When I was 25 I went to jail for demanding jobs and civic facilities for Madigas, the Dalit community that I belong to. I was dragged into the police van by constables who pulled my hair, slapped and kicked me with their heavy boots until I passed out. I spent six months in the jail of Warangal, a district in Andhra Pradesh.

It might sound unbelievable to many, but ‘untouchability’ is practiced even among Dalits themselves. They believe that some Dalit communities are ‘higher’ than others and those who are ranked lower are treated as untouchables by the upper Dalits. As it happens, my community, the Madigas whose traditional profession has been skinning animals, tanning, cobbling and beating drums (at social events such as weddings) are considered the lowest of all Dalits [because they touch the dead bodies of cows, which are sacred in India, and other animals].

So, most of the facilities meant for the Dalits are enjoyed by only the ‘upper’ Dalits. The lower Dalits, therefore, are deprived twice: first, they are ill-treated by non-Dalits, and second, by ‘upper’ Dalits.

To remove these disparities and to get justice for all, my community appealed to the government to further categorise the Dalits into higher and lower sections, in accordance with their status within the Dalit community. We hoped to expose to the government how ‘lower’ Dalits were treated and therefore ensure their betterment.

The government did not accept the demand, so we launched a state-wide movement which continued for three long years.

As a participant in the movement, leading a group of Madiga Dalit women, every now and then I traveled to Hyderabad– a two-hour journey from my village and stood in front of the state legislative assembly, so the chief minister would listen to our demands. We did not have places to stay or even water to drink. So we stood on the road, ate on the road, drank on the road and slept on the road.

It was during these demonstrations that one day the police cracked down on us and put us behind bars.

It was a tough time; I not only sustained physical injuries, but also suffered emotionally for being in jail for six long months as my two little children lived without me. However, and it was also the time when I really felt connected to my community. I also felt proud that we, the Dalits, who did not have jobs, land or even enough food, had the courage to sacrifice all we had to ensure a better future for our children. For the first time, I felt proud to be a Dalit – people who are broken in body, but not in spirit.

Our movement was eventually successful and the government decided to classify the Dalit communities into four sub categories: A, B, C and D. My community, Madiga, received the B category while Valmiki Dalits, who clean toilets and gutters, came under category A. This meant that we would now get more opportunities at educational institutions and a larger share of government jobs than we received earlier. Soon, I walked home free and formed an all-Dalit women’s group called Telengana Mahajena Mahila Samakhya (All Dalit Women’s Association of Telengana) to fight for issues that continue to affect us such as land rights, police atrocities, and denial of civic rights.

Today the group has more than 500 members. We regularly organise street marches, meetings and sit-in protests and at each event there are risks of getting beaten by the police or being arrested. But having spent six months in jail, I came to believe that, if united, we can do more than just make a little noise – we can change the whole paradigm. It is this belief that brought out the real leader in me.

Women News Network, May 15, 2012

http://womennewsnetwork.net/?p=16130

Shahida Parveen Ganguly remembers her mother often asking her and her six siblings to eat first when there was little food at home. “I was small but would somehow understand that she was giving up her share of the food for us, and I would then make her eat part of my share,” recalls Ganguly, who is Jammu and Kashmir’s first woman police officer.

That expression of a mother’s love and sacrifice is something few children can forget. It’s a story repeated over and over in many Indian homes. It is the mother who puts her children and family first, who sometimes opts to give up a career for caregiving, who puts off buying something for herself to save money and who eats and sleeps last but gets up first in the morning.

Many gender roles might be getting redefined slowly in the 21st century, but that of a mother is not likely to change soon. “The mother remains the backbone of the family,” says Professor Tulsi Patel of Delhi University’s sociology department . In fact, a new survey finds that 92% of Indian women are willing to make the same sacrifices for their own children as their mothers did. Called ‘Thank You Mom’ , it was conducted by Ipsos and commissioned by Proctor & Gamble. It covered over 3,000 women in India and 11 other Asia-Pacific countries.

The survey finds that the mother is seen as indispensable for child development everywhere. Interestingly, India and China reported many similar results , including the highest numbers who said they were very close to their mothers (96%) and knew about their moms’ sacrifices. While the Japanese did not agree much with the sacrifices their mothers made, they acknowledged that moms are important in a child’s life.

What’s significant is that despite having impressive degrees, fatter wallets and greater freedom, women lean a lot on their moms’ support. In India, some 60% aspired to be just like their moms and 86% sought their advice often. Ganguly, a much-decorated officer who led daredevil operations against militants, says her mother is her biggest inspiration.

