Congress cannot clear Indira’s name

Former prime minister’s cardinal sin was the elimination of morality from politics

If all the sponsored publicity arranged by the Congress-ruled central and state governments could efface the stigma attached to Indira Gandhi, it would have happened long ago. It makes no sense, 25 years after her death, for the exercise to be repeated all over again, with tens of millions of rupees going down the drain. The effort failed because there was no introspection, no regret.

Gandhi’s cardinal sin was not the imposition of a state of emergency but the elimination of morality from politics. She rubbed out the thin line that differentiates right from wrong, moral from immoral. She did this so thoroughly that the line remains blurred, even today.

In the first 19 years after independence, Jawaharlal Nehru and his successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, saved the nation from falling prey to power politics. They used their office to serve the nation. Never did pettiness or vindictiveness cross their minds. But Gandhi was different. She had no qualms about making power an end in itself. She should have resigned on moral grounds when she was disqualified by the Allahabad High Court for a poll offence. But how could she follow the rule of law when she was a law unto herself?

Instead of resigning, she imposed a state of emergency to overturn the entire system and save her skin. She had parliament pass legislation to overturn her disqualification and did not think it appropriate to consult even the Cabinet, which was summoned in the morning to endorse the proclamation which the president had “signed” the night before.

Gandhi was never happy with the press; her first order was to gag it. The media have still not regained their equilibrium, even after 34 years. They now seek to stay on the right side of whichever party is in power. That is why newspaper articles on the 25th anniversary of her death hardly mentioned her misdeeds.

Return of fear

Mahatma Gandhi taught the nation to shed fear. Indira Gandhi recreated fear in the minds of people. Whether it was the press, the judiciary or the bureaucracy, they compromised because of fear. The nation was at first in a state of shock over her actions. When she split the Congress party in 1969, giving a sense of unity to the country, people did not realise the full implications of her actions. By the time the nation woke up to the import of her desperate policies, the virus had spread into the body politic and freedom was lost.

She decimated what had been an impartial bureaucracy. It caved in under pressure. Desire for self-preservation became the sole motivation for government servants’ actions and behaviour. The fear generated by the mere threat made them pliable. They carried out her orders without questioning them. Ethical considerations or traditional values became beyond the mental grasp of bureaucrats. They became a tool of tyranny in her hands.

Gandhi used the word “commitment”, long before the state of emergency, to assess the loyalty of bureaucrats towards her. Some of them said that their commitment was to the Constitution of India. But they were either ignored at the time of promotion or put in an unimportant position.

The poison she injected continues to run in the veins of bureaucrats who administer the system at the whim of those who come to power. They change their loyalty and colour when a new regime takes over.

The judiciary also felt the pressure as she superseded three Supreme Court judges to appoint her own Chief Justice of India. He came in handy when the case of the imposition of a state of emergency was before him. The Supreme Court judgment was 11 to 1. The lone