These shocking images of life in India show the desperate lack in provision of toilets for those living in its cities.
The world's largest democracy is also one of its most powerful emerging economies - but India still ranks top for having the greatest number of urban dwellers living without a safe, private toilet - a staggering 157 million.
It's also the country with the most urban dwellers practising open defecation at a massive 41 million.
The problem is so big that the daily waste produced on the streets of India’s towns and cities is enough to fill eight Olympic-sized swimming pools, or 16 jumbo jets, with poo, every day.
As cities expand, the number of urbanites living without basic sanitation has swollen by 26 million since the year 2000.
The figures have been released as part of WaterAid ’s State of the World’s Toilets 2016 report.
Despite the government’s campaign to make sanitation a priority, India’s towns and cities are growing at such breakneck speed that the number of urban dwellers living without sanitation is growing every year.
WaterAid’s second-annual analysis of the world’s toilets, Overflowing Cities, examines the state of city sanitation around the world, an issue becoming more pressing as two-thirds of the global population are expected to live in towns and cities by 2050.
Elsewhere in the Water Aid study, war-ravaged South Sudan , the world’s newest nation, is the worst country in the world for urban sanitation in percentage terms, with an estimated 84% of people living in its cities and towns having no access to a toilet.
Every other urban-dweller there practises open defecation in the streets.
Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria, is falling furthest behind in reaching its urban population with a toilet.
For every urban dweller reached with sanitation since 2000, two were added to the number living without, an increase of 31 million people in the past 15 years.
Fast-growing China is making the most progress in reaching its urban population with sanitation.
It’s managed to build toilets faster than the pace of new arrivals, reaching 329 million people since 2000, and out-pacing population growth by 9 million.
The report examines the problems facing more than 700 million urban dwellers around the world living without decent sanitation.
An estimated 100 million of these have no choice but to defecate in the open - using roadsides, railway tracks and even plastic bags dubbed ‘flying toilets’.
The high population density of urban areas means that diseases spread fast in the absence of good sanitation.
One child dies every two minutes from diarrhoeal diseases caused by dirty water, poor sanitation and hygiene.
Globally 159 million children under five have their physical and cognitive development stunted. Many of such cases are caused from repeated bouts of diarrhoea attributed to dirty water, poor sanitation and lack of hygiene.
WaterAid’s Chief Executive Barbara Frost said: “For the first time in history, more people around the globe are now living in cities. Cities should be a place for sustainable lifestyles offering healthy living, good infrastructure, wellbeing and economic growth.
"But the reality is that one person in every five living in a town or city today does not have access to a toilet or good sanitation and many live in poverty in overcrowded, rapidly expanding informal settlements.
"Not only does this lead to a lack of dignity for women and girls and health risks to poor families, this lack of sanitation also threatens the health and security of all city dwellers and leads to pollution of rivers and water sources.
"We are calling on national leaders to deliver on their promises to meet the UN’s Global Goal 6 to ensure access to safe water and sanitation. Everyone has the right to affordable access to these basic services that will lead to better lives and drive prosperity.”
WaterAid’s senior policy analyst on sanitation, Andrés Hueso, said: “WaterAid’s latest ‘State of World’s Toilets’ report has exposed several countries for failing to make progress in providing urban sanitation, despite their rapid economic growth.
"Often politicians prefer to invest in roads and other visible infrastructure and neglect the dirty issue of sanitation. But good sanitation is the bedrock of public health.
"Every town and city in the world needs to prioritise providing safe sanitation services to all the population in order to create a healthier, more sustainable future.”