Harshini Kanhekar, 31, the country’s first female firefighter and now senior fire officer with ONGC in Mumbai, says, “I had my parents’ full support when I got admission to the (then all-male ) National Fire Service College, Nagpur. My mom has a modern outlook and she never put any restrictions on me.”

Even in the west, while the dependence on parents is much less, recession seems to be bringing maternal grandmoms back into the picture. A part of the same survey in 12 European countries on the changing face of motherhood shows that 44% of mothers, on an average , turned to their own moms for support in order to go out and work. The numbers were highest in countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal where the extended family is a strong tradition.

Yet, despite enjoying far easier lifestyles than 30 years ago, with support systems and labour-saving devices, few are likely to say that motherhood has become easier. If a majority of Indian women said that having insufficient time for their families was their biggest regret , working women in UK reported the highest levels of guilt (” Should I spend more time with my children instead of pursuing a career?”. Many are also discontented for being ‘just homemakers’ .

In fact, a number of European mothers said they were more like “family managers” than traditional housewives. Ganguly agrees: “We have to take care of our jobs and homes, too. Earlier, they were not so educated or competitive. I understood what my mother did for me after I had two sons, now 8 and 4. Ever since they were born, I haven’t thought about anything else but them. I have some dreams, such as to do mountaineering , but have put them on hold.”

A large majority of Indians (81%) believed their mothers could have achieved much more had it not been for the sacrifices they made. Ironically , more than half expressed their appreciation only occasionally.

That’s the thing with mothers – we just don’t tell them enough how important they are, and will always be, to us.

The Times of India, May 13, 2012

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-13/special-report/31689166_1_moms-indian-women-sacrifices

Three years ago, we came together with friends and colleagues to form an initiative representing various sectors of public life, from politics and academics to the media and entertainment. The common thread that brought us together is that we believe every woman deserves the chance to have a safe pregnancy and give birth to a healthy baby. As co-chairs of the White Ribbon Alliance and CARE’s Mothers Day Every Day U.S. advocacy initiative, we’ve added our voices to the existing movement and are urging policymakers to do more for moms and babies everywhere.

As we honor our mothers today, we must make sure that mothers around the world aren’t forgotten. We’re reminded that today alone, around 1,000 women will needlessly die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes. Ninety-nine percent of these deaths will be in developing countries, and almost all of them are preventable.

Lives can and are being saved. Progress has been made in recent years, but more must be done. Proven and cost-effective measures, like having trained midwives and health workers present at births, or giving an expecting mother a bus token to get to the hospital, are transforming communities. Malaria nets that protect newborns from disease can save thousands. A refurbished mobile phone that sends text alerts to remind a mother to breastfeed can save a life.

As we know from our own families, mothers play an essential role in the physical, social and economic health of their families, communities and nations. Their health before, during and after childbirth is critical to the health and well-being of the child, and to the economic stability of their nations and the global community at large. Children with healthy mothers are more likely to receive immunizations, attend school and grow into healthy, productive members of society.

Empowering mothers—beginning with a healthy pregnancy and safe childbirth—is the key to improved health, self-sufficiency, economic growth and sustainability. By expanding proven strategies, hundreds of thousands of women and newborns can lead healthy, empowered lives. But it begins with us reminding our policymakers about the woman who cannot remind him herself.

As co-chairs of the White Ribbon Alliance and CARE’s Mothers Day Every Day campaign, today, and every day, we wish you a happy Mother’s Day.

The Huffington Post, May 13, 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-e-shalala/making-mothers-day-every-_b_1504607.html

According to the 66th round of National Sample Survey (NSS) carried out between July 2009 and June 2010, all India average monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE) in rural areas was Rs. 1,054 and urban areas Rs. 1,984.

The survey also pointed out that 10% of the population at the lowest rung in rural areas lives on Rs. 15 a day, while in urban areas the figure is only a shade better at Rs. 20 day.

“The poorest 10% of India’s rural population had an average MPCE of Rs. 453. The poorest 10% of the urban population had an average MPCE of Rs. 599”, it said.

The NSSO survey also revealed that average MPCE in rural areas was lowest in Bihar and Chhattisgarh at around Rs. 780 followed by Orissa and Jharkhand at Rs. 820.

Among other states, Kerala has the highest rural MPCE at 1,835 followed by Punjab and Haryana at Rs. 1,649 and Rs. 1,510 respectively.

