Newswatch - 10 lakhs girls missing, Cash to stop abortions

Indian families offered cash to stop abortion of girl foetuses
The scheme announced by the Indian authorities will carry a number of requirements if families are to receive the money. The lump sum will be paid once the daughter reaches the age of 18 and can prove that she has been to school. Her nutrition and health will also be checked and for the family to receive the money, the young woman must not be married

70% children in India anaemic
Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told Lok Sabha on Wednesday that 69.5 percent of children in the age group of six to 59 months are suffering from anaemia of which 63 percent are in the urban areas and 71.5 percent in the rural areas.

'10 lakh girls missing from Indian population'
"Female foeticide is an extreme manifestation of violence against women. Female fetuses are selectively aborted after pre-natal sex determination, thus avoiding the birth of girls. As a result of selective abortion, about 10 lakh girls are missing from the Indian Population,"

News Watch - PC's budget and children

Money for the children
The saddest thing in this state of affairs is that India has had a programme working in the villages and towns for the last three decades to address this window of opportunity as a solution for the vicious cycle of poverty, malnutrition of mothers and the resultant death of children under five—the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS).

Budget Wishlist |Child Protection to get priority within Child Budget: Unicef
It is expected that while Union Budget 2008 will see a quantum jump in social sector spending and specifically education, child protection will continue to remain largely unacknowledged. This component of child budgeting that covers the wide spectrum of trafficking, child labour, street children, orphan and vulnerable children, institutional care and adoption and care of homelessness is not likely to be adequately addressed.

Women and child schemes get the priority
He also allocated Rs 16,202 crore for 100% women specific schemes and Rs 16,202 crore for 30% women specific scheme. Further, the FM allocated Rs 7,200 crore in 2008-09 to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, representing an increase of 24% over the allocation in 2007-08.

Budget Shows Children not 'Politically Important'
World Vision India, however is concerned about the marked neglect of children and issues related to them in this budget, such as education, Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and health.

News Watch - Kids Sold as Donors?

Kids Sold as Donors ?
"If you have baby markets, you cannot stop people from exposing those children to harm," the Organs Watch director said. "There could be real instrumental reasons of wanting that child, which could include wanting that child to serve as a donor to an older child."

Wealth 'may not lead to health'
"The figures for child mortality in India are shocking," said Shireen Miller, from Save the Children India. "They are close to sub-Saharan Africa, and one does ask that if we can make such rapid development economically then why can we not do the same socially?

Nutrition plan way off target, report finds
According to Saxena, the poorest compliance is in states that need the programme the most: “25% of India’s districts are responsible for more than 50% of malnourished children, and these districts are mostly located in the poorer states. Yet, the poorest states and those with the highest levels of under-nutrition have the lowest levels of programme funding, supervisory staff, capacity to utilize funds and monitor progress, resulting in poor outcomes.”

‘Malnutrition should be tackled in first two years’
“Malnutrition must be addressed in the first two years of life, the crucial period for a child’s physical and cognitive development,” according to Marie Ruel, lead author of The Lancet article and director of the Food Consumption and Nutrition Division at IFPRI. “If nutrition programmes wait until children have already become malnourished, their benefits are significantly diminished.”

Move to make primary education a fundamental right
"The main component of this legislation will be 'free and compulsory' education. This was the main problem faced by the flagship Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All programme)," said a senior official in the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD).

News watch - Child Labour

Child Labor
Even as India gallops toward First World status--with its booming economy, roaring stock market and rapid progress in autos and steel--it is still a giant back-yard sweatshop to the world, staffed by underage boys and girls.

PM calls for investment, reform in national education system
"We need a system that is both compassionate and demanding. No child should ever feel left out for no fault of his or her. No child should nurse a grievance that his creativity has been suppressed. We need a humane, creative and forward-looking system," he said.

CHILD TRAFFICKING: An awakening
The trafficking of human beings is a persistent and wide-reaching phenomenon, and in an increasingly integrated world of interconnected communications and commerce it truly represents a violation of human rights on a global scale. A lucrative market, the trade in human flesh is a multi-billion dollar industry that amounts to a modern-day slave trade.

