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Economic Highlights
Promoting Green Buildings:VITAL NEED FOR CHANGE, byRadhakrishna Rao, 7 December 2007 |
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PEOPLE & THEIR
PROBLEMS
New Delhi, 7 December 2007
Promoting Green
Buildings
VITAL NEED FOR
CHANGE
By Radhakrishna Rao
Following widespread concern over global warming brought
about by unchecked environmental abuse, there is a growing awareness now of the need to popularize the construction of
energy efficient and eco-friendly buildings across
the world.
India’s first internationally certified
green building that houses the Confederation of Indian Industry-Sohrabji Godrej
Business Centre spread over 16,000sq
ft was set up in Hyderabad
in 2003. Today, the country has over 25 million sq ft of registered green
building expanse which is all set to touch a 100 million sq ft by 2010-12.
Importantly, India
has all the potentials to emerge as a hub of green building construction and
play a significant role in encouraging eco-friendly construction. Green
buildings now save on at least a third of the power and water. Moreover, they emit
35 per cent less carbon dioxide.
Though the green buildings cost three per cent more than the
conventional buildings, in the long run, they contribute to an average energy
savings to the tune of 30 per cent and are a substantial savings on waste
handling.
Green builders have stressed the need to reach out to the 100
million people involved in the construction sector the world over. A classic
example of an eco-friendly building complex is the Tata Energy and Resources
Institute (TERI) at Gopahari village in Haryana, showcasing how green
construction makes for higher energy efficiency and recycling of the wastes.
Further, green buildings should generate as much energy as
they emit. For instance, a building can produce electricity through solar
cells. The design and use of material too would make a difference depending on
the geography, weather and local conditions. Be it glass, concrete or wood. But
it needs to be underscored that one model won’t suit all
In fact, it is imperative that the country usher in a green
building revolution and facilitate India emerging as one of the world
leaders in green buildings by 2010. Students need to come up with effective and
innovative ideas that could be easily implemented in their school campuses to
make them green.
Incidentally, for quite sometime now the industry lobby
groups have been in the forefront of the campaign aimed at popularizing the green
building concept in the country. More so, as software and multi-national corporations
are keen on having green campuses-cum-office complex, making the green building
movement in the country good business
sense.
In addition to green corporate complexes, eco-friendly
individual houses are also becoming a part of the Indian landscape. The green
houses allow house owners to not only significantly save on electricity and
water but also generate lesser waste.
Studies show that a house that is fitted with CFL lamps, solar water heater and
recycling facilities saves around Rs.2.560 lakh over a period of six years.
Solar water heaters alone will save around Rs.71,000 over six years.
But going green is not just about costs. It is about using
resources wisely, as well as a shift in the professional attitude of architects,
managers, corporates and all those associated with the green buildings
movement. But a change in the way both
architects and their clients envisage their houses and buildings is needed for
the green concept to really catch on.
However, a section of Indian architects stated that a lot of
the green concept propagated by the industry is on predicted western needs and
hence does not make much sense in the Indian context. On the other hand, they lay
emphasis on falling back on the local materials and local needs to popularize
the green building concept.
Not many are aware that the magnificent concrete and glass buildings
in the booming urban centres spread across the globe account for a third of the
carbon dioxide emission that contributes to global warming. Thus, the need to
promote green building architecture has assumed added significance
But then initial capital investment in regard to green
buildings continues to be a major impediment in the way of popularizing the
green architecture. A way around this is to bring eco-friendly products into the
mainstream and subsidize sustainable technologies, the concept would become more
economically feasible.
According to a Professor of the Department of Civil
Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, the approach from the construction
industry towards sustainability for development must include a thought on using
renewable energy and alternate technology — reusing and recycling materials
during the design, manufacture, construction and maintenance. Attention should
be given to producing less waste and recycling more, producing less toxicity,
noise and spatial pollution.