The the highest urban MCPE was in Maharashtra at Rs. 2,437 followed by Kerala at Rs. 2,413 and Haryana at Rs. 2,321. It was lowest in Bihar at Rs. 1,238.

The median level of MCPE was Rs. 895 in rural and Rs. 1,502 in urban India, indicating consumption level of majority of population.

According to the study, food was estimated to account about 57% of the value of the average rural Indian household consumption during 2009-10 whereas it was 44% in cities.

The study reveals that the average monthly per capita consumption of cereals was 11.3 kg in rural areas and 9.4 kg in cities.

Based on NSSO estimates, the Planning Commission had pegged that poverty line at Rs. 28.65 and Rs. 22.42 daily consumption in urban and rural areas respectively in 2009-10.

As per the Commission’s estimates the number of persons living below poverty line was 35.46 crore in 2009-10, as compared to 40.72 crore in 2004-05.

Hindustan Times, May 3, 2012

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/60-of-rural-India-live-on-less-than-Rs-35-a-day/Article1-850037.aspx

Miles away from his house in Kolkata, the eight-year-old has already spent over a year making gold jewelery, for no more than Rs.100 a week. Soldering, casting and polishing for 14 to 18 hours a day, he knows of little besides the yellow metal.

Sent to the city to work by his parents, he is among hundreds of children aged between seven and 14 years labouring for goldsmiths here.

Seven such children were on Wednesday rescued by the Labour Department in a raid conducted at the Mahankali Temple road and Old Jail road in Secunderabad. Saturated with goldsmiths’ establishments, these children are but a handful when compared to the magnitude of child labour prevalent in the area.

“There are so many other children working in the surrounding shops. On seeing the officers catching us, many fled their shops while some were still hiding inside,” testified a 10-year-old rescued in the raid.

“We are all from Kolkata and were brought here by our seths. They do not pay us anything, but told us that they will send some money home to our parents,” he added. While not at work at the shop, he spent his time cooking for and cleaning his employer’s house. The rescued children also revealed that besides being forced to perform domestic work, some were also beaten by their employers. Yet, the children believe that they are incapable of studying and said that they preferred going back to work.

“There are at least 400 goldsmiths here and majority of them employ child labour. They bring children from Kolkata, known to have a bent at jewellery making, year after year as they don’t have to pay them anything and can make them work for hours on end,” said Dawood, a silversmith in the area.

Labour Department officials said that the children have now been sent to the Government Children’s Home in Saidabad for rehabilitation and their seven employers booked under Section 3 of the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act, 1986. As per the act, they will be liable to pay a fine of Rs. 20,000 or undergo imprisonment for six months or both, officials said.

The raid was also part of training for IPS probationers from the National Police Academy on handling incidents of child labour.

The Hindu, May 3, 2012

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/article3377655.ece

Of the 27 million babies born in India annually (2010 figure), 3.6 million are born prematurely, of which 303,600 don’t survive due to complications.

Nearly half of all child mortality is due to pre-term births, a new report by Save the Children, titled ‘Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Pre-term Birth’ has revealed. The deaths due to pre-term births are second only to pneumonia, it notes.

In terms of deaths due to pre-term birth, India is at the top (indicating it fares the worst), while in terms of the rate of pre-term births, it is ranked 36th, after Malawi (ranked first), Pakistan (ranked eighth), Nepal (20th), and Bangladesh (24th), says the report.

Each year, 15 million babies, making up more than one in 10 births globally, are born too early, says the report. More than one million of those babies die shortly after birth; countless more suffer some type of lifelong physical, neurological, or educational disability, often at great cost to families.

Save the Children India Senior Advisor for Maternal, Child and Newborn Health Dr. Rajiv Tandon said: “The problem of premature birth needs both attention and intervention if India is to improve its maternal and child health record.

An estimated three quarters of the pre-term babies who die can survive without expensive care, if a few proven and inexpensive treatments and preventions are available globally, according to more than 100 experts who contributed to the report, representing almost 40 U.N. agencies, universities, and organisations.

The countries with the greatest numbers of preterm births are India – 3,519,100; China – 1,172,300; Nigeria – 773,600; Pakistan – 748,100; Indonesia – 675,700; United States – 517,400; Bangladesh – 424,100; Philippines – 348,900; Democratic Republic of the Congo – 341,400; and Brazil – 279,300.

For the report, pre-term was defined as 37 weeks of completed gestation or less, which is the standard WHO definition.

