Nearly 1.2 billion practise open defecation worldwide and maximum of those live in India, according to a report released on Friday by the WHO/UNICEF. The report released by the Joint Monitoring Programme for Drinking-water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) suggests that over 2.5 billion people suffer from a lack of access to improved sanitation. Of these, about 665 million people in India still defecate in the open. The report assesses sanitation practices with experts highlighting trends in using improved, shared and unimproved sanitation facilities. The report underlines that the number of people who lack access to an improved drinking water source globally, has fallen below one billion for the first time. The number of people worldwide practising open defecation dropped from 24 per cent in 1990 to 18 per cent in 2006. While there is some improvement seen in India, there is a lot to be done, the report says.