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.