Save the Children – India CEO Thomas Chandy said many factors, such as early marriage and pregnancy, inadequate nutritional intake by pregnant women, and want of adequate health interventions were among the reasons that contributed to such a high rate of pre-term pregnancy, exposing both the mother and the baby to risk.

“All newborns are vulnerable, but pre-term babies are acutely so,” says U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who wrote the foreword to the report, and considers the effort to reduce pre-term births and deaths an integral part of his Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health.

More than 60 per cent of pre-term births occur in Africa and South Asia. The 10 countries with the highest numbers include Brazil, the United States, India and Nigeria, demonstrating that pre-term birth is truly a global problem. Of the 11 countries with pre-term birth rates of more than 15 per cent, all but two are in sub-Saharan Africa. In the poorest countries, on average, 12 per cent of babies are born too soon, compared with 9 per cent in higher-income countries.

A key way to reduce pre-term numbers is to find ways to help all pregnancies continue to full term. A number of risk factors for pre-term birth have been identified, including a prior history of pre-term birth, being underweight/overweight, diabetes, hypertension, smoking, infection, maternal age (either under 17 or more than 40), genetics, multi-foetal pregnancy, and pregnancies spaced too closely together.

The Hindu, May 2, 2012

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3377531.ece

Whether anyone likes it or not, classrooms in India are set to become more diverse.

The always heated debate over affirmative action in India has entered a new chapter with the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold the controversial Right to Education Act. This requires private, non-minority schools that don’t receive government support to reserve 25% of their seats for underprivileged kids. Conceivably, the son or daughter of an investment banker might be sat at a school desk next to the son or daughter of their domestic help.

Will this new frontier of affirmative action in India actually help those whom it’s targeting?

The answer is likely to depend on whether underprivileged kids are quickly integrated and socialized into the mainstream culture of the classroom. It crucially depends on whether they see themselves as “insiders” rather than “outsiders,” a point forcefully made by economists George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton in their award winning book “Identity Economics.” Research from the U.S. strongly suggests that kids’ educational performance is closely correlated to how they perceive themselves in relation to the educational aspirations of those around them.

An important piece of experimental research by economists Karla Hoff and Priyanka Pandey using Indian data found that kids from historically disadvantaged castes performed just as well as upper caste kids in aptitude tests such as solving puzzles and mazes. Vitally, this equal performance happened only when caste identity was not revealed to their peers in the experiment. In a mixed group, when the researchers revealed everyone’s caste identity, the disadvantaged kids performed fully 20% worse than their peers.

This study strongly suggests that the performance of disadvantaged children who have been thrust into private schools under the new law will depend on whether they’re able to manage the psychological challenges of interacting at close quarters in an unfamiliar and potentially hostile environment.

An underprivileged child’s background might plausibly be kept hidden in a laboratory experiment, but it’s almost impossible to believe this could be replicated in the real world. Underprivileged kids will almost certainly be dressed differently, have less fancy accoutrements, and will probably lack the self-confidence that accompanies wealth and privilege in India, as in most other places. This is likely to reinforce what psychologists call the “stereotype threat,” whereby being reminded of belonging to an underprivileged group creates cognitive challenges and worsens performance. In fact, this is exactly the mechanism that was at work in the Hoff-Pandey study.

So how do you go about boosting the self-confidence of a disadvantaged kid?

While the Right to Education Act is too recent to have spawned any scientific research, there is new evidence on how affirmative action can help undo stereotypes in another important arena, namely gender.

In 1993, a law in India created reservation for women in leadership positions in village councils. A study by economists Lori Beaman, Esther Duflo, Rohini Pande and Petia Topalova in the prestigious journal Science looked at the effects of this law. In many states, at every election one third of village councils were picked randomly to have their top spot reserved for a woman.

The researchers sent out survey teams to almost 500 villages in 2006 and 2007, covering those that had the top spot in the local council reserved for women as well as those without reservation. Mainly, they were trying to figure out if the presence of high profile women in the community shaped the aspirations of people in those villages.

What they found is astonishing.

Compared to villages that had never had reservation, the gender gap in aspirations — as measured by household surveys — narrowed by 25% for parents and 32% for adolescents in those villages with reservation for two successive election cycles. The gain was so great that it wiped out the gender gap in aspiration among adolescents: young women now had the same aspirations as young men in terms of future education and job market plans. Importantly, the study showed that these changed aspirations are purely subjective, in the sense that they don’t reflect an objective improvement in educational and labor market opportunities for women in the areas surveyed.

