Night-soil (human waste) has been considered a valuable agricultural resource since ancient times. When handled safely, its use can contribute to reducing soil degradation and water scarcity in the areas like the Lahaul valley. Despite such known benefits its use is now decreasing with modernisation. Recognising this, the G.B. Pant Institute in India has been taking steps to promote the use of night-soil as one of the organic farming practices promoted in the region.

All schools across the country will have toilet facilities by the year end, Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said on Thursday. While Sikkim, Puducherry, Mizoram and Haryana have already achieved this target, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan will do so by July. The remaining States that include Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Punjab, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be able to cover all schools by November.

Your childhood fears about leaking plane toilets have come true. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) recently went on a surprise visit to IGI to check the airworthiness of planes and overall airport safety. The underbelly of a domestic airline's, Airbus A-320, was found to be covered with blue paint. A surprised DGCA team conducted investigation and found that the front toilet's blue flush fluid was leaking and must have got stuck (frozen, rather) when the plane was flying and then got evenly spread out on the bottom with air flow.

After facing flak for the sorry state of build-operate-transfer toilets in the Capital let out by the New Delhi Municipal Council here south of Rajpath, the civic body is getting ready to re-construct and re-furbish 113 free-to-use public toilets north of Rajpath with stricter regulations.

Believe it or not, about 310 houses in Aldona do not have toilet facilities. Despite repeated efforts by a resident to highlight the issue, the Aldona panchayat has allegedly not enforced the need to have toilets in houses, while issuing occupancy certificates to the owners. Unhappy with the Aldona Panchayat for taking the issue lightly, residents passed a resolution at the gram sabha of Aldona on Sunday, stating that the panchayat should not issue occupancy certificates to new houses without proper toilet facilities.

Though there is an economic boom in India there is a flipside to it too. According to estimates there are 80.7 million urban poor in India and a housing shortage of 24.7 million, says Kumari Selja, minister of state (independent charge), housing and urban poverty alleviation.

The Delhi gov ernment will soon to take up an integrated sanitation scheme in the city to ensure that all people get the minimum standard of hygiene and do not go in the open for their toilet needs. The Delhi Cabinet will soon give its nod to a proposal to adopt the integrated sanitation scheme under the national rural sanitation scheme to give subsidy of Rs 6,000 to the people taking sewer connections for their areas.

Climbing up and down 40 steps ten times a day is not an easy exercise, but for 28-year-old Dil Maya, it has been a daily routine since she moved into a hut near the IMTRAT hospital in Thimphu. The hut, she lives in with her family, does not have water supply, her family share a toilet with two others, and her hut is surrounded by garbage. "We have to walk down every day to fetch water,' said Dil Maya.

Urbanization is occurring at an unprecedented rate, particularly in developing countries, with high migration of population from rural to urban areas. As a consequence of urbanization and associated environmental impacts, the issue of providing water to growing urban population is becoming critical. Water management in the context of urban area has two components i.e.

The Sulabh toilets are located in five of the most congested areas of Kabul. They are an important contribution to Kabul's non-existent sanitary facilities.

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