Murlidhar Devidas Amte, popularly known as Baba Amte, was an Indian social worker and social activist known particularly for his work for the rehabilitation and empowerment of people suffering from leprosy. He has received numerous awards and prizes including the Padma Vibhushan, the Dr. Ambedkar International Award, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Templeton Prize and the Jamnalal Bajaj Award. He is also known as the modern Gandhi of India.
Night soil is a historically used euphemism for human excreta collected from cesspools, privies, pail closets, pit latrines, privy middens, septic tanks, etc. This material was removed from the immediate area, usually at night, by workers employed in this trade. Sometimes it could be transported out of towns and sold on as a fertilizer.
A bucket toilet is a basic form of a dry toilet whereby a bucket (pail) is used to collect excreta. Usually, feces and urine are collected together in the same bucket, leading to odor issues. The bucket may be situated inside a dwelling, or in a nearby small structure.
Telugu Brahmins are Telugu-speaking Brahmin communities native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. They fall under the Pancha Dravida Brahmin classification of the Brahmin community in India. Telugu Brahmins are further divided into sections like Vaidiki, Niyogi, Deshastha, Dravida, Golkonda Vyapari among others.
Manual scavenging is a term used mainly in India for "manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or sewer or in a septic tank or a pit". Manual scavengers usually use hand tools such as buckets, brooms and shovels. The workers have to move the excreta, using brooms and tin plates, into baskets, which they carry to disposal locations sometimes several kilometers away. The practice of employing human labour for cleaning of sewers and septic tanks is also prevalent in Bangladesh and Pakistan. These sanitation workers, called "manual scavengers", rarely have any personal protective equipment. The work is regarded as a dehumanizing practice.
Rajendra Singh is an Indian water conservationist and environmentalist from Alwar district, Rajasthan in India. Also known as "waterman of India", he won the Magsaysay Award in 2001 and Stockholm Water Prize in 2015. He runs an NGO called 'Tarun Bharat Sangh' (TBS), which was founded in 1975. The NGO based in village hori-Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil, near Sariska Tiger Reserve, has been instrumental in fighting the slow bureaucracy, mining lobby and has helped villagers take charge of water management in their semi-arid area as it lies close to Thar Desert, through the use of johad, rainwater storage tanks, check dams and other time-tested as well as path-breaking techniques. Starting from a single village in 1985, over the years TBS helped build over 8,600 johads and other water conservation structures to collect rainwater for the dry seasons, has brought water back to over 1,000 villages and revived five rivers in Rajasthan, Arvari, Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali. He is one of the members of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) which was set up in 2009, by the Government of India as an empowered planning, financing, monitoring and coordinating authority for the Ganges (Ganga), in exercise of the powers conferred under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. In the UK he is a founder member of an NGO called the Flow Partnership which aims to counter the negative effects of soil erosion and flooding.
Shivshankar Menon is an Indian diplomat, who served as National Security Adviser of India under Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. He had previously served as the Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. Prior to that he was Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and ambassador to China and Israel. He is currently Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress. He is also Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.
Bindeshwar Pathak was an Indian sociologist and social entrepreneur. He was the founder of Sulabh International, an India-based social service organisation promoting human rights, environmental sanitation, non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms through education. He was the Brand Ambassador for Swachh Rail Mission of Indian Railways, a complement to the broader Swachh Bharat Mission. His work is considered pioneering in social reform, especially in the field of sanitation and hygiene. He received various national and international awards for his work with this organisation. He was presented with the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration, Academics and Management for the year 2017. He was conferred the Padma Vibhushan, India's highest civilian award, posthumously in 2024 and the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award, in 1991.
Harish Hande is an Indian social entrepreneur, who co-founded SELCO India in 1995. He was awarded with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2011 for "his pragmatic efforts to put solar power technology in the hands of the poor, through his social enterprise SELCO India".
