C. Sharada Prasad and Isha Ray | At the two-year mark for Swachh Bharat Mission

Image of blue water

Thursday, October 12, 2017

The urbanWASH Inititative and the Institute for South Asia Studies invite you to join us as UC Berkeley water specialists C. Sharada Prasad and Professor Isha Ray assess the BJP-led Swachh Bharat Mission (English: Clean India Mission) campaign.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (English: Clean India Mission) is a campaign by the Government of India to clean the streets, roads and infrastructure of the country's 4,041 statutory cities and towns. It includes ambassadors and activities such as a run, national real-time monitoring and updates from NGOs. The campaign was officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is India's largest ever cleanliness drive with 3 million government employees, especially school and college students from all parts of India, participating in the campaign. The objectives of Swachh Bharat are to reduce or eliminate open defecation through the construction of individual, cluster and community toilets. The Swachh Bharat mission will also make an initiative of establishing an accountable mechanism of monitoring latrine use. The government is aiming to achieve an Open-Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2 October 2019, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, by constructing 12 million toilets in rural India, at a projected cost of US$30 billion).

About the Speakers
Isha Ray joined the faculty of the Energy and Resources Group in 2002. She has a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Somerville College, Oxford University, and a PhD in Applied Economics from the Food Research Institute at Stanford University. She is the Co-Director of the Berkeley Water Center and a Faculty member of the Institute for South Asia Studies.Professor Ray’s research interests are water, sanitation and development; water and gender; technology and development; and common property resources. Her research projects focus on access to water and sanitation for the rural and urban poor, and on the role of technology in improving livelihoods. She teaches courses on research methods in the social sciences, water and development, technology and development, and community-driven development. In addition to research and teaching, she has extensive past and ongoing experience in the non-profit sector on sustainable development, water, and gender equality. Read more about Isha Ray at her FACULTY PAGE

Sharada’s, research is focused on recovery of nutrients, primarily Phosphorous, from human waste, particularly septage, and their reuse in Indian agriculture. His work focuses on under­stand­ing poli­cies and reg­u­la­tions that encourage businesses to facil­i­tate reuse of septage as fertilizer. He is interested in knowing why some farm­ers do not use fae­cal sludge irrespective of its high nutrient value. He is exploring frameworks to quan­ti­fy­ the micro­bial risks involved in collection and reuse of septage, and estimate poten­tial Phos­pho­rous and Nitro­gen that can be aug­mented by reuse. His research also encom­passes social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice issues aris­ing out of caste based dis­crim­i­na­tion in India. He uses photography to communicate his research. Read more about C. Sharada Prasad at his HOMEPAGE

urbanWASH, an Institute for South Asia Studies' initiative, is designed to showcase various events and speakers focused on addressing the urgent need of urban water and sanitation issues in South Asia. UC Berkeley water specialist Prof. Isha Ray, is the lead faculty of this initiative. Read a report on safe water related cutting edge research work and projects going on at UC Berkeley HERE.

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