February 23, 2007

Media Watch - Where every child doesn’t get her due

Sources: HT, ToI, Indian Express, Outlook, Telegraph, Central Chronicle, IBNlive, Alertnet

Facts hard to digest
Consequently, child malnutrition is not only responsible for 22 per cent of India’s disease burden and half of the 2.3 million child deaths annually, but it also costs India at least $ 10 billion annually in terms of lost productivity, illness and death. Such a colossal loss is unacceptable for a growing global power like India.

Poor child care in 'rich' states too
Unlike Bihar and Uttar Pradesh that have poor health and nutritional status, the immunisation cover for children has actually declined in 11 states, including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

Where every child doesn’t get her due

The damage to physical growth and brain development due to malnutrition is maximum when the infant is under two years and that damage is largely irreversible. While intervention in providing fortified foods should logically focus most on this window of opportunity, our food supplementary schemes are directed at older school-going children.

Child Labour: India’s Greatest Shame
‘Seven days a week, 8-year-old Jasmina Khatoon rises before dawn to fetch water for the household where she works as a maid. She washes, sweeps and hauls until about 11 at night, when she lies down to sleep on the floor by the bathroom door.’

WITHOUT CARE
Ms Renuka Chowdhury, the Union minister of state for women and child development, has her heart in the right place. As part of her unflagging effort to save the girl child, she has enticed parents with cash incentives, and now proposes that the state does their job of parenting for them.

Some 50 per cent of India's children are abused - survey
New Delhi-based Outlook magazine said in its 26 February issue that "hidden from the media glare, millions of children [in India] suffer abuse in silence". The survey indicates that the extent of abuse of children saturates throughout many different aspects of Indian society, not just amongst orphanages, juvenile homes and street children.

Take care of the kids: Monitor anganbadis
India ranks along with small nations like Cambodia, Burkino Faso taking the weight of kids against their age.

Govt to raise abandoned girl children
"We want to put a cradle or Palna in every district headquarters. What we are saying to the people is have your children, don't kill them. And if you don't want a girl child, leave her to us," Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury told PTI in an interview.

From street child to surgeon, Indian girl follows dream
And the 16-year-old girl is bright enough to realise her dream, according to the charity that 10 years ago rescued her from the teeming streets of the northern Indian city of Jaipur with a population of some three million people.

'Don't kill your daughter, the Govt will raise her'
In a bid to check the alarming rate of female feticide, the ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) has proposed to set up an orphanage in each district of the country where parents can leave their girl child, if they don't want to bring them up.

Students to run for a cause
The Dream Run, organised by the Students Social Responsibility Cell will bringing students together to promote a world free from physical, emotional and intellectual deprivation of children by fighting child sex abuse, malnutrition, and child labour, and encouraging education.

February 17, 2007

Media Watch - Children of a lesser god?

Sources: Business Standard, TOI, RXPGnews, HT, Hindu

Children of a lesser god?
In cities and towns like Mumbai, Agra, Kanpur, Firozabad and Moradabad, to name just a few, where one face of Indian youth is flourishing in the multiplex-mall culture, there is another side where children in the same age group are probably working 18 hours in factories which fail to provide even basic comfort levels.

Give details of missing kids: HC to DGP
Taking serious note of 712 children missing from various areas in the state for the last one year, the Allahabad High Court directed the DGP to provide their disaggregate district-wise gender and age details on the next date.

When street kids smile through the lens
The exhibition titled 'Children of the world', being held in the city, has 40 photographs of street children from nine countries, including India. It is not the usual kind of exhibition where you step around to look at the portraits on the walls.

CBI to inquire into alleged child adoption racket
The Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA), an autonomous Body under the Ministry of Women & Child Development, responsible for keeping a check on international adoption has suspended Preet Mandir's license last July after the with immediate effect after it was reported that the adoption home was allegedly involved in selling babies to foreigners for $12,000.

New light on child labour
Highlighting the plight of children working in hazardous industries, the film intends to sensitise society and the parents who send their young children to work in order to "augment" their income.

February 12, 2007

Media Watch - 5 kids will go missing the next hour

Sources: TOI, Hindu, NYTimes, HT, IE, Indiatogether, Hardnewsmedia, Indian Catholic, NDTV

200 bonded labourers freed in Hazaribagh
Nearly 100 child labourers along with another 100 bonded adults including women, were freed from a brick kiln near Ramgarh in Hazaribagh district on Saturday and brought to Ranchi from where they boarded trains to their respective states.

Girl child unspoken curse
The situation has worsened since 2003, when ultra-sonography and sex-determination technology became accessible to the remotest parts of Chambal, one of the most backward areas in the country.

Beyond punishment
A considerable body of research shows that corporal punishment can never make a child learn or behave better. Yet, the practice is widely prevalent.

Even Amid Its Wealth, India Finds, Half Its Small Children Are Malnourished

In this young nation, where 40 percent of the people are under 18, figures released by the government on Friday offered an alarming portrait of child health: Among children under 3, nearly half are clinically underweight, the most reliable measure of malnutrition.

Website to track missing children launched

Launched by Don Bosco National Forum for Youth at Risk in association with UNICEF, www.missingchildsearch.net will be closely watched and monitored by child welfare organisations in all major cities in the country and a search will be generated immediately.

Largest children population state lagging in childcare
child security had become an important concern in the post Nithari scenario but the issue was a broader one, involving the rights of the young child in the framework of security, protection, development and participation.

Ultrasound may result in `misguided treatment'

The available imaging technologies employed during pregnancy may not always be accurate, and therefore, may not enable correction of birth defects, feels a group of dedicated paediatric surgeons.

Flesh trade to beggar mafia: Mumbai capital for missing children

Maximum city Mumbai is also number one when it comes to missing children. In 2006 alone, Mumbai’s missing minor registers recorded 948 children as untraced.

5 kids will go missing the next hour
In fact, missing children is the veritable black hole in law-enforcement. As an investigative series from several states will show, just like Nithari, where police failed to even acknowledge the problem, elsewhere, too, the typical police response is: the missing child is the parents’ problem, not ours.

Paying a steep price for motherhood
The deaths come at a time when the state government of Madhya Pradesh is strongly advocating institutional deliveries as the mantra to combat high rates of maternal deaths in the state. Unfortunately in the state the campaign exists in the advertisement hoardings, newspaper advertisements and in media, thanks to efforts of public relation department of the state.

Indian PM meets 9-is-Mine delegates
20 children led the 9-Is-Mine delegation to the Prime Minister on 1st February, 2006. The Prime Minister received them at his residence on 7 Race Course Road, and spent exclusive time with the children.

Nithari’s Auschwitz
How many more Nitharis will have to happen to change the way the police and administration function in our ‘incredible, superpower’ India? Are the children of the poor in India eternally condemned in abject poverty, often homeless, without a childhood, trapped as child labour and now guinea pigs of perverse psychopaths, murdered and raped and chopped up in many parts, while the stunningly insensitive nexus of the police and the government plays footsie?

Children in India yearn for better future

India’s constitution is termed as best written human rights documents with several articles on children’s welfare and development. Alas, despite quantum jump on several fronts during last five decades most children are yet to become national priority and many provisions remains on the papers only

Corruption in ICDS schemes
The villagers say the Anganwadi centre does not function and the anganwadi worker goes missing for most part of the year. For example, it's already 9.30 and it's still closed. It's supposed to open at 7.