Child scheme fine on ‘casual’ states
The idea is to affix responsibility on states. “Currently, we fund the scheme, but also get all the blame, particularly from the Supreme Court. If they can’t share the blame, let them at least share the funds,” a senior official in the women and child development ministry said.

Delhi to set up commission for children`s welfare
`We have realised that there is a need for a forum to look into the welfare of children. The cabinet has given its nod to a state commission for the protection of children`s rights. And Delhi will soon have one,` Raghuraman said on the sidelines of the national consultative meet organised by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).

Child marriage is one of the biggest injustices: Patil
"Child marriage is one of the biggest injustices committed against a minor and adversely affects a girl child turning her into a baby-producing machine," Patil said here after launching the 'Mukhya Mantri Kanya Vivah Yojana'.

News Watch - 77% caste groups in MP still marry off children

77% caste groups in MP still marry off children
According to a recent study by the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research (CSR), the proportion of people whose caste/community still practises child marriage is 41% in Rajasthan and only 10% in Uttar Pradesh. "Enforcement of the Child Marriage Prohibition Act continues to be a major problem," says the study conducted in two districts in each of the three states.

Children of a lesser god
Child trafficking is rife in India but the law on trafficking is still ambiguous. A new law that’s in the works may, however, change this, reports Amrita Johri.

Know disaster, no disaster
Over 400 children from 36 schools in Pune participated in the two-day event on 'Children - Disasters and Sustainable Futures' on 4-5 January this year. They gathered knowledge about disasters and how to best manage in such situations, ensuring minimum loss of life and property.

Mr Finance Minister, Lend Your Ear To The Children, Please!
ICDS was started more than 32 years back in 1975, in pursuance to the adoption of the National Policy for Children in 1974. This Policy recognised children as the ‘nation’s supremely important asset’ and called upon the state ‘to provide adequate services to children, both before and after birth and through the period of growth, to ensure their full physical, mental and social development’ and to cover ‘all children in the country’ ‘within a reasonable time’.

News Watch - Taking baby steps around the holy fire

Taking baby steps around the holy fire
When the child brides and grooms were asked what marriage meant to them, nearly 67 per cent in UP said it was “celebrating a festival”, 42 out of 100 said it was about “being the centre of attraction” and 25 per cent it was an “occasion to get new clothes”. These were the common responses received from the married children in the other two states as well.

India home to a quarter of world's hungry
Ironically, people who grow the food we eat are fighting hunger. If the faces of the poor and the figures on the official documents are anything to go by, India is losing its most important battle, the battle against hunger

Without a home
n Delhi, shifting or closure of industries, relocation of slum-dwellers far away from their place of employment, sealing operations to curb commercial activities in residential areas have all contributed to a livelihood crisis, fuelling the problem of homelessness.

How to Get 100 Million Children in India Reading
The difference that an education, literacy and competency in English makes in the future of a child cannot be overestimated – especially a marginalized or disadvantaged child; a child like Santosh. One of the main factors that makes children vulnerable to street life, trafficking, early marriage, child labor or adult unemployment is lack of education.

News Watch: Case of the missing daughter

Case of the missing daughter
Unwanted — that’s the plight of the girl child in many parts of India. It doesn’t quite matter where she lives — in a shanty or mansion, a village or city, India or Canada — she’s often a minority, perched precariously between life and death.

Child Deaths Down, But Still Too Many: UNICEF
The report, entitled, "State of the World's Children 2008," points out that each day at least 26,000 children under the age of five die from preventable diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria.

Data and statistics on education in India

Mother and Child
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/Mother_and_Child/articleshow/2725901.cms
Of the 9.7 million child deaths worldwide annually, one-third occur in India. Unesco's 2008 report on the state of the world's children presents an acutely embarrassing picture of infant and child mortality in the country.

The starvelings
Hunger has an even bigger impact on children's health than was thought. Hunger causes disease as well as death. According to the Lancet, malnutrition in the first two years is irreversible. Malnourished children grow up with worse health and lower educational achievements. Their own children also tend to be smaller.

