For India, Toilets Are a (Mostly) Serious Issue<br />Akshay Kumar, 49, who is one of Bollywood’s most bankable actors<br />and also a celebrity ambassador for the government’s Clean India campaign, said he chose to play the lead in "Toilet" because it highlighted the problems so many women face.<br />India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, troubled by how many Indians still relieve<br />themselves in the open, has vowed to build a staggering 100 million new toilets.<br />Just this month, for instance, in one of those instances of life imitating art imitating life, a woman in the state<br />of Rajasthan demanded a divorce from her husband, partly because he had failed to provide her with a toilet.<br />All across the country, new latrines are going up, sometimes so fast they are not connected to anything, creating toilets to nowhere<br />that are so fly-ridden and stinky that almost no one will use them.<br />Several businessmen in New Delhi said government agencies are in such a rush<br />that they are awarding contracts left and right with little oversight and often to businesses that know nothing about sanitation.<br />3, 2017<br />NEW DELHI — The most popular movie in India this summer is about a toilet.<br />"I just didn’t look forward to visiting my grandmother for fear of being herded out in the fields to defecate." According to Unicef, around 564 million<br />Indians, nearly half the population, still defecate in the open — in fields, forests, next to ponds, along highway medians and on the beach.