A sanitation worker is a person responsible for cleaning, maintaining, operating, or emptying the equipment or technology at any step of the sanitation chain. This is the definition used in the narrower sense within the WASH sector. More broadly speaking, sanitation workers may also be involved in cleaning streets, parks, public spaces, sewers, stormwater drains, and public toilets. Another definition is: "The moment an individual’s waste is outsourced to another, it becomes sanitation work." Some organizations use the term specifically for municipal solid waste collectors, whereas others exclude the workers involved in management of solid waste sector from its definition.
Shoaib Sultan Khan NI is one of the pioneers of rural development programmes in Pakistan. As a CSP Officer, he worked with the Government of Pakistan for 25 years, later on he served Geneva based Aga Khan Foundation for 12 years, then UNICEF and UNDP for 14 years. Since his retirement, he has been involved with the Rural Support Programmes (RSPs) of Pakistan full-time, on voluntary basis. Today, the Rural Support Programmes have helped form 297,000 community organisations in 110 districts including two Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
G. S. Lakshmanan Iyer was an Indian freedom fighter from Gobichettipalayam, Tamil Nadu, India. He was imprisoned for more than five years during India's freedom struggle. He has been credited with having done a lot toward the improvement of the poor and oppressed, and he donated most of his assets to that cause. He distributed his land worth hundreds of crores in today's money to build houses for the oppressed. He involved his wife in Satyagraha, who was also imprisoned along with him.
The first season of Satyamev Jayate was premiered from 6 May 2012 on various channels within Star Network along with Doordarshan's DD National. It marked the television debut of Indian Bollywood actor and filmmaker Aamir Khan. While Hindi is the primary language of the show, it is also dubbed and simulcast in several other Indian languages such as Bengali, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
Ashif Shaikh is a social activist from India who has worked for ending sexual violence against women and children, eradication of manual scavenging, forced labour practices and human trafficking in India. He is the founder of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan and the non profit organisation, Jan Sahas.
S. R. Sankaran (1934–2010) was an Indian civil servant, social worker and the Chief Secretary of the State of Tripura, known for his contributions for the enforcement of Abolition of Bonded Labour Act of 1976 which abolished bonded labor in India. One among the seven civil servants held hostage by the People's War Group in 1987, he was the chief negotiator of the state government in the negotiations of 2004 to end naxalite violence in Andhra Pradesh. He was a mentor to the Safai Karmachari Andolan, a social initiative propagated by Bezwada Wilson to eradicate manual scavenging in India. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 2005, for his contributions to society, but he declined the honor. His social welfare activities earned him the moniker, People's IAS officer.
The Repealing and Amending Act, 2015 is an Act of the Parliament of India that repealed 35 obsolete Acts, and also amended the provisions of The Prohibition of Manual Scavengers Act, 2013, and the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2011 to correct typographical and certain patent errors. It was the first such repealing Act aimed at repealing obsolete laws tabled in Parliament by the Narendra Modi administration.
Kakkoos is a 2017 Tamil-language documentary directed by activist Divya Bharathi. The film follows the daily lives of people engaged in manual scavenging, a practice officially abolished since 2013 but which is still a common practice. This practice has its roots deeply embedded in the caste system in India. Common notion has it that the caste system is no longer relevant in India, but the film shows compelling evidence about society's conscious efforts to perpetuate caste.
KGF is an Indian Kannada language period action film series set mostly in the Kolar Gold Fields, which gives the series its name, created by Prashanth Neel and produced by Hombale Films starring Yash in lead role with an ensemble supporting cast. Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the series follows two narrators, Anand Ingalangi and his son Vijayendra Ingalangi, who gives an interview of a book written by Anand to a leading news channel, which tells the life story of Raja Krishnappa Bairya alias Rocky (Yash), a Mumbai-based high ranking mercenary born in poverty and how he became the most dreaded person at that time.
Kote M. Shivanna was a member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly of India. He represented the Heggadadevankote Assembly constituency and was a member of the Indian National Congress. Later he joined Janata Dal (Secular) political party and contested from Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha constituency during 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He joined Bharatiya Janata Party and became president of Chamarajanagar district unit. He was the Chairman of Karnataka Safai Karmachari Commission from 2020 to 2023.
The DIGIPUB News India Foundation is an Indian non-profit organization formed by digital media organizations.
