It is crazy that we in the US think that we need to worry about the competition from India when the reality is that it is a country with a maginitude of poverty and needs that will be beyond the imagination of an average American. The state with Mumbai as the economic engine for the entire country--Maharashtra--is scheduling load shedding because of a lack of power generation capacity. But, that is nothing when compared to other pressing needs Kalpana Sharma bluntly states: "One out of every two persons in the world compelled to defecate in the open is an Indian."
Sharma follows it up with:
According to the report, out of the 1.2 billi on people who defecate in the open worldwide because they have no access to toilets, more than half are Indian. An astounding 667 million people in this country have no option but to defecate in the open, a country that would like people to believe that it is on the cusp of becoming a global economic giant.
Why then does sanitation remain a subject that is accorded a relatively low priority compared to many other needs, including water and energy?
Yes, I owe VS Naipaul an apology for misusing his book title.
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