Another panchayat member resorted to whistling to stop people from their early morning trips into the fields. Recently, a gram panchayat member consistently prostrated before people to persuade them from defecating in the open and to build toilets in their homes. Mr. Ramachandran immediately instructed the officials to initiate steps to construct a toilet near Mallamma’s house within a week. The latest spirited example is of a teenage girl, Mallamma, studying SSLC in a government high school at Danapur in Gangavati taluk, going on a hunger strike for a toilet in her house. At home, when her request for a toilet was turned down by her mother, who said it would be costly and there was no space for it, the teenager resorted to a hunger strike, refusing to eat for three days.

Source: The Hindu July 15, 2016 20:51 UTC