Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Saturday, October 11, 2014
NOBEL SATYARTHI -THE SILENT CRUSADER
Dear Noble Satyarthi Sir,
You have made every Indian proud … every human being proud… every child happy and hopeful. Your love for children and your noble fight for their rights got Nobel recognition. Its a great moment in the history of Nobel prize that Child rights are considered key requirement for maintaining global peace. Peace just does not mean no war. Peace means much more. Equal rights opportunities for every individual is possible only when peace prevails. Peace means rights and opportunities. Peace means lack of oppression, lack of deprivation. Malala rightly said in her interview after winning Noble Prize that her father did not clip her wings which encouraged her to fly. This freedom, this opportunity, this right is the essence of peace.
Of all human beings children are defenseless, dependent and innocent. Ensuring basic minimum rights and opportunities to live and live with dignity to them is the utmost testimony of a peaceful world. Peace has no meaning when billions of chidden are languishing in quarries,factories,in begging and such other highly exploitative conditions. Your Crusade your vision,dream and your selfless dedication are all for preserving this peace in society. We the Indians, We the human beings of the world salute you sir for this recognition.
This Nobel Prize is the beginning of a new phase in your relentless fight for cause of children. This shall bring more strength and more power to you as it encourages lakhs of others to join you in your mission.
In the backdrop of swachch bharat abhiyan, your message is loud and clear. Swachchta does not just mean cleanliness outside. Clean hearts, hearts that have kindness, hearts that consider it is our duty to take care of child rights only complete the Swachchta. Your fight for child rights shall encourage India to fight for basic right of girl child to have toilets in schools to encourage them not to drop out of schools. In achieving this cause your inspiration your dedication will guide us all.
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Tuesday, October 7, 2014
LITTER TAX
Littering is so common in India that nobody thinks about it. While throwing litter on streets and in public places there is no second thought in many of our minds. It is a given. It is birth right for many of us. For those who are conscious, enough dustbins are not available in public places to place the litter. Finally litter attracts litter.
To bring both these aspects together i.e., to discourage littering and to provide enough infrastructure for collecting/managing litter, policy intervention is required. Such a policy shall both discourage littering and facilitate litter management. TAX ON LITTER will serve both these purposes.
Tax on litter can be two pronged. One, on all citizens as a general tax. The logic behind this is : each and every citizen at some point in time causes littering in public spaces. To achieve litter free streets regular investment is required. To enjoy litter-free public spaces, one need to pay in terms of Litter tax. Another is taxing those manufacturers, service providers who generate litter-able packaging. This may discourage them from litter-able packaging and encourage moving towards bio degradable packaging. Even bio degradable packaging also requires removal and management. Therefore litter tax on those manufacturers would generate enough funds for this purpose.
Litter control tax or fee is not a new concept. Washington State, State of Virginia, State of New Jersey in US, Ireland in Europe have implemented tax/fee on litter. Mainly, categories like food for human or pet consumption, groceries, cigarettes and tobacco products, soft drinks and carbonated beverages,beer and other malt beverages,wine, newspapers and magazines, household paper and paper products,glass containers,metal containers, plastic or fiber containers made of synthetic material,cleaning agents and toiletries,non-drug drugstore sundry items etc have been under this tax. In India, in addition, ghutka packaging, snacks packaging like that of bhujia etc can also be added.
There is a debate on whether such a tax on litter is good economics or not. Whatever it is, in India, such a tax is necessary at least to raise funds to take care of health issues of rag pickers.
In next post we will address issues related to rag pickers.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
WAR ON CLEANLINESS-MISSION SWACHCH BHARAT
Let the war on cleanliness begin today.
Let Mahatma's memory lead our country in our noble effort to realize SWACHCH BHARAT.
Let us take a pledge that individually we will not litter in public spaces spit on roads
Let us Breathe clean Eat Clean and Live Clean
Let us gift a true SWACHCH BHARAT to our next generations.
Jai Hind Jai Swachch Bharat
Let Mahatma's memory lead our country in our noble effort to realize SWACHCH BHARAT.
Let us take a pledge that individually we will not litter in public spaces spit on roads
Let us Breathe clean Eat Clean and Live Clean
Let us gift a true SWACHCH BHARAT to our next generations.
Jai Hind Jai Swachch Bharat
Sunday, September 28, 2014
TRAIN TOILETS AND OPEN DEFECATION
YOUR VISIT TO TRAIN TOILET
=
OPEN DEFECATION ACROSS KILOMETERS
=
OPEN DEFECATION ACROSS KILOMETERS
It is nice to learn that PM
Narendra Modi has enthused all the Ministries and Ministers to take a broom and
clean. During his first three months one of the significant step was taming the babus …
making them to attend office in time and to clean the muck in their
offices. Now the Ministries and its babus are out in open to clean the
nation. We could see some photographs of high profile Ministers with a broom sending a significant message on cleanliness. The atma of the Mahatma must be feeling happy for the importance being given to Swachchta.