Sadly, despite the ever-rising construction activity,
awareness of the green building concept and sustainable architecture in India has
significantly lagged behind the countries in the West. Given the fact that the
overall sustainable building movement has significant business implications and
is an opportunity to make real contribution to the efforts towards curbing India’s growing
environmental crisis.
All in all, it needs to be remembered that the green houses are
not just about getting appliances such as solar panels. It is much more.
Starting from the design of the shell of the construction which should take
into account the climatic conditions. True, in an urban area one does not
always have the opportunity to incorporate every aspect. But even within fixed
parameters, climatic consideration can be taken into account while designing a
green building complex or an individual house. Specially, as the business
advantages that sustainable buildings create are enormous. ---- INFA
(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)
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Rising Farm Suicides:ACUTE AGRARIAN CRISIS,by T.D. Jagadesan, 27 November 2007 |
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People And Their
Problems
New Delhi, 27 November 2007
Rising Farm
Suicides
ACUTE AGRARIAN
CRISIS
By T.D. Jagadesan
Of the 1.5 lakh Indian farmers who took their own lives between
1997 and 2005, nearly two-thirds did so in the States of Maharashtra, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh).
The number of Indians committing suicide each year rose from
around 96,000 in 1997 to roughly 1.14 lakh in 2005. In the same period, the
number of farmers who took their own lives each year shot up dramatically. From
under 14,000 in 1997 to over 17,000 in 2005. While the rise in farm suicides
has been on for over a decade, there have been sharp spurts in some years. For
instance, 2004 saw well over 18,200 farm suicides across
India.
Almost two-thirds of these were in the Big Four of “Suicide SEZ” States.
The year 1998, too, saw a huge increase over the previous
year. Farm suicides crossed the
16,000 mark, beating the preceding year by nearly 2,400 such deaths. Farm
suicides as a proportion of total suicides rose from 14.2 in 1997 to 15.0 in
2005.
The Annual Compound Growth Rate (ACGR) for all suicides in India over the nine-year
period is 2.18 per cent. This is not very much higher than the population
growth rate. But for farm suicides it is much higher, at nearly 3 (or 2.91) per
cent. Powerfully, the AGGR for suicides committed by consuming pesticides was
2.5 per cent. Close to the figure for farmers.
Although alarming, it still does not capture the full picture.
The data on suicides is complex, and sometimes misleading. Not just because of
the flawed manner in which they are put together, or because of who puts them
together. There are other problems, too. Farmers’ suicides as a percentage of the
total number of farmers is hard to calculate on a yearly basis. A clear
national “farm suicide rate” can be derived only for 2001. That is because we
have the census to tell us how many farmers there were in the country that
year. For other years, that figure would be a conjecture, however plausible.
But even in 2001, when the farm suicides had not reached their
worst, the farm suicide rate (FSR) at 12.9 was much higher than the general
suicide rate (GSR) at 10.6 for that year. But the GSR slowed down after that to
10.3 by 2005 even as the total number of suicides went up. It means that the
increase in the number of general suicides did not keep pace with the growth in
general population.
In 2005, the Big Four or “Suicide SEZ” States accounted for
43.9 per cent of all suicides and 64.0 per cent of all farm suicides in the
country. By contract, a group of States with the highest general suicide rates
--- including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura and Puducherry ---
accounted for 20.5 per cent of farm suicides in India.
To the extent the media have covered the farm crisis, their
focus has been on farm suicides in four States --- Maharashtra,
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. Very broadly speaking, that appears to
have been right. All have very high rates of farmers’ suicides. Madhya Pradesh
though is a major State showing such trends which has received scant attention.
It is important that the figure of 1.5 lakh farm suicides is
a bottom line estimate. It is by no means accurate or exhaustive. There are
inherent and serious inaccuracies in the NCRB data as they are based on ground
data that exclude large groups of people.
The quality of reporting also varies from State to State.
