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Anita Rao Kashi

Eight years ago, Neelam Singh was on a night bus from Indore to Udaipur, northern Indian cities about 400km (nearly 250 miles) apart.
It was past midnight when the bus stopped in a small town and she and her husband, Yashwant Suthar, left to use the bathroom.
The women’s toilets were dirty and unusable, so Singh explored the surrounding wilderness for somewhere to relieve herself. Her husband stood guard, but what ensued left Singh traumatised.
A group of men accosted her and tried to get physical. Suthar chased them away but the damage had been done: it took months for Singh to overcome the incident.

Two years later, in 2017, the couple co-founded Lootel, to provide staffed smart bathrooms for travellers that are clean, hygienic and safe for women to use.
Indore-based Lootel is among a clutch of Indian start-ups that are building user-friendly rest stops along the nation’s highways.
Sheer madness: would you use Tokyo’s transparent toilets?
Clean toilets and sinks are the basis of these rest stops, but all offer other services and facilities, such as cafes, stores, Wi-fi, charging stations for electric vehicles, feeding/nappy changing rooms, showers, and lounges and sleeping pods.
Many are app-based and employ contactless systems for access, and almost all provide disabled-friendly and gender-neutral toilets.
Over the past decade there has been an aggressive expansion of highways in India, reducing travel time and boosting tourism, but their lack of clean bathrooms suggests the government does not consider it important to provide them even as it struggles to tackle poor sanitation at the household level.

Government campaign Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission), launched in 2014, aimed to end defecation in the open by 2019, but a survey in 2021 found that 19 per cent of households – out of 302 million – do not have access to a home toilet.
This helps explain why start-ups in India have sensed a business opportunity, even though, as Suthar puts it, “going into the sanitation business” is considered demeaning by his friends.
It also explains why an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, who specialised in automotive design, felt it necessary to immerse himself in toilet design instead.
Everything that’s wrong with our toilets, and how to fix them
Other start-ups owe their roots to similar stories as that of Lootel’s founders. On a trip to Ahmedabad about four years ago, Bhopal-based Ashutosh Giri Goswami found no proper facilities for his wife and children while travelling.
“That day, the idea of setting up out-of-home conveniences crystallised,” Goswami says. FreshRooms was born a year later and the brand’s first unit opened in 2019, offering a 24-hour cafe, Wi-fi, EV charging stations and lounges along with its bathrooms, which boast touchless entry, automatic sanitisers and heated toilet seats.
There are currently 11 FreshRooms facilities in six Indian states, in urban centres with heavy footfall and on busy highways.

One of the latest entrants to the market is Travlounge, a Kerala-based start-up with US$1 million of funding that launched in March with a pilot project on the Salem-Kochi (Kerala) highway.
“One of the ladies in the family was travelling to Calicut on a bus and had a horrible time,” says co-founder Safeer Palakkathodi, of the reason for starting Travlounge. “Wherever the bus stopped, the toilets were so pathetic that she couldn’t use them and had to control herself till she reached home.
“Sometimes, women avoid drinking water while travelling because there are no proper facilities.”
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These facilities meet a need, as indicated by their popularity. The 11 FreshRooms units are used on average by 2,000 people a day, while an estimated 1.2 million people have used Lootels since it launched. Travlounge’s lone unit sees more than 100 users a day.
All three cost 10 rupees (about 10-12 US cents) per use, but each operator provides the customer with benefits.
“The amount [charged] can be redeemed against anything in the cafe,” says Suthar, while Goswami says his customers can accrue points on spending, whether on toilet use or otherwise, that can be exchanged for anything in any FreshRooms outlet.

Travlounge works on a subscription model and intends to have two categories of restaurant in each of the six units Palakkathodi plans to have operating by the end of the year – a brand common to all and a smaller outlet that is local in style.
“We want to empower local people and also promote what is unique to each place,” says Palakkathodi.
Suthar foresees a gradual roll-out of more Lootels and is concentrating on the six that are in the pipeline, while Goswami has set his sights higher.
“There are 15 [FreshRooms] units that are getting ready and will be up soon, while we hope to have at least 200 up and running this year,” he says.
These amazing Japanese toilets will leave you flushed with excitement
Both of these budding toilet tycoons hope to eventually have a network of up to 1,000 units. Suthar says that, in the long term, he intends to build Lootel into a recognised travel brand.
“Just like how we prefer a particular hotel brand or carrier when we travel, I want travellers to club us with their travel plans,” he says. “I am happy when I get calls from women to ask if there is a Lootel on their proposed travel route.”
Goswami talks up his brand as a needed employer – at least four people work in each FreshRooms unit – and hopes his start-up will bring in something more intangible: social change.
“When I was at one of the units, I saw a young girl use the app and her credit to open the toilet door for a pregnant lady who was in a hurry,” he recalls. “It is gratifying to see such moments.”