There is no department that is
not linked to cleanliness. Public service departments like Railways, Road
transport, Tourism,Health and Sanitation are directly linked to cleanliness in public spaces.
Rural Development ministry shall take care of toilet needs of rural population and Urban Development ministry shall focus on slums development and public toilets. Commerce and Industry shall woo the business to invest/support cleanliness drive. Though each
department has something to do, a synergy is required to bring them together. Hope is that Swachch Bharat Abhiyan shall fulfill such requirement.
Railways is one organization which serves the nation incessantly 24x7 all 365 days.News reports indicate that on
almost all stations and platforms of railways are going to be cleaned on 2nd
October involving lakhs of employees and babus.
Stations and platforms becoming litter free would be a dream come true.
Let us hope it is realized.
Cleaning stations and premises is only half of the story. Major cleanliness hazard related to Trains is visiting toilets in trains. If you visit a toilet in train it is as good as you enacting open defecation. Train toilets are toilets on move spreading open defecation to all nukes and
corners of India running across thousands of kilometers of railway network.
When the country is worried about rural India not having toilets there is some
thing more serious to worry TRAINS CARRYING OPEN TOILETS ACROSS THE NATION. There are sporadic reports that railways
is contemplating bio toilets. Hope such a project comes to reality at least in five
year long swachch bharat abhiyan approved by the Cabinet.
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ALSO READ OTHER POSTS
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
REDUCE ,REUSE, RECYCLE
Reduce Reuse and Recycle is the mantra for SWM (Solid Waste Management). Rules
exist in India but
implementation is weak says World Bank. Don’t
we know? Somebody has to say it?
In SWM, major responsibility is of municipalities. We know how they function and how effective are they. Next is role of individuals.We can reduce reuse and recycle.
Some ideas for individuals:
- Buy used. May be on www.olx.in www.quikr.com
- Use reusable than disposable. Take your own tumbler to office instead of using disposable glasses (make a habit of cleaning it for yourself). Take your water on travel.
- Reuse one side papers.
- Rent things used infrequently
- Donate. One person's trash is another person's treasure.
- Awareness.
- Pressure groups to make municipalities to act
- Make your own colony a model colony on SWM
- Give away your waste and get a tree.
But role of individuals though important in habit making, awareness cannot go a long way without corporate world thinking on these lines
Some ideas for corporate world
- Innovate to reduce solid waste. Example recycle friendly packing. Minimal packing.
- Invest in recycling technologies for garbage to energy, garbage to reusable products.
- Declare a prize for SWM research and executable ideas.
Now
- Please add your ideas
RAHGIRI DAY Route to Swachch Bharat
Any movement to succeed,it needs
voluntary public participation. People shall feel it as their own. Recent
example is the way Raahgiriday going viral in Delhi's Connaught Place with
a slogan "apni raahen apni azaadi".
Rahgiriday as a concept is best explained in its website www.raahgiriday.com "Raahgiri Day is India's first sustained car-free citizen initiative that started in Gurgaon on Nov 17.2015. Its participants have played a major role in making this movement nationally and internationally acclaimed. Rahgiriday recently won the early-bird prize for UL and Ashoka Changemakers: safe roads, safer India competion and was selected as one of six most innovative solutions in addressing road safety".
Rahgiriday as a concept is best explained in its website www.raahgiriday.com "Raahgiri Day is India's first sustained car-free citizen initiative that started in Gurgaon on Nov 17.2015. Its participants have played a major role in making this movement nationally and internationally acclaimed. Rahgiriday recently won the early-bird prize for UL and Ashoka Changemakers: safe roads, safer India competion and was selected as one of six most innovative solutions in addressing road safety".
Participants in raahgiriday are from all walks of life. Yoga lovers, aerobics lovers, live sketchers, skaters,cyclists, joggers, dancers, street players, drummers, children, foreigners … you name and you have all making CP roads coming to life. Its all around enthusiasm, enterprise,energy and ecstasy.
For Swachch Bharat to become a reality, raahgiriday can be a great beginning. Raahgiriday can take up the cause of Swachch Bharat along with the cause of safe roads. Awareness campaign on cleanliness with volunteered action can become integral part of Rahgiriday.
Raahgiriday- safe roads safe India
Raahgiriday -clean roads cleaner India.
apni raahen apni swachchta...
Swachch Raahgiriday !!!
Let us sincerely hope raahgiriday organizers would certainly take note of it. They can rope in companies in the business of cleanliness to participate in rahgiriday.
