Resource detail

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is partnering with the Indian government ministry of science and technology in the quest to build new toilet with an attempt to develop new technologies to address an old social problem .The importance of technology in solving important social problems in India is unfortunately not given enough attention in the national discourse. Nearly half the Indian population defecates in the open. The lack of modern sanitation facilities is one major reason why diarrhoea is rampant in India, and drains the body of nutrients. The economist Dean Spears has shown in his detailed research that the high prevalence of stunting among Indian children—62 million children at last count—is strongly linked to poor sanitation. So are high levels of malnutrition, because of infections that reduce the ability of the human body to absorb nutrients from the food we eat.