For instance, Haryana shows a very low ratio of farm suicides to general
suicides. This conflicts with other assessments of the problem in that State. Data from Punjab have also been highly contested by groups
monitoring the farm crisis there. However, even in this flawed data, the trends
are clear and alarming. But what has driven the huge increase in farm suicides,
particularly in the Big Four or “Suicide SEZ” States?
There exists since the mid-90s, an acute agrarian crisis.
That’s across the country. In the
Big Four and some other States, specific factors compound the problem. These
are zones of highly diversified, commercialized agriculture. Cash crops
dominate.
Water stress has
been a common feature and problems with land and water have worsened as State
investment in agriculture continues to decline, even disappear. At the same
time, cultivation costs have shot up in these high input zones, with some
inputs costing several hundred per cent more. The lack of regulation of these and
other aspects of agriculture have sharpened those problems and deepened the
agrarian crisis.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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Check Global Warming:INDIA AWARE OF COMMITMENT,by Dhurjati Mukherjee,13 November 2007 |
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People & Their
Problems
New Delhi, 13 November 2007
Check Global
Warming
INDIA AWARE OF COMMITMENT
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
Weather the world over is going crazy. If Los
Angeles on the US’s
West Coast last month witnessed
unheard of bush fires leading to massive
human evacuation, and its East Coast is periodically ravaged by hurricanes, can
India
be far behind? Delhi is experiencing its coldest
November in recent years, Bihar was ravaged by
unprecedented floods till two months ago and it is becoming increasingly
difficult to predict where the summer season ends and the monsoon sets in what
to say of winter? While scientists blame it on the El Nino affect and
environmentalist warn of dire consequences of untold misery awaiting mankind and Governments the
world over grapple with various ways to reduce environmental man-made disasters
thanks to the unabated plundering of natural resources ---- water, land soil
erosion green house gases pollution et al .
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has aptly been awarded to the
Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the former American vice
president, Al Gore, which clearly signaled the importance of stabilizing the
earth’s climate and controlling global warming. Incidentally the IPCC is now
headed by Dr. R. P. Pachauri, the TERI chief, who also deserves credit for his
achievement in releasing three volumes of the assessment report while the fourth one, The Synthesis Report, is expected to be
ready in November this year.
This announcement of the prize comes close on the heels
after the G-8 conference which deliberated on the subject of climate change and
merely agreed to “seriously consider” halving of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The rigid stand of the USA may have softened a bit but its overall position
that the emerging economies, specially India
and China,
have to adhere to some restrictions did not possibly
change.
The per capita emissions
are today the highest in the world. as per figures of 1999. The US topped the list with 5.60 tonnes of emission per person, Russia followed with 2.72, the
European Union and Japan
both 2.40, China 0.53 and India close to
0.25 tonnes per person. Thos has
increased considerably in subsequent years, specially by the developed world
though emissions by China and India have also shown a marked rise
because of the steady pace on industrialization in these countries.
Keeping in view international pressures
and also the need to check curb emissions,
India
has been seriously considering the problem. Recently the Prime Minister set up
a high level group of senior ministers and non-government experts on climate
change to help fashion a response to global warming and demands that India take
on commitments to cut greenhouse emissions.
The group includes ministers of finance, external affairs, environment and also
the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission
and advisers on science and technology. The non-governmental side is
represented by Dr. R. K. Pachauri, chairperson of TERI, Pradipto Ghosh, former
environment secretary, Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science &
Environment and Ratan Tata, chairman of the Investment Commission.
Though this Committee would formulate guidelines for
controlling emissions and other
related issues, already certain
steps have been taken in this regard. There is serious attempt by the Central
and state governments to control air pollution in the metropolises and in most
places the stringent rules of controlling vehicular emissions
are being followed. This has become all the more necessary
because for an overpopulated country like ours because lakhs of people live in
slums and squatter settlements who are greatly affected because of air
pollution.
Moreover the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has been
trying to enforce through the state boards control of emissions
from industry and power plants. Another important aspect in the country is to
explore the various forms of non-renewable sources of energy apart from the
emphasis on exploiting hydel energy, wherever it is possible.
