between the Acts
,The Waves
,The Voyage Out
,Mrs Dalloway
,Among the followings, which is not a work of Virginia Woolf?
Black Beauty
,A Room of One's Own
,To the Lighthouse
,Night and Day
,The Waves
,Who is Virginia Woolf's husband?
Bella Sidney Woolf
,Lytton Strachey
,Clive Bell
,Roger Fry
,Leonard Woolf
,What is the name of intellectual group, where she was the only woman?
Modernism
,Bloomsbury Group
,Kensington Group
,Rose Club
,Victorian Era
,How did Virginia Woolf die?
Prolonged Illness
,Tuberculosis
,Murder
,Suicide
,Heart attack
