1. #1
    I am Murloc! shadowmouse's Avatar
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    “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” (“Toilet: A Love Story.”)

    Depending on where you are, it may still be November 19th for you and that's World Toilet Day. Next time you flush, or perhaps ponder flushing a bit later to conserve water, think on this.

    World Toilet Day is about inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. Today, 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste.

    The Sustainable Development Goals, launched in 2015, include the goal of ensuring that everyone have access to a safely managed household toilet by 2030. This makes decent sanitation central to eradicating extreme poverty.

    In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated Nov. 19 as World Toilet Day, which is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners.
    Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/world-toi...123129947.html
    Warning: Article has a slideshow that may not be the first thing you want to click through in the morning

    The opening picture in the slideshow is a guy in Amritsar, which reminded me that this has been a major undertaking for Modi and that caused me to check to see how that's working out. The World Toilet Day articles failed to do the problem justice, but here's one to ponder: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...7c32&tid=a_inl

    A woman in India just won a divorce because her husband failed to provide her a toilet. That’s huge.

    There’s a newly released Bollywood film about a woman in India who left her husband for failing to provide a toilet. It’s called, “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” in Hindi, which translates to “Toilet: A Love Story.” It’s based on the true story of Anita Narre, whose protest against defecating outside not only ultimately got her husband to build a toilet with government aid but inspired what the Indian press called a “toilet revolution” in her village in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

    The film is described as a “satirical love story.”

    But there isn’t much humor in the premise it describes.

    First-time visitors to India, having read of the country’s technological prowess, are often surprised to learn that some 60 percent of the country’s households lack access to toilets. (There’s no app for that.) In rural areas, but also in many urban enclaves, they will see men just doing it in the road or in fields visible from the roads in broad daylight. They are much less likely to see women going outside, not because they don’t, but because modesty dictates that they do it in the dark of night, exposing them not only to inconvenience, indignity and disease but rape.

    The situation is so bad that some years ago, public health advocates launched a “No toilet, No bride” campaign. Women were urged to refuse marriage unless the perspective husband furnished their home with a bathroom.

    Now women have another possible incentive to offer husbands who can, but won’t, provide proper toilets: divorce.
    It's a somewhat long article, so let me skip down a ways:

    The long-standing problem, as the judge suggested, is no longer so much that people can’t provide toilets. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reportedly succeeded in adding millions to the nation’s inventory.

    Getting some people to use them, especially in the villages, is also an issue. One of the reasons, as The Washington Post’s Rama Lakshmi reported, is a caste system in which cleaning toilets is the job of the lowest on the rung and having a toilet in the home is, by association, considered unclean.

    The government has run ads on billboards seeking to shame men into action. One of the ads pictured a child, as The Post reported, saying “Uncle, you wear a tie around your neck, shoes on your feet, but you still defecate in the open. What kind of progress is this?” Another said: “You may have a smartphone in your hand, but you still squat on train tracks.”
    So, what are your thoughts? I always find this kind of disconnect jarring, that we hear about technological progress and yet social issues like this remain and show the lingering influence of the caste system.
    With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.

  2. #2
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    I cannot stop thinking of "to be hero" here.


  3. #3
    I am Murloc! shadowmouse's Avatar
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    @Nymrohd There are things that are "known" but still mind boggling when one realizes the scope of them. I knew from an early age that the Mercator Projection doesn't give an accurate sense of scale, but when one realizes just how much some things are changed there are still those moments of: "Wait, Africa is *how* danged big?"

    As you said, you were generally familiar with the problem (if someone were to come back from India without tales of horror about sanitation and bad water, I'd have to wonder if they were ever there) but you weren't aware of some of the other things like women forced to bathe and relieve themselves outside in the dark. This is the kind of thing that when I think about it, it is sort of "turtles all the way down".
    With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.

  4. #4
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    Shit tier countries.

  5. #5


    Bill Gates is big on this.


    The Reinvent the Toilet Challenge aims to create a toilet that:

    Removes germs from human waste and recovers valuable resources such as energy, clean water, and nutrients.
    Operates “off the grid” without connections to water, sewer, or electrical lines.
    Costs less than US$.05 cents per user per day.
    Promotes sustainable and financially profitable sanitation services and businesses that operate in poor, urban settings.
    Is a truly aspirational next-generation product that everyone will want to use—in developed as well as developing nations.

    .

    "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."

    -- Capt. Copeland

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