The country’s per capita consumption of electricity is around 440 units
(compared to Brazil’s 1980
and China’s
1380 units) and the country may have to add 3880 billion kilowatt hours of
electricity by 2030 to sustain the present rate of growth. The thrust is on
nuclear and hydel power though around 70 per cent of the electricity may come
from thermal plants.
It is well known that India has vast reserves of thorium
and this could be used for our nuclear power programmes, even if the Indo-US
deal does not materialize because of the reported objections by the Left
parties and also some technical differences raised by a section of scientists.
Scientists in the country have for quite some time been seriously experimenting
how thorium (and not uranium) could be effectively used for reactors. It may be
pointed out here that High Temperature Reactor Technology has already been
proved in Germany and is now
being taken up in China and South Africa.
And this is based on thorium and much safer than contemporary reactors.
The cry the world over to stabilize greenhouse gases would
no doubt affect India
in the long run. According to a report by Lehman Brothers India, India’s GDP
would dip by 5 per cent for every two degrees temperature rise and for the next
6 degrees, the effect would be 15-16 per cent. The report titled The Business of Climate Change II, a sequel to its earlier
report on climate change, Lehman Brothers has said that the US, the
European Union, are estimated to have accounted Russia,
Japan for nearly 70 per cent of the build-up of fossil
fuel CO2 between 1850 and 2004.
Meanwhile at a recent conference organized by TERI, Dr.
Prodipto Ghosh, an expert on the subject, estimated that it would cost the
government & 2.53 trillion in investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9.7 per cent by 2036 if 1990 emission levels are taken as the baseline.
Based on computations at TERI, the cost of demanding high
levels of efficiency from the manufacturing sector could hit the country’s
economic growth beyond a limit. The calculations show that India could
achieve 3 per cent efficiency in its total energy consumption methods without
hitting growth but a further push for 9 per cent efficiency could mean
exploitatively high cost. This data was presented to the international
community at Vienna recently at an international
meeting in preparation for the IPCC’s Bali
conference in December.
By 2030 India
is expected to reach the current levels of US carbon emissions
with all its negative implications for global warming. This has been a cause
for concern for scientists and planners in the country and more stringent emissions measures are likely to be taken in the coming
years. Though India
and other developing countries have been arguing that developed countries grew
rich through a fossil-fuel burning
economic growth model and that it would be inequitable to seek to prevent them
from following a similar path, there has been pressures
for the country to check emissions.
It is thus quite clear that the argument of Nicholas Stern
of UK that taking action to
reduce climate change would not hurt the growing economies of countries such as
India
is not quite prudent. Even then the pressure
is on China and India to agree
to some kind of emission cuts. In
fact, the EU has been saying that it is the only way to convince the USA and Australia to undertake commitments
in the new phase of Kyoto Protocol.
The IPCC has estimated that in South Asia 500 million0
people would be affected by reduced river flows in the northern part of the
subcontinent and about 250 million in China. It is further estimated that
the range of people exposed to increased water stress
by 2050 would include 120 million to 1.2 billion in Asia, 75 to 250 million in
Africa and 12 to 81 million in Latin America. Thus climate change affects us
all. Therefore it is imperative that a global effort has to be initiated at
this juncture and countries such as China,
India and South Africa
would have to play a crucial role in the coming years. However, it remains to
be seen whether the US
and the EU would make some sacrifices and set aside 10 per cent of their
defence budget for another form of security expenditure – one that protects
mankind from possible
extinction.---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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Racketeering In Human Organs:IMPETUS TO ORGAN DONATION VITAL,Radhakrishna Rao, 2 November 2007 |
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People & Their
Problems
New
Delhi, 2 November 2007
Racketeering
In Human Organs
IMPETUS
TO ORGAN DONATION VITAL
By
Radhakrishna Rao
For more than two decades now, a
thriving, well organized illegal trading in human organs in general, and kidneys
in particular, has been going on in virtually every part of India. Touts
hand in glove with a microscopic section of the medical fraternity that has no
regard for ethics continue to sustain the tempo of the underground business in kidneys and other vital human organs.