When hunger kills
Of the ones that are lucky enough to survive, 8.3 million are babies born underweight. The situation worsens as these babies grow older. Every third child who is underweight, and under five, in the world is an Indian.

Community to be involved in bringing children to school
The larger community needs to be convinced that it is a “vibrant player” in ensuring educational access to all, she added. Though the number of out-of-school children had gone down from 10 lakh in 2000 to about one lakh in 2007, those who had remained out of the ambit of SSA programmes were “a matter of serious concern”, said Ms. Sharma.

Where is the space for children?
Article 31 of UN convention on child rights state, “Every child has a right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.” However, fulfillment of this right is a dubious dream.

News Watch - Love, hope for shunned kids in India AIDS school

Love, hope for shunned kids in India AIDS school
They used to throw water on me and tear up my books," Komal said as she reminisced about her days at a regular school. "Still, I wanted to go to school, but one day my teacher said don't come back."

A take on the reality bites of child labour [Blog: Opinion]
Progressive step of expanding the scope of law to include Child labour prohibition law to include the child labour at hotels, dhabas and as house hold workers is much appreciated. But the same old story of legislation’s continue, though the laws are present, no one seems bothered about the enforcement, they are just meant to be black letters at the Government Gazette.

NUEPA's Educational Development Index (EDI) for states - southern states on top
The top 8 states include the five southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and the three northern states - Delhi, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh.

Poor Nutrition Causes One-Third of Child Deaths, Lancet Says
A quarter of those lives could be saved through simple programs such as promoting breast-feeding and handing out vitamin supplements, researchers including Zulfiqar Bhutta, a professor of child medicine at Pakistan's Aga Khan University, wrote in the Lancet today.

Needed: Legislation against child abuse
Though India claims to have achieved development goals in many sectors, it is yet to adopt a legislation against child abuse and there is no mandatory reporting and available infrastructure to curb the unfortunate practice.

Child scheme: Yechury asks PM to ensure Rs 12,000 cr in Budget
Sitaram Yechury said this amount should include Rs 2,500 crore “exclusively for improving the conditions of the Anganwadi employees and for providing them pension and other social security benefits.”

Women to have greater say in planning through gender-budgeting
The policy would be about incorporating a gender perspective and sensitiveness at all levels and stages of the developmental planning, policy and programme formulation.

The age of labour
Government officials and NGOs in Maharashtra want the Centre to increase the age limit for child labour to 18, up from 14 at present, which they feel will help curtail the exploitation of children in all kinds of business establishments.

News Watch - Babalog see Orissa hunger first hand

Babalog see Orissa hunger first hand
Sachin Pilot of Congress, Supriya Sule of NCP, Jay Panda, BJD, Shyam Benegal, nominated member to Rajya Sabha, and Shahnawaz Hussain from BJP made up the political quorum of the alliance — Feroze Gujaral and Gauri Karnik added the celebrity factor to the group. Supported by Unicef, the group visited four villages in two blocks of Cuttack district — Salehpur and Tangi. The first two were villages planned for a visit in advance.

Experts stress on importance of breast-feeding
Bhanu, a lactating mother, who works as a teacher in a private school maintained that after the two months maternity leave given to them which also are varies from one school to another, it is difficult for them to breast-feed their children properly and regularly.

A Democracy called India (Blog: opinion)
One such problem is child labour. The Parliament has banned all forms of Child Labour under an Act and yet this loss of innocence continues. While traveling to college everyday I come across a little girl less than ten years old standing beneath the familiar traffic light. Everyday she hurtles towards halted cars as soon as the traffic light turns to flaming red. She begs for money using steel can wrapped with marigold flowers and adorned with Lord Shiva idols.

Kid organises computers for tribals
Karan's dream of teaching computers to these underprivileged kids has been realized, with HP agreeing to sponsor 30 computers through the Sankya project of Rotary Club, Bangalore South.

