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.

Media Watch - ICDS scheme: A success story from TN

Raipur in a fix over ‘boy orderlies’
A police force’s job scheme for children of its dead personnel is earning it praise, and some legal trouble, with human rights activists saying that employing the youngsters for a charitable reason is still a violation of child labour laws.

`Plan to make Delhi hunger-free'
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Sunday said her Government is formulating a food guarantee programme that would ensure food for all in Delhi and make it a hunger-free State.

Malnutrition a reality in Mumbai
That hunger exists in Mumbai is hardly a fact that needs to be established. And so, armed with a weighing scale, NDTV team visited the pavements of the city to randomly select and weigh children below the age of three

Can Indian laws adequately prevent child trafficking?
Every year lakhs of children go missing throughout India. A number of children are lured away from home and suffer abuse and torture. So what innovations are needed to change how we view our little ones?

Child trafficking is increasing in India
India harbours 19 per cent of world’s child population and almost 42 % of total population (1100 million) are children. And yet total expenditure on children in health, education, development and protection together is only 4.9 % of India’s total budget outlet.

Brave woman makes ICDS work
t's the anganwadi workers' personal motivation and dynamism which can really help the battle against hunger. NDTV's team traveled to Bikaner in Rajasthan to bring the story of Geeta Godaran, whose work has created a minor revolution in her village.

ICDS scheme: A success story from TN
At every anganwadi in Tamil Nadu, there is hot lunch, apart from satturundai, that's freshly cooked at the centre. Twice a week, egg is on the menu and on three days a week there will be vegetables, green gram or moong.

Children do not vote
As a nation we are not overtly mindful about protecting and nourishing our children who shall inherit this country from us. And, since children do not vote, they do not exist for political parties, although children under six years comprise 20 per cent of the population.

Media Watch - Millions of children undernourished: India PM

Journeying into dark lives of India's street kids
These poor kids flee their homes for a better life in the huge metros and get gobbled up in the narrow by-lanes, or stinking sewers of the railway stations or bus-stops which are, according to one estimate, home to some 3,000-odd poor young runaways.

Indian PM says millions of children undernourished
Some 50 million children aged below six are covered under the 45 billion rupees ($1 billion) Integrated Child Development Services scheme, but it has been poorly implemented, Singh said in a letter to state chief ministers after an adverse health ministry report said.

Britain boosts funding of India`s `Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan`
Under the new programme, Britain wants to get every primary-aged child in India into school. It is part of Gordon Brown`s dream to persuade developed countries to pull their weight to get every child in the world into primary school, sources said.

Madhya Pradesh has India's most malnourished kids
The government and other agencies have launched many programmes. However, tribal areas remain largely untouched. The much-hyped Bal Sanjeevni Abhiyan scheme launched in the state has, many say, failed to ensure nutritional security to tribal children.

Surviving child labour with optimism
'The zari work does not require child labour,' says Mohammad Saddam Hussain, 12, with a lightness that is indicative of his natural age. His insight, however, has a richness of an aspiring insider. 'The zari work is so tedious that no adult will take it up if he is not trained early in childhood.'

Media Watch - 18 million street children and Nithari surprises you?

18 million street children and Nithari surprises you?
Paedophilia in Goa, organ trafficking in Nithari, gang rape in Bhiwandi - it's just the first week of the year. I think we need more than a dance on stage and a hush hush bash. We need schools

Child tracking system on govt radar to slash missing cases
The UNICEF has also come up with a proposal for child tracking system, with a pilot-testing project already underway in Lalitpur district in Bundelkhand region. According to UNICEF officials, the project revolves around maintaining a baseline date related to children and, also, providing and assisting in all services for children.

Child murders show India's poor live below justice
"The police said 'you people just give birth to children and leave them on the streets -- and then you want police to find them when they go missing'", Lal said, outside the house where his daughter's skull, bones and clothes were found eight months later.

Noida — The mirror of Indian society
What is worrying about the Nithari killings is that nobody seems to have fully understood that Noida holds a mirror up to Indian society in which we should all be able to see our faces. In that mirror, if we dare to look, we will see a society that has long accepted that India is a country in which there are civil privileges and not civil rights.

Media Watch - Putting child at risk

Noida — The mirror of Indian society
If you are poor, nameless and living in one of the shantytowns that border glittering new towns like Noida then the police will not bother to even register a case because they know your child counts for nothing.

PROGRAMMES AND POLICY MEASURES FOR CHILD WELFARE
Children constitute principle assets of any country. Children’s development is very important for the overall development of society and the best way to develop national human resources is to take care of children.

Sunil Jain: In school, but not really learning
At the all-India level, it found the proportion of children in the first and second standard who could read the alphabet in their native languages is up by 4.2 percentage points, from 70.3 last year to 74.5 per cent this year.

Putting children at risk
Physically and emotionally immature in comparison to adults, and without representation in a democracy, children certainly deserve more than the average protection from our welfare state.

Oprah's academy: Why educating girls pays off more
the benefits of girls' education, in terms of improving health, women's empowerment, and family well-being, probably does make girls' education the highest-returning social investment in the world.

Toys 'could help 200m children'
Programmes using basic toys could boost educational achievement of 200 million developing world children not reaching their potential, a report says.

Web plea rescues Canadian child
Canadian police have taken a child from an allegedly sexually abusive situation after the child's anonymous e-mail plea for help was picked up in Australia.