R.K. Radhakrishnan

CHENNAI: Over 30,000 scavengers in the State have been rehabilitated and the government was working on the rehabilitation of the remaining identified scavengers by the end of the financial year, the State-level monitoring committee on their rehabilitation was told.

J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI: Chairman of Law Commission Justice A.R. Lakshmanan has written to the Union government to take up with six State governments the issue of manual scavenging still prevalent in their States and to ask them to enforce the ban.

NEW DELHI: Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit along with Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Meira Kumar launched a self-employment scheme for rehabilitation of manual scavengers and their dependents at Dilshad Garden in East Delhi on Thursday. Asserting that her government was commitment to rehabilitation of all manual scavengers and their dependents by March 2009, Ms. Dikshit said the new scheme would put an end to the menace of scavenging.

Mayor Gavin Newsom is competitive about many things, garbage included. When the city found out a few weeks ago that it was keeping 70 percent of its disposable waste out of local landfills, he embraced the statistic the way other mayors embrace winning sports teams, improved test scores or declining crime rates. Workers sort plastics at the San Francisco Recycling Center. The city, with 7,800 tons of waste a day, keeps 70 percent of it out of landfills. Mayor Gavin Newsom is shooting for 75 percent. But the city wants more.

shakuntala, 60, of Chamarpura village in Moradabad district in Uttar Pradesh continues to carry her traditional occupation of manual scavenging. She has no other alternative. On March 18, 2007, the