Despite vigorous efforts by the
voluntary organizations and the Government agencies to promote organ
transplantation in a “legal and transparent manner”, there has been no let up
in racketeering in human organs.
In order to minimize the vicious
impact of the illegal trading in human organs, the Union Health Ministry has
proposed setting up a country-wide network of nodal centres to retrieve organs
from brain dead patients. To be named the Organ Retrieval Bank Organisation (ORBO),
it would be set up in ten cities --- including Chennai, Hyderabad
and Bangalore
with a view to serve as a central organ registry and retrieval centre. These
nodal centres will be set up under the National Organ Transplantation
Programme.
Meanwhile the Union Health Minister
Anbumani Ramdoss hinted at amending
the Transplantation of Human Organs Act to make organ transplantation a “smoother
and transparent affair”. One of the likely amendments to the Act would be the
inclusion of provision to provide incentives to the family members of cadaver
donors. Currently only 0.1 per cent of our transplantation are cadaveric .We
have a long way to go” said Ramdoss.
In September last, a major kidney
racket was exposed in Bangalore.
According to the local media, the accused got kidney transplantation operations
done in three hospitals with organs procured from four fake donors.
The Bangalore City Police who
unearthed this scam said that the accused received commission
of Rs.15,000 while each fake kidney donor got Rs 1.25 lakh. The police also said
that “organizing the unrelated live kidney transplantation was like a profession for the accused.” He along with his
accomplices went around looking for “vulnerable people, mainly the poor, in the
rural areas and lured them into donating the kidney,” asserted one Bangalore police official.
As per the law, only organs donated
by the blood donors or harvested from a dead body could be transplanted to a
patient. As medical professionals
point out in an unrelated kidney transplant —
implying that the kidney is not from the blood relatives — there is a
higher rate of rejection by the recipient’s body.
According to Dr.Venkatesh
Krishnamurthy, a well-known Bangalore
nephrologist, in an unrelated kidney transplant, the cost of maintaining the
transplanted organ is higher as the dosage of medicine has to be more.
A member of the Authorization
Committee set up by the Karnataka Government to prevent illegal trading in
kidneys stated that in most cases it is the poor who are lured into parting
away with their vital body organs in return for monetary compensation. Adding,
that cases had also come to light wherein the touts even marry the donors to
provide credibility to the illegal commerce in human organs.
In recent years, many private
corporate hospitals in Bangalore are known to be
performing unrelated kidney transplantation operations on patients from India and
abroad. As pointed out by a spokesman of the Karnataka Medical Council, the
kidney racket in the city and other parts of the State could not have thrived
without the support of hospitals and doctors. “In my opinion, the police cannot
say that the doctors and hospitals are not at fault. It would not have been possible without the connivance of the hospitals” said
he.
As things stand now, renal
transplants and follow-up medi-care are terribly costly. A kidney transplant,
surgery and post-operative care in a well-equipped hospital could cost as much
as Rs.5 lakh. Moreover, the chances of the transplanted kidney getting rejected
could not be ruled out. As such prevention is easier and a more cost-effective
strategy.
According to Dr.M.K.Mani, Chief
Nephrologist at the Chennai-based Apollo
Hospital, diabetes accounted for
around 30 per cent of all chronic renal failures in India and hypertension another 10
per cent. Not surprisingly then, controlling these two major maladies could
result in the declining incidence of kidney-related ailments.
The programme run by the Kidney Help
Trust in the villages of Tamil Nadu has helped create awareness about the gravity of kidney-related problems.
“This is something which can fit easily into a Government programme” said
Dr.Mani.
In India, more than 20 million people
develop kidney problems at any one given time with nearly one lakh developing the
end-stage renal failure each year. Any wonder that lakhs of kidney transplants
are performed clandestinely with the kidneys being procured for a price from
the poor inhabitants of shanty towns forming a part of India’s urban
landscape.