At work is the impact of women leaders in a community operating as role models for younger women as well as their parents. What’s more, this benefit to society, in terms of reducing stereotyping, is over and above the direct positive impact on women themselves being able to turn to others in positions of power at the local level. There’s already evidence to show that village councils led by women are more responsive to women’s needs.

The bottom line here is the importance of the role model effect. Merely by being there, quite apart from anything they may have actually done, the presence of women as leaders of village councils managed to help overturn centuries of ingrained gender stereotypes that had held women back and denied them leadership positions in the community.

For the Right to Education Act to succeed, it’s almost certain that a similar role model effect will have to be inculcated in the private schools in which the underprivileged kids now find themselves. And it will need to change the mindsets of parents as well as kids. This is the crucial challenge that will be involved in translating the good news findings from affirmative action in gender to something comparable through the Right to Education Act. It’s a tall order. Sure, you can put the kids together in a classroom, but do you really expect to see their parents hanging out?

The experience from the existing system of reservation in higher education doesn’t offer a great deal of comfort. While systematic evidence is hard to come by, there’s ample anecdotal evidence of students entering prestigious institutions under affirmative action and finding it difficult to hack it once there, due in many cases to bullying and peer pressure directly related to their underprivileged background. Stories of students cracking under pressure, and even committing suicide, aren’t uncommon. Might we now see this play out in the schools?

The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2012

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/05/02/economics-journal-will-indias-right-to-education-act-upset-stereotypes/?mod=google_news_blog

The portrayal of prisons in our reel world is that of a four walled, impossible to exit station. It is often a depiction of two contrasting facets: one showing that the convict is a dreaded criminal who is just too reluctant to change, and the other demonstrating lots of innocent masses caught in a crime jam by an archaic criminal justice system. While on one hand prisons are shown as places with dehumanising conditions, at other times they are painted as huge fortified walls of concrete with abundant space for song and dance where there is no trace of disease and filth. But in contrast, the grave reality of prisons and their state is immensely numb and not dealt with in a broader term with reference to the purpose they were construed.

According to the Prison Statistics Report 2000, India has about 2,48,115 prisoners in total to the available capacity of 2,11,720; Uttar Pradesh topping it with 49,885 inmates. Prisons in India are still governed by the century old Prisons Act 1894 and the Prisoners Act 1900. The application of a century old law in the changed socio-political scenario is absolutely bizarre, and is out of tune with the entirely transformed picture of human society. During the past some decades several organisations, intellectuals and committees set up for jail reforms have expressed their views on the importance of reviewing the Act which is not comprehensive.

The new thinking on prisons has been duly summarised by the dictum that convicted persons go to prison as punishment and not for punishment (Charles Shobraj vs. Superintendent, Tihar jail, AIR 1978, SC 1514). The condition of a substantially large number of prisons continues to be bad, dehumanising and violative of the residuary rights of inmates. There has been a plethora of recommendations for the improvement of these conditions both from recommendatory bodies and from the apex judiciary but a large chunk of these recommendations has not seen the light of the day.

Overcrowding is the greatest practical hindrance to efforts of reforming the Indian prison system. Some prisons house as much as three times more inmates than their capacity. Prisons in general are housed in dilapidated age-old buildings with its management in the hands of an untrained, disgruntled, over-worked and insufficient staff. Constraints of inappropriate working conditions weigh over opportunities for correctional work.

During my recent visit to a prison, I saw what I had never expected to see. Even though the building stood fortified, it did ask for much do-up. The pillars were old enough to have seen four generations of prisoners. The barracks looked unkempt and least maintained. One single cell housed three times the capacity making it too uncomfortable for the inmates to even move about, apart from the fact that they slept in shifts. Those small coops, called cells, contained people from all walks of crime — petty thieves, murderers, bride burners, scamsters, anti-socials and a whole sty of undertrials.

The most evident showcase was the lot who thought they were at the wrong address. When I asked one of the inmates what he was there for, he said “I don’t know, I was having my lunch at home when they arrested me on the ground of murder.” Who the victim was, he never knew. One of the prison staff said that cases like these were rare.

The next corner of the prison housed women prisoners. According to the Prison Statistics Report 2000, women inmates constitute 3.42 per cent of the total inmate population in the country. In India social customs make women ex-offenders more vulnerable to suspicion and rejection. The stigma of having been in prison has more adverse after-effects for women than for men. They are always looked down upon by everyone — their family members, the prison staff, as well as society. They are forced to adapt and survive in this unfriendly and indecent ambience.

