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New Delhi, Feb 4: Senior BJP leader and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday accused Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party of not implementing the central government's schemes in the national capital.

Addressing an election rally in Moti Bagh, he also sought to allay fears over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), assuring the gathering that the legislation will not take away anyone's citizenship.

Singh alleged that the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government did not do anything in the last five years.

The AAP had promised to add 5,000 buses to the fleet of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), but instead the number has come down by 1,000, he claimed.

The Union minister said the AAP dispensation did not implement central schemes in Delhi fearing that the popularity of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government will grow among Delhiites.

Pension schemes and the Centre's flagship health insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat Yojana, are some of those that the Kejriwal government did not allow to be implemented in Delhi.

On the anti-CAA protests, Singh said that the opposition parties have been spreading "lies" about amended citizenship law and the National Population Register (NPR).

"The CAA will not take away anyone's citizenship. The opposition parties are spreading lies about the CAA. There should be no such politics over this. Some people are trying to write the history of the country with the ink of hatred," he said.

The culture of India is such that it considers the entire world one family, he said.

Delhi goes to polls on February 8. The results will be declared on February 11.

New Delhi, Feb 18: Election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor on Tuesday questioned the Nitish Kumar government's development model, even as he sneered at the chief minister for making ideological compromises to stay in an alliance with the BJP.

Kishor, who has been vocal about his opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), said Kumar needs to spell out whether he is with the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi or those who support Nathu Ram Godse.

"Nitish ji has always said that he cannot leave the ideals of Gandhi, JP and Lohiya... At the same time, how can he be with the people who support the ideology of Godse? Both cannot go together. If you want to stay with the BJP, I don't have any problem with it but you cannot be on both sides," he said.

"There has been a lot of discussion between me and Nitish-ji on this. He has his thought process and I have mine. There have been differences between him and me that the ideologies of Godse and Gandhi cannot stand together. As the leader of the party you have to say which side you are on," he added.

In a direct assault on Kumar's model of governance, Kishor said Bihar was the poorest state in 2005 and continues to be so.

"There has been development in Bihar during the last 15 years, but the pace has not been as it should have," he added.

More than 50 million people in India do not have access to effective handwashing, putting them at a greater risk of acquiring and transmitting the novel coronavirus, according to a study.

Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in the US found that without access to soap and clean water, over 2 billion people in low- and middle-income nations -- a quarter of the world's population -- have a greater likelihood of transmitting the coronavirus than those in wealthy countries.

According to the study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, more than 50 per cent of the people in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania lacked access to effective handwashing.

"Handwashing is one of the key measures to prevent COVID transmission, yet it is distressing that access is unavailable in many countries that also have limited health care capacity," said Michael Brauer, a professor at IHME.

The study found that in 46 countries, more than half of people lacked access to soap and clean water.

In India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Indonesia, more than 50 million persons in each country were estimated to be without handwashing access, according to the study.

"Temporary fixes, such as hand sanitizer or water trucks, are just that -- temporary fixes," Brauer said.

"But implementing long-term solutions is needed to protect against COVID and the more than 700,000 deaths each year due to poor handwashing access," Brauer said.

He noted that even with 25 per cent of the world's population lacking access to effective handwashing facilities, there have been "substantial improvements in many countries" between 1990 and 2019.

Those countries include Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Nepal, and Tanzania, which have improved their nations' sanitation, the researchers said.

The study does not estimate access to handwashing facilities in non-household settings such as schools, workplaces, health care facilities, and other public locations such as markets.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization predicted 190,000 people in Africa could die of COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, and that upward of 44 million of the continent's 1.3 billion people could be infected with the coronavirus, the researchers said.