In western countries, information
about the availability of organs including kidneys for transplants is available
on a compute system in every country. Sadly, India lacks such a communications
network.
As it stands, the Transplantation of
Human Organs Act 1994 adopted in 1995 paved the way for harvesting organs from
brain dead individuals. However, the machinery to supervise the extraction,
transportation and transplantation of the organs is far from well-organized. As
such very few organs are harvested from accident victims, the most ideal and
major source of human organs for transplantation.
On an average 70,000 people die in
accidents in the country each year. Of these, 20,000 people end up as brain dead
cases. But the process of donating the organ of a brain dead person is a far
from smooth task. Often the relatives decline to donate organs. Many are averse
about an organ being removed from a brain dead body whose heart beats and
pulses continue to be recordable.
Further, according to the Chairman
of the Apollo Group of Hospitals, Dr.Pratap Reddy, the recipient should be able
to reach the hospital within three hours of the procurement of an organ from
the corpse.
True, there are many medical
institutions, which carry out kidney transplants without transgressing the canons of law. For instance, the Bangalore
Kidney Foundation (BKF) is a far cry from the rash of private clinics that have
become notorious for trading in kidneys. As pointed out by a spokesman of the BKF,
it is always possible to carry out
transplants as per the existing laws
.As medical experts stated, for a
successful cadaveric kidney
transplantation programme, coordination and interface between private
hospitals, where most of the kidney transplants are performed and public
hospitals from where most of the donor organs come, is vital. However, in the
context of the fast growing waiting list for kidney transplants in the country,
quickening impetus must be given to the organ donation campaign. ---- INFA
(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)
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Child Labour:A LOT MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE,by Dhurjati Mukherjee,20 October 2007 |
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People And Their
Problems
New Delhi, 20 October 2007
Child Labour
A LOT
MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
Child labour represents a fundamental abuse of child right
and a violation of international and national laws. Many working children who
are employed as bonded labour or prostitutes are engaged in occupations that
negatively affect their physical, mental or moral well-being and are below
their country’s minimum age for employment. Matters have been made worse by
rampant physical abuse of children in different countries, including India.
The Hindi belt, including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan
and Uttar Pradesh, commonly known as BIMARU States, account for 1.27 crore
working children in the country, engaged in both hazardous and non-hazardous
occupations and process. The maximum
number of over 19 lakh child labour in the 5-14 age group are in the Uttar
Pradesh. Rajasthan accounts for over 12.6 lakh workers followed by Bihar with over 11 lakh and Madhya Pradesh with 10.6
lakh. However, according to the 2001 census, in state-wise distribution of
working children in the 5-14 age group, Andhra Pradesh with 13.6 lakh child
labour stands second in the national list after U.P.
Largest Number In India
According to a UNICEF report, World’s Children 2006, India has the
largest number of working children and 17 per cent of them are under the age of
15. Girls aged 12-13 are the preferred choice of 90 per cent households. Noting
that all children should have access
to quality education, the ILO believes that universal access to schooling is a key component in ending child
labour and their exposure to violence in the work place.
In India,
the problem has received some attention.
The Ministry of Labour has asked the Planning Commission for about Rs.1500 crore to cover all the 600
districts under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) as against the 250 districts
at present. According to the Ministry, children working in 57 hazardous
industries, in dhabas and homes (in
the 9-14 age group) would be covered under the project. The NGOs have been authorized
to open residential schools for 40 children in each district to bring them back
into the mainstream.
Child Labour Regulations
Schools are expected to be opened in most districts after a
detailed survey by a district level committee, headed by a district collector,
who would also monitor the scheme. The students in these schools would get a
stipend of Rs.100 each from the Government every month. They would be covered
under other Government schemes like the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.