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Asia travel

Smart toilets in India are clean, hygienic and a safe space for women – meet the start-ups building tech-enabled rest stops along the nation’s roads

A Travlounge on the Salem-Kochi (Kerala) highway in India. Indian start-ups are establishing tech-enabled toilets on the country’s highways, much to the relief of women travellers who often face dirty, unusable bathrooms. Photo: Travlounge

Yashwant Suthar (left) and Neelam Singh co-founded Lootel in India in 2017. Photo: Lootel

A Lootel smart toilet in India. Lootel provides staffed smart bathrooms for travellers that are clean, hygienic and safe for women to use. Photo: Lootel

A Lootel Cafe in India. An estimated 1.2 million people have used Lootels since it launched. Photo: Lootel

Safeer Palakkathodi is a co-founder of Travlounge. Photo: Travlounge

How night walks for women in India are allowing groups to tread fearlessly on streets most would otherwise avoid after sundown

Parvathi Bhat Giliyal of Gully Tours (second right) speaks to a group of women during the “Pete by Night for Women by Women” walk in Bangalore, India, on March 25, 2023. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

The group walks through a crowded portion of OTC Road in Bangalore. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

A stallholder sells jalebi (deep-fried floury circles soaked in sugar syrup). Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

The group look up at an architectural detail. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

Festive items for sale on Avenue Road in Chickpete. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

An illustration of Chickpete in colonial times. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

A member of the group eats vada pav (spicy mashed potato fritter in a square bun). Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

‘Epidemic of misogyny’: Why Hong Kong, Singapore and the rest of Asia should be concerned about Big Tech failing women

A recent report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a US-headquartered non-profit focused on disrupting online hate and misinformation, found that Instagram ignores 90 percent of abuse sent by direct messages. File Photo: Reuters 

Specialists and support workers say social media and chatting apps “systematically” fail women subjected to online sexual violence. Photo: Shutterstock

Hollywood actor Amber Heard has received abusive messages in Instagram. Photo: Reuters

Online abuse towards women increased during the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: Shutterstock

Instagram and parent company Meta Platforms didn’t act on 90 per cent of abuse sent via direct messages. Photo: Reuters

Huge numbers of women and girls face online abuse and ‘gender-based hate’. Photo: Shutterstock

Across Canada’s British Columbia and back by train, mountains, rivers, elk and moose from the comfort of the observation car

Canadian VIA Rail’s Skeena service awaits departure from the mountain resort town of Jasper, in Alberta, for a two-day journey across British Columbia to the coast. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Two long-distance train rides across Canada’s British Columbia, on the plush Canadian and more utilitarian Skeena, take passengers past snowy mountains, frozen rivers and the Great Plains. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

The cars of VIA Rail’s services crossing British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains retain some of the charm of their original 1950s construction. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Dome cars offer spectacular views on VIA Rail’s long-distance services in Canada. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

It can be a scramble to find a seat in the dome cars of VIA Rail’s famous cross-Canada service, but outside peak season the Skeena line, through the best scenery of mountainous British Columbia, has space to spare. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

The Two Brothers totem pole, near the railway station in Jasper in Canada’s Alberta province. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

On VIA Rail’s cross-country Canadian service, three-course meals are brought to tables covered in snowy-white linen. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Mt. Robson, the highest peak in the Rockies, is visible from Via Rail’s Skeena train. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

The station at the tiny settlement of McBride (population 616), in British Columbia, is a classic example of Canadian railway architecture. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Canadian railways carry so few passengers these days, station buildings have become redundant in some remote communities. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

VIA Rail’s Skeena train serves a line, built at great expense in the early 1900s, that carves its way through the mountains of Canada’s British Columbia. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Japanese officials red-faced as hi-tech public toilets malfunction, exposing users

Public restrooms with transparent walls in Yoyogi Fukamachi Mini Park by Shigeru Ban. Photo: Nippon Foundation

A man uses a transparent toilet that has turned opaque (right) after the door was locked at Haru-no-Owaga Community Park in Tokyo. Photo: AP

Lifestyle

Travel & Leisure

Start-ups in India have taken advantage of the government’s seeming unconcern at the lack of clean, female-friendly bathrooms along the nation’s highways
A number of entrepreneurs have created tech-enabled toilets that offer extras such as cafes, stores, Wi-fi, feeding/nappy changing rooms, showers and lounges


A group of Indian start-ups are setting up tech-enabled toilets on the country’s highways, much to the relief of women travellers who often face dirty, unusable bathrooms while on the road.


India