The renewed rhetoric on sanitation is welcome, but the devil will be in the details - we must learn from past experience and global & Indian best practice, not repeat the same mistakes, argues Varad Pande.

Much has been said about the recent priority placed on sanitation, with the Prime Minister taking up the issue most recently from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day. He must be commended on this rhetoric - open defecation is a potent silent killer especially in rural India, where more than 60 percent households still practice open defecation. 4 lakh children in India die of diarrhea every year, lakhs others grow up stunted, and several lakh others are malnourished. Recent evidence shows all this can be linked directly to the practice of open defecation, especially in rural India. So the renewed political emphasis on sanitation is more than welcome.

Read more in IBN live, 25th August 2014