Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordered his bureaucrats to come in to work to clean up their offices -- including toilets -- on this week's national holiday to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi's birthday.
The move is part of a nationwide cleanliness drive to be launched by Modi on the holiday Thursday, with the premier himself expected to take a broom to the capital's notoriously dirty streets.
The initiative has sparked grumblings by officials from India's infamously slow and vast bureaucracy who say the request to work, although theoretically voluntary, cannot be ignored.
Modi has cracked down on officials since storming to power in May elections, demanding they turn up to work at 9am and paying unannounced visits to government offices.
"We have already been turning up on time and working till late (since Modi took office). Now we have been asked to wield the broom and we might as well do so," one reluctant official told AFP in New Delhi on Tuesday.
"My children are upset that I will have to go to the office even on a national holiday," he said, requesting anonymity.
But another official was decidedly upbeat, saying it was an important step in ridding India of its entrenched class system in which only those from low castes cleaned up waste.
"It is an unprecedented sanitation movement," the officer in the power ministry told AFP.
"Wielding the broom is a powerful symbol. It shows that no work is mean and that each one of us should be responsible for cleaning up our waste."
The drive is partly aimed at sprucing up government offices which are often littered with rubbish, stink of urine and have walls dirtied with dried spit.
Advertisements in all major dailies on Tuesday urged residents of Delhi to "come forward in large numbers" for the programme's launch.
Sanitation was very close to the heart of independence hero Gandhi who used to clean latrines himself at a time when there were no flush toilets in the country.
Modi has stressed the importance of sanitation in almost all his public speeches since his May victory, vowing to make India clean by 2019, to coincide with the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi.
Roughly half of India's population do not have toilets in their homes and must defecate in the open, a health and safety problem that Modi has also vowed to fix.
AFP
Tue Sep 30 2014
Modi has stressed the importance of sanitation in almost all his public speeches since his May victory -filepic
Beras ditemui di tapak pelupusan sampah tidak selamat dimakan - KPKM
Beras yang didakwa dibuang di tapak pelupusan sampah di Temerloh, Pahang didapati telah rosak dan tidak sesuai serta tidak selamat untuk dimakan.
Boeing hasrat tawarkan kereta terbang di Asia menjelang 2030
Kereta terbang ini dijangka menawarkan penyelesaian untuk pelbagai bandar di Asia yang sering sesak dengan kenderaan.
Piala Thomas: Tze Yong digugurkan, Hon Jian isi kekosongan - Rexy
Ng Tze Yong disahkan tidak akan beraksi pada Piala Thomas 2024 dan kekosongan ditinggalkan naib juara Terbuka Artik 2023 itu akan digantikan dengan pemain beregu, Choong Hon Jian.
Isu surat layang: Mangsa ugutan, gangguan seksual diminta lapor polis
Jabatan Kesihatan Negeri (JKN) Perak meminta mangsa yang mendakwa menerima ugutan serta gangguan seksual yang dikaitkan dengan isu surat layang tular membabitkan kakitangan perubatan Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun (HRPB) supaya membuat laporan polis.
Bekalan Darah: Kadar penderma darah dalam negara masih rendah
Menurut Timbalan Pengarah I, Pusat Darah Negara, Kementerian Kesihatan (KKM), Dr Tun Maizura Mohd Fathullah, kadar tersebut perlu ditingkatkan bagi memastikan bekalan darah mencukupi terutamanya pada waktu-waktu terdesak.
KBS umum syarat pelepasan cukai latihan sukan
Kementerian Belia dan Sukan (KBS) mengumumkan syarat-syarat pelepasan cukai bagi latihan sukan pada Jumaat.
Kastam tumpaskan sindiket penyeludupan, temukan dadah bawah pokok
Jabatan Kastam Diraja Malaysia Pulau Pinang menumpaskan cubaan penyeludupan dadah apabila merampas dadah jenis methaphetamine seberat 30 kilogram bernilai hampir RM1 juta.
Pengawal keselamatan didakwa bunuh anak kandung berusia enam bulan
Seorang bapa yang tergamak mendera anak kandungnya yang berusia enam bulan sehingga mengakibatkan mangsa mati didakwa di Mahkamah Bandar Baru Bangi, pada Jumaat kerana kesalahan membunuh.
Perang Iran-Israel, kesan kepada geopolitik Asia Barat
Penyelidik Kanan IRIS Institute, Asyraf Farique memberikan analisis semasa mengenai perang Iran dan Israel serta kesannya kepada geopolitik di Asia Barat.
Batik Air gantung operasi ke Istanbul bermula 1 Mei
Syarikat penerbangan itu berkata keputusan itu dibuat sebagai respons terhadap situasi di Timur Tengah yang memberi kesan kepada laluan penerbangan Batik Air.