India may have a seat at the Group of 20 nations as leaders grapple with the global financial crisis, but according to the United Nations 665m of its people do not have access to a toilet seat.

Unicef, the UN children’s development agency, said on Tuesday that one in two Indians defecate in the open and that their untreated human waste posed a serious health risk to local communities. By comparison, only 3 per cent of China’s 1.6bn population is classified in the same way.