Meanwhile, the hospitality industry and domestic helps have
been put under child labour regulations from October 10, 2006 as the Government
is determined to check this menace. Also, the passage
of Offences Against Children Bill, drawn up in 2006, is expected to be passed by Parliament before long. In fact, the country
has woken up to the need for a comprehensive strategy to tackle child labour and
deal with crimes perpetrated against children.
India is a signatory to the U.N.
Convention on the Rights of the Child and ratified the document in 1992.
Article 19 of the Rights of the Child mentions: “State parties shall take all
appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to
protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence… including
sexual abuse.”
Curb Sexual Offences
Sadly, it took the country 14 years to formulate a law
against sexual offences, which need to be curbed with an iron hand. Being the
most vulnerable sections of society, children have been the soft target for
large-scale human trafficking. In fact, child trafficking is happening for
different legal and illegal purposes. These children, mostly coming from poor
and backward communities, have no other option but to join such work and be
exploited in different ways.
Of interest are the findings of the International
Organization for Migration (IMO). These show that the global human industry
generates up to $8 billion each year. Its report further discloses that an
estimated 5,000 to 70,000 young girls between the 5 to 10 age group are
trafficked into India
every year. South Asia and South East Asia
have been the centre for large scale trafficking of children, especially young
girls, for sexual exploitation.
Children in Hazardous Industries
Apart from this aspect, the employment of children in
hazardous industries is another cause for concern. The mining industry is one
such sector as a result of which child labour is rampant in Bihar, Jharkhand
and West Bengal. Other affected States include
Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan that are traditionally the BIMARU
regions of the country.
Legislative measures alone will not cut down the various
offences against children. This is because not much has happened. Labour inspectors, for instance, have not
been stringent in bringing the violators to book. They should be asked to
submit time-bound reports on the enforcement of the law. Child labour is not an
isolated problem. Many Ministries such as Labour, Education and Women and Child
Welfare need to coordinate to make a sense of the spirit behind the law.
Develop Infrastructure
There is urgent need for large-scale social infrastructure
development, namely, special emphasis on education and health. Moreover, strong
political will and involvement of the community would be greatly necessary to curb child exploitation and ensure their
attendance in school, at least till they reach the age of 14. In this regard,
NGOs and Community-Based Organizations would have a vital role to play.
The pledge that all children would be in school by the end
of the Tenth Plan is a far cry and sincere attempts need to be made now to make
this a reality by the end of the Eleventh Plan. One may mention here that other
targets of completion of five years of schooling by 2007 and a 50 per cent
reduction of the gender gaps in literacy and wage rates by 2007 would also not
be achieved this year. The Government has admitted its failure in the Mid-Term
Appraisal and underlined the urgency of addressing
violence against children and the problems of their security, especially that
of girls.
Clearly, there is imperative need for strong political will
in this regard and strong partnerships with the NGOs and CBOs who should be
given a major part of the work in ensuring children’s rights. These
organizations work with the community and their ability to penetrate and carry
out the desired work is well known.
Economic Costs And Benifits
There are powerful arguments for elimination of child labour
for a healthy society. Not only is child labour an effect of poverty, it is
also a major cause of poverty. In a
study by the World Bank in 1998, it was
found that countries with an annual per capita income of US$500 or less (at 1987 prices) the labour force participation rate
of children aged 10-14 was 30-60 per cent compared to only 10-30 per cent in
countries with an annual per capita income of $500-1000. India has the largest number of child workers in
South Asia.
Another study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO,
2003), which as the first integrated analysis of the economic costs and
benefits of eliminating child labour, found that the benefits of such
elimination in India and other Asian countries would be nearly seven times
greater than the costs. The reduction of
child labour would also help achieve the health and education Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs).
Despite legislative and policy measures and institutions
geared to addressing child labour,
its magnitude in India
indicates that a lot more needs to be done in making poverty-focused programmes
effective and in spreading the network of basic education to the rural and
backward areas of the region. We must remember that children are the future
torch-bearers of the country. If they are not cared and nurtured properly, the
future may not be all that encouraging. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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