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Attitude first…READ POST: SWACHCH BHARAT A NOBLE CAUSE TO REALIZE
Attitude first…READ POST: SWACHCH BHARAT A NOBLE CAUSE TO REALIZE
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Swachchbharat.in some recent articles
Swach Bharat Abhiyan. Dream and Act for Clean India.
Some recent articles on Swach Bharat
Some recent articles on Swach Bharat
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: L&T to build 5,000 toilets
Monday, September 15, 2014
Write your slogan for Swachch Bharat Abhiyan
====================================
Slogans play a major role in popularizing the message of Swachch Bharat. Here are some. Your may add yours here.- Dream and act for Swachch Bharat
- SWACHCHAMEVA JAYATE
- Clean Villages Smart Cities
- Build toilets build nation
- Clean cities dream cities
- Cleanliness is in my DNA ( for t shirts )
- स्वच्छ भारत सुन्दर भारत
- गंदगी हटाओ स्वच्छता जगाओ
- मेरे बाए स्वच्छ भारत मेरे दाए स्वच्छ भारत
- मेरी नदियाँ स्वच्छ भारत - मेरी गलियाँ स्वच्छ भारत
- मेरे सपनें - स्वच्छ भारत
- स्वच्छ भारत - स्वास्त्य भारत
- स्वच्छ मन - स्वच्छ भारत
- भारत विकास- स्वच्छ भारत
- स्वच्छता मेरा जनम सिद्ध अधिकार
- गाँव गली स्वच्छ भारत -पेड़ पौधा सुन्दर भारत
======================
Must Read Posts
Toiltes first
Swachch
Bharat is holistic concept covering swach jameen, swach paani and swach hawa. Uncontaminated food, drinking water and pollution free air are possible when
Swachch Bharat is dreamt and realized in its totality.
But there has to be a beginning. PM Shri Narendra Modi has given a call for elimination of open defecation by 2019, the 150th
birth anniversary of Mahatma. Mahatma’s penchant for cleanliness is too well
known. It would be a great tribute to the memory of Mahatma if the challenge is
achieved.
Sangita
Vyas has established, backed by her team’s primary study, that attitude towards
using latrines is very important to make the mission success.The reasons for
not using government built latrines revealed in their study are varied and some of them are interesting
like preference to open defecation due to pleasure and comfort. One can completely agree with Sangita Vyas. Concept of cleanliness is more of attitude as I brought in my earlier post. At the same time, the very requirement of facilities cannot be discounted.
In fact, construction of toilets and attitudinal change have to go together. The very
lack of required number of toilets cannot be ignored. It may be presumed that
in urban scenario, reasons like fear of
cleaning the pits, pleasure of defecation in open may not be as valid or as strong as they
are in rural parlance. Here, mere lack of toilets could be a serious reason for compelled open defecation. Joint Monitoring Programme for water supply and sanitation of WHO/Unicef's data (updated April 2014) reveal that the open defecation has decreased steeper in urban areas than in rural areas over 22 years between 1990 to 2012. However, having total 48% open defecation even 65 years after independence is shameful to say the least.
Joint
Monitoring Programme of WHO/UNICEF - estimated trends of sanitation coverage
|
||||||
India
|
Sanitation coverage estimates
|
|||||
Urban (%)
|
Rural (%)
|
Total (%)
|
||||
1990
|
2012
|
1990
|
2012
|
1990
|
2012
|
|
Improved facilities
|
50
|
60
|
7
|
25
|
18
|
36
|
Shared facilities
|
17
|
20
|
1
|
5
|
5
|
9
|
Other unimproved
|
5
|
8
|
2
|
5
|
3
|
7
|
Open defecation
|
28
|
12
|
90
|
65
|
74
|
48
|
Source: WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2014
|
||||||
Therefore, construction of toilets is of prime importance. It is rather first step towards Swach Bharat.
Apart from attitudinal disdain to use toilets, reasons like expenditure to maintain the toilets (including that of clearing filled pits), requirement of considerable quantum of water for flushing, lack of space in slum areas to allocate for toilet within small houses are some more reasons that need to be addressed for popularizing toilet usage. In rural areas, visiting nearby water bodies for open defecation might be a act of pleasure involving the morning walk. Construction of toilets near such water bodies could be thought of.
Finally, the wastage released on railway tracks across the country is as bad as open defecation. That means about 11 lakh population traveling on trains daily are openly defecating !!! It is an irony that toilets and open defecation coexist on trains. … to be noted seriously to address this issue.
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ALSO READ
TRAIN TOILETS= OPEN DEFECATION
ALSO READ
TRAIN TOILETS= OPEN DEFECATION
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