The story of how a village got its first toilet. *********************************** G Nandakumar is a young farmer in Diguvapalem, a remote hamlet and a chronically drought-prone area in southern Andhra. In 2019, I met him on a school hiking trip, as part of our Geography classes. 'Nandu,' fondly addressed as so, was keen to upgrade his village by pursing some sustainable environmental practices, like organic farming. However, he lacked the resources to execute his vision. So, as a young student, I was very inspired by his ideas and wanted to help...

India has more than 1.5 million schools and 260 million students. Think about a regular day in these schools before the pandemic. Imagine the amount of waste— food waste, plastic, paper, stationery—produced in these schools in a day. Now, add COVID-19 waste to it as schools across the country are reopening. Imagine all of this waste going to landfills. Alarming, isn’t it?

Human-induced climate change has led to several extreme weather events, including excessive rainfall which causes disease pathogens to transmit easily and more rapidly through the floodwaters