New Research Shows Nutrition Programs Targeting Pregnancy and First 24 Months of Life Dramatically Improve Child Survival and Overall Health
A landmark series of research papers on maternal and child undernutrition published in the leading international medical journal The Lancet today shows that children will suffer irreversible damage into their adult life if proper nutrition interventions are not delivered before the age of 24 months.

Image courtest Hindu Businessline

News Watch: Delay in Child Rights Panel - Govt. rapped

Government rapped for delay in forming children's panel
The powers of the commission, comprising six people, would involve launching an inquiry into "any violation of child rights" and "protect" children requiring special care, minors in distress, juveniles, children in conflict with law and those affected by HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, riots, communal violence and terrorism.

Why India’s future may rest on Eggs, Condoms
The working group on children under six, set up at the behest of the government’s economic planning agency, estimates the cost of reaching out to 80 million children and 10 million pregnant and breast-feeding women with day-care centres, medicines, counselling and nutrition—including eggs for a protein-rich diet—at Rs30,000 crore a year.

Get ready to pay more to domestic help, you will get trained hands
“According to labour laws, children under the age of 14 cannot be employed legally. We will be targeting adolescents between the age groups of 14 and 18 years. Domestic workers are not considered professionals in the country and we are trying to change this mindset. Once these workers are trained they will have to be paid according to wage structures decided by us. There will be different categories of domestic helps according to the skills acquired and certification, such as ‘certificate I’ or ‘certificate II domestic help’. Their salaries will depend accordingly,” senior Labour department officials said.

Diagnostic guidelines can save infant lives worldwide: study
A simple checklist of symptoms for severe illness could save tens of thousands of newborns in poor countries, according to a study published Thursday. The guidelines could help village caregivers make speedy, accurate diagnoses of ailing infants, helping to identify those who need urgent hospitalisation, it says.

Tracking India’s progress on MDGs
“With the growth taking place in the country unless there is a targeted expenditure, we will not be able to see the results which have been designed to be achieved as part of the MDG campaign,” warned Jagadananda, Convener of WNTA.

Got You! - An interesting take on HIV and AIDS and stigma.

Scripted by children, 'Got You!' or 'Aemanthutingala!' is a World Vision India - Nalandaway co-production of a script created by children.



Synopsis:

One day in the life of a perky young girl who is HIV positive. The girl, though mischievous is smart and independent. In one of the normal physical education classes she has a small accident, gets hurt and starts to bleed. The physical education teacher comes to her help, but she refuses his help and tells him that she is HIV positive. The teacher though initially rubbishes it as one of her many, pranks is shattered when she shows her medical records. The film shows how the teacher’s ignorance takes him through a torturous time, till the child teaches the “teacher” a lesson for life.

For more info about World Vision India / Nalandaway Foundation

News Watch - Child labour: Govt to expand list of hazardous jobs

Child labour: Govt to expand list of hazardous jobs, amend law
The Union Labour Ministry is about to notify a significant expansion of the list of hazardous processes and occupations where the employment of children below 18 years of age is strictly prohibited, even as it is working towards comprehensively reviewing and amending the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986.

Supply chains – Indian child labour slips through the Gap
Sean Ansett, managing partner of At Stake Advisors and former global partnerships director at Gap, believes that no company, even the most responsible, is immune to child labour in its supplhey chain.

Our unlucky children
Our children can buy potato chips in 40 flavours, but are denied an education tailored to their needs. Aamir Khan’s film is about a dyslexic boy let down by his school. His teachers do not recognize what makes him different and treat him as if he is stupid, shattering his self-esteem. Then Khan comes in as a sensitive teacher and turns things around.

Cartoon courtesy Suman

News watch: Eggs and Condoms to save India

India's Future May Depend on Eggs and Condoms: Andy Mukherjee
This isn't to say Indian taxpayers should resent paying for an egg in each young child's meal every other day, which is what the committee recommends. But surely provision of clean water, for which the panel has very little advice to offer, should take precedence

Discrimination in MP schools alive and kicking, reveals public hearing
“When we raised our voice against this partial treatment, we were threatened and beaten badly by the teacher. Non-dalit students also refuse to sit with us,” said 13 year old Pooja, a Dalit student from the same school. She feels humiliated by her teacher and classmates.

