New Delhi, May 11, 2012: Three big cities — Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore — have been rated below average compared to other mega cities in Asia-Pacific in terms of keeping pollution levels in check, said a report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Delhi is the only Indian city featured in the average category.

HUNGama study reveals shocking results for all three standard indices used to measure children’s nutritional status - stunting (height for age); wasting (weight for height) and underweight (weight for age). The researchers, after surveying 1,09,093 children aged 0 to 5 in 100 most backward districts of six states - Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh - found 59 per cent children were stunted; 42 per cent underweight and 11.4 per cent wasted.

A large number of the billions of people who lack basic access to safe water and sanitation can count a mobile phone as one of their few possessions. Year after year, global and national institutions struggle to provide growing populations with basic water and sanitation needs, while mobile phones have become ubiquitous in the developing world. The spread of mobile phones has greatly reduced the time and cost of communication between multiple, often remote areas.

When responding to an emergency situation, ensuring safe excreta disposal is an urgent priority in the disaster relief effort. Aid organizations typically dig trench or pit latrines, but in some challenging environments, different methods such as ecological sanitation (Ecosan) must be employed. Ecosan is sanitation methods and technologies which promote the safe reuse rather than the disposal of excreta. Currently, Ecosan is mostly implemented in disaster relief for flood-prone areas and locations where excavation is not possible.

April 17, 2012: The lives of 2.5 million people around the world would be saved every year if every last person had access to safe water and adequate sanitation, according to a new report released today by the international development agency WaterAid.

India is on the move. India's urban population grew from 290 million reported in 2001 Census to an estimated 390 million in 2008 and Mckinsey Global Institute (MGI) projects that it could further soar to 590 million by 2030. This urban expansion will happen at a speed quite unlike anything India has seen before.

Girls under ten being have been raped while on their way to use a public toilet, say women living in Delhi’s slums. In one slum, boys hid in toilet cubicles at night waiting to rape those who entered. These are some of the incidents mentioned in a recent briefing note based on research supported by WaterAid and the DFID-funded SHARE (Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity).

Objective: To determine how data on water source quality affect assessments of progress towards the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on access to safe drinking-water.
Methods: Data from five countries on whether drinking-water sources complied with World Health Organization water quality guidelines on contamination with thermotolerant coliform bacteria, arsenic, fluoride and nitrates in 2004 and 2005 were obtained from the Rapid Assessment of Drinking-Water Quality project.

Shanghai, March 6, 2012: Chinese women have a greater awareness of health than men and are more active in promoting national health literacy, according to a report released on Tuesday by SCA, Europe's largest health products company.

The report was released at a forum titled "Women and Hygiene," co-sponsored by SCA, the Shanghai Health Education Association, and the Shanghai Educational Press Group.

New York, Mar 6, 2012: The international target to halve the number of people who do not have access to safe drinking water has been met, five years before the 2015 deadline, the UN announced on Tuesday.