The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis has called for taking action and remedial measures for ensuring social justice, empowerment, rehabilitation and dignity to the people of downtrodden community specially Safai Karamcharis, working at Government and Local Self Government level, Corporate and Private level in rural and urban areas.The Commission in its Annual Report for 2010-11 has recommended this. The report was presented to the Union Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment Shri Mukul Wasnik, in his office by the Chairman of the Commission Smt. Kamla Gurjar.

Brussels – Water and sanitation, maternal health, hunger and child mortality: those Millennium Development Goals that are most off-tracks will be allocated an additional €1bn by the European Commission, said EU Commissioner Piebalgs today during a round table on Nutrition at the UN General Assembly. The European Commission is finalising the identification of the projects presented by African, Caribbean and Pacific countries themselves.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, released her mission reports on the United States of America, Japan and Slovenia.

“As human rights, all people, without discrimination, must have access to safe drinking water and sanitation, which is affordable, acceptable, available and safe,” Ms. de Albuquerque said. “States must continually take steps to ensure that access to these fundamental rights is guaranteed.”

The Flash Statistics: Elementary Education in India: Progress towards UEE is based on the data received from all the States & UTs of the country for the year 2009-10.

Besides an Educational Development Index, the publication presents not only state-specific indicators but also brings in many new dimensions of elementary education into focus. It incorporates key indicators on all aspects of universalisation of elementary education in case of all the States & UTs of the country.

On December 22, 2010, India Water Forum (IWF) organised a one day consultation or workshop on Pro Poor Urban Water and Sanitation. The purpose of the workshop was to situate the status and issues of pro poor urban water and sanitation within the larger initiatives of the City Sanitation Plans (CSPs), and identify the priorities that NGOs could have in the emerging situation for programming or designing other interventions. City Sanitation Plans were being developed with a deadline of March 31, 2011.

Harnessing water for people to use is one of the world’s greatest development challenges. Whether the water provides clean, sustainable energy, or delivers something safe to drink to a village for the first time, water plays a critical role in people’s lives.   Both IFC Advisory Services in Public-Private Partnerships and the Water and Sanitation Program are committed to bringing the finance, skills, and expertise of the private sector to help address the water challenge.   Difficult problems need varied and pioneering solutions.

Objective: To determine whether the installation of deep tube wells to reduce exposure to groundwater arsenic in rural Bangladesh had an effect on the incidence of childhood diarrhoeal disease.
Methods: Episodes of diarrhoeal disease in children aged under 5 years that occurred on one specified day each month between 2005 and 2006 were reported to community health workers for six rural villages.

The Indian economy, on the eve of the Twelfth Plan, is characterised by strong macro fundamentals, and a very good performance over the Eleventh Plan period, though clouded by some slowdown in growth in the current year, continuing concern about inflation and a sudden increase in uncertainty about the global economy. The objective of the Eleventh Plan was faster and inclusive growth and the initiatives taken in the Eleventh Plan period have resulted in substantial progress towards both objectives.

Sanitation is often called the “orphan MDG,” and India ranks among the worst countries in the world in terms of access to sanitation. In the city of Chennai, sanitation for the poor has not been articulated as a priority by city managers. Transparent Chennai – a project that collects and creates maps, data, and research about the city to empower citizens and increase government accountability - conducted extensive research on one aspect of sanitation for the poor i.e. public toilets, and our work revealed alarming findings.

This paper draws on the extensive involvement of Kamal Kar with the spread of CLTS in Africa to describe the early stages of the process, to elaborate on its developments and to outline insights into the circumstances and features which have facilitated its rapid spread.