"Transporting" people out of poverty
There is a clear link between levels of infant and child mortality and accessibility to health services. The success of national immunisation programmes, for which repeat visits are often required, depends on the availability of affordable transport services to the poor.

Image courtesy Bloomberg

Media watch - In 2007, India let its children down

In 2007, India let its children down
For a country with a child population of over 445 million, of whom 126 million are less than five years old, the unearthing of 20 dismembered bodies of missing kids at the fag end of 2006 was a shocking revelation of how India neglects its children. Most of children had been sexually abused and mutilated. One year later, India continues to be among the worst performers in the world in terms of ensuring that children have the basic right to survive, even though policies and processes for their protection and development are in place.

'Biscuits can't replace mid-day meals in schools'
In what could strengthen the government's case in not letting "100 gram biscuit packs" replace hot cooked mid-day meals in schools, the Supreme Court-appointed special commissioners have slammed the lobbying by members of Parliament to undo the current scheme.

Missing Children in India Status Report NHRC (Blog post)
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has published a new report on Missing Children in India. It gave a number of recommendations. It can be downloaded from their website http://nhrc.nic.in/

Including the disabled
The World Bank report 2006 (forthcoming) states that both educational attainment of all persons with disability and the attendance of Children With Disability (CWD) are far below national averages. Thirty-eight per cent of CWD aged 6-13 are out of schools. Almost three quarters of all children with severe disabilities are illiterate and do not attend school.

Lekhpals told to prevent malnutrition
Moreover, facts like 74.7% of pregnant women had never gone for the three mandatory ante natal care visits, close to 92% mothers never consumed iron folic acid tablets for 90 days and about 71.8% women didn’t go in for institutional deliveries reflect inter-generational transfer of malnutrition.

2007 in retrospect - But the children cannot wait

“We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait, the child cannot,” said to Gabriela Mistral, Nobel Prize winner.

India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru set a great example by expressing his love for children. So much so that he was called ‘Chaacha Nehru’ and his birthday is still celebrated as Children’s Day.

But as each New Year and yet another Children’s Day comes along, the celebrations ring hollow in the face of the growing atrocities that are committed against children. Some of our happy memories are that of being a child. But, being a child in India may not be such a great thing after all. The figures below speak for themselves.

If you are child below the age of three there is a 50 % change that you are malnourished – if you are not one of the 10 % who do not live to see their first birthday.

If you survive this age, and somehow get into school there is a 30 % chance that you will drop out of school – the probability is even higher if you are a girl. And you have to do all of this on your own, without support from the state, as it has no constitutional obligation to educate you till you are six years old.

Wait. There is more.

There is a 41% chance that you will be sexually abused or molested, most probably by a close family member or friend. Again, the chances are higher if you are a girl.

While recent figures show that around 70,000 children in India are HIV positive, a seemingly low number – uncounted are the number of children whose parents are infected or dead from AIDS making them vulnerable to child labour, trafficking and abuse.

While we know to the minute how high or low the sensex rises and the reasons behind the same, we are still arguing on how many child labourers there are in our blessed country. Estimates range from 10 – 100 million children – and recent reports about widespread child labour in the cotton and garment industries seem to favour the higher figure.

And in a country where every day there is a natural disaster, the impact it has on children is unknown.

The horror that is Nithari should have brought us to our feet in anger. But all we have left is despair at the speed with which enquiries move in India as the main perpetrator (or the politically correct “accused”) is languishing in a ‘first-class’ cell.

What is wrong with us?

Just a case in point – child related issues were allocated only a measly 1.2% of the total budget from 1990 – 98 on average according to a HAQ: Centre for Child Rights report. India ratified the UN convention on the rights of the child in 1990 and still we do not have comprehensive legislation that makes the convention a reality for children.

The image that comes to mind is that of an Ostrich with its head stuck firmly in the ground as the world around it crumbles. And maybe if we keep our head down long enough, the children will get tired of waiting and create a revolution. For that is what we need.

Photo courtesy: Anish Premson@World Vision