Talk about weird statistics. People of India apparently have greater access to mobile phones than toilets. That’s according to the UNU Institute for Water, Environment & Health – which is the UN’s Think Tank on Water.
I understand that it’s much easier to put a cell tower and provide thousands of people in the surrounding area with the signal, but with the economy growing as fast as India’s does, one would expect the government would do much more to tackle this issue. I’m not saying they don’t and I also don’t say it’s easy, and I’m sure there other countries across Asia and Africa that have the same problem… That’s unfortunate and I’m hoping things will change and we won’t be hearing stories like this within 10 years.
At the end of this story, we pass along words of Says Zafar Adeel, who is the director of the mentioned think tank: “It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet.”
And you can get the full report in PDF from here.
[Via: textually]