No Monday Blues!

Monday blues... or Just another maniac Monday....
Who is not familiar with these common terms? We all have lived through these phases sometime or the other in our lives. But there are no such terms when it comes to pushing a story on as dry and non-glamorous a topic as sanitation.
"Mondays are the best days for journalists, who are working on WASH (Water Sanitation Hygiene) related issue, if they want to ensure that their stories get good placement and substantial space. The Parliament is closed on Sundays, the government offices remain closed, there are no activities during the weekends. And on Mondays, the editors are craving for stories. At such times reports on sanitation (which otherwise get discarded by the editors), have fairly good chances of getting prominent placement in the newspapers."
The idea (an encouraging one especially for scribes who are passionately writing on WASH) came from the Communication Specialist of World Bank Vandana Mehra. Mehra said this whilst addressing the journalists from South Asia and Africa, who are participating in the Global Forum on Sanitation, which is being convened by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), in Mumbai at present.
The idea was not hypothetical as it was preceded by a full page interesting reading on sanitation, which was published a few years back in one of the leading English dailies of India. The story simply displayed and expressed (through sketches, which were supported by facts) how unhygienic is the way the flour (the basic ingredient used for making cookies and pastries) is produced in India and many other neighbouring countries. It is stored amidst rats and cockroaches and is constantly handled by dirty hands.The intriguingly written story covered each and every aspect of the issue.
I am sure the mantra given by Ms Mehra's would prove quite useful for the journalists, who are working on WASH issues and are continuously struggling with their editors for getting their stories published.
And the mantra is - there is no maniac Monday for sanitation stories!!!