Beijing’s public toilets must not exceed two flies, according to new standards handed down by zealous officials striving to clean up China’s notoriously filthy loos.

The unusual rule applies to lavatories in parks, railway stations, airports, hospitals, malls and supermarkets in the capital, said the Beijing News today.

More conventional demands from the municipal committee in charge of the image of the city include an order that there is no accumulation of urine or water in the capital’s public toilets and that bins aren’t overflowing.

Construction companies in Beijing will need to keep a close eye on emissions of dust and other forms of pollution at their existing construction sites if they want to bid on new projects, a city government official said Tuesday.

It was announced at a Tuesday "green construction" conference that Beijing authorities will ban construction companies from submitting bids for new projects for a period of six months if their existing projects are found to have "irregularities," including large amounts of dust emissions and spilled construction materials.

A public toilet in Beijing's Zhongguancun area The benchmarks apply to toilets in public premises or on roadsides

Authorities in the Chinese capital have set new standards for public toilets, including a stipulation that they should contain no more than two flies.

The new rules, published by the commission of city administration, also set standards on odour and cleaning litter bins.

Toilets in places such as tourist spots must comply with the new standards.

But it is not clear whether failing washrooms will be punished and if so, how.

With 2016 set as the goal post for completing construction of Phase-III, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is gearing up to complete the project within the tight schedule and estimated completion cost. “Phase-II was completed in half the time taken for Phase-I with the Commonwealth Games as the goal. For Phase-III we will proceed with the same conviction,” said DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh, speaking at DMRC's 18th Foundation Day celebrations here this last week.

Land alloted for National Games, Portuguese Commonwealth Games used for illegal mining

Several trucks and machinery were confiscated at the land acquired by Goa government to set up a sports city here for National Games 2014, busting an illegal mining racket on government land, police said. Goa police raided the illegal laterite stone mining activity on the land Monday evening after a complaint by the locals.

PANJIM: The land acquired by state government for sports city in Pernem, which has been kept idle since 2009, has become a target of rogues indulging in the illegal mining activity.

A raid conducted by Directorate of Mines and Geology following complaint by locals on Monday have noticed that laterite stones were being mined illegally.

The British Minister of State, department of energy and climate change, Mr Gregory Barker, said on Friday that the London Olympics 2012 would be the “greenest Olympics ever.”

“We want to raise the benchmarks for Olympics Games,” Mr Barker said promising to keep the carbon footprint to the minimum. The British Minister was addressing a UK-India partnership programme in Kolkata for developing fiscal instruments for climate friendly industrial development in West Bengal, Odisha and Tamil Nadu.

The Indian Olympic Association’s repeated pleas to have Dow hemicals removed as a sponsor of the London Olympics may have fallen on deaf ears but now the Indian government has intervened with a new request. In a letter to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, the sports ministry has asked the body to “go beyond lesser considerations” and let go of the Games association with Dow, the organisation that owns Union Carbide, the company responsible for the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy.

The American company, Dow Chemicals, should not be sponsoring the Olympics, said the Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Ms Jayanthi Natarajan. Speaking to a group of media persons on the sidelines of Business Ethics Conference — Beacon 2012, organised by Loyola Institute of Business Administration here on Friday, she said a company that harmed the environment should not be allowed, at any cost, to sponsor the Olympics.

“I find it ridiculous. Dow Chemicals has absolutely no moral standing,” she said.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has appreciated Indian Olympic Association's (IOA) concern for the victims of 1984 Bhopal Tragedy but maintained that Dow Chemicals had no ownership stakes in Union Carbide till 2000. IOC also said that its relationship with Dow Chemicals is well over 30 years and "we were aware of the Bhopal tragedy when discussing the partnership with Dow".