Women are disowned by their families and there is always lack of a helping guardian. As a result many of them are confined as undertrials for want of a surety. Being uneducated and lacking legal awareness they are often given unduly long detentions.

Out of the total inmates just a few seemed to repent their wrongdoings and were seriously exploring legal ways to exit for good. They consulted private lawyers who charged hefty and unaffordable fees and did the least to solve anything. The lawyers commissioned under free legal aid never visited and never cared for the inmates.

The condition of prison staff is none the better. They have a long story about their own deplorable existence. Most of them have been stagnating in the same position for more than ten years without any opening for promotion or change. Due to terrible paucity of staff, those supposed to be on security duties are on ministerial tasks. Salaries and other service conditions are unjustifiably lower than those of their counterparts in other sister organisations. Even training which is so essential for jobs in correctional institutions is conspicuous by its absence in most cadres.

It is time to think of better networking, effective prison reforms and their true application, education and overall societal contribution to the improvement of prison conditions. We must seek solutions both in the prisons and outside in society. Public funds now being wasted on unhealthy institutions called prisons need to be better spent on sensible pay-offs.

The Hindu, April 20, 2004

http://www.hindu.com/op/2004/04/20/stories/2004042000251700.htm

Raising the bar on child labour, the government is set to debar employment of children below the age of 14 in any industry. Only those between 14 to 18 years can be employed except in hazardous industries.

The existing Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, allows employment of children of up to 14 years of age in the industries not considered to be hazardous. Hazardous industries include tobacco, stone crushing, catering, mining, cement industry and crackers.

This will change if the government accepts a new set of recommendations of the Labour ministry which aims to tune Indian child labour law with norms of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The ILO’s convention of child labour seeks to provide minimum age of employment and says that no children below the age of 14 should be employed. India has to abide by the convention as its own domestic law—- Right To Education—- guarantees free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6-14 years.

It cannot happen without amending the Child Labour Act, which allows employment of children below 14 years of age. Therefore, the Labour ministry has now circulated a Cabinet note seeking complete ban on any form of child labour.

“Once the changes are enacted employing any children below the age of 14 will be a criminal offence,” a senior government functionary said, adding that it will help in ensuring that the children in 6-14 age group reach schools.

As per 2001 census, there were 1.29 crore child labourers in India. The data on child labour for 2011 is yet to be released.

The ministry has, however, not accepted the recommendation of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights for defining age of a child as of 18 years on the ground that a large number of poor families are dependant on their children for livelihood.

Therefore, the ministry has proposed that children in 14-18 age group should be allowed to seek work in non-hazardous industries with property safety mechanism.

Employing a child labour can result in jail term of three months and a fine of up to Rs. 20,000 or both. NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) will be starting a campaign for child labour free India from next week by seeking support of political parties to approve the proposed amendments. “We will visit political leaders as part of our campaign,” said Rakesh Senger of BBA.

Hindustan Times, May 1, 2012

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Employing-children-below-14-to-be-an-offence/Article1-849116.aspx

“60 per cent women in the country do not have access to toilets…We can launch missiles like Agni and satellites, but we can not provide sanitation to our women. What can be a biggest blot on the nation than this?”, the Rural Development Minister said at Nirmal Gram Puraskar-2011 distribution function and Panchayati Raj Sammelan here.

India is lagging behind its neighbours Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan when it comes to providing proper sanitation to people, Ramesh, who also holds the portfolio of Drinking Water and Sanitation, said.

Mahatma Gandhi is the one and only politician in the country who sincerely worked to end the menace of open defecation, Ramesh said.

Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, a re-structured programme of Total Sanitation Campaign, would be formally launched soon, he said, adding that village panchayats concerned would be made responsible for keeping their village open-defecation free.

Ramesh said the Central government has fixed a target to make every gram panchayat as open-defecation free in next 10 years and added that the government would increase the fund under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan from Rs 2,200 to Rs 9,900 per household.

While praising the Haryana government and its approach in the total sanitation campaign, the Minister said that he always asked other states to follow the Haryana slogan of ‘Shauchalya Nahin To Dulhan Nahin’ (No toilets, No bride).

“If you continue this programme in the same pace, in three years your state will become Nirmal Haryana,” he told state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda who was present on the occasion.

The Times of India, April 28, 2012

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-28/india/31451301_1_open-defecation-total-sanitation-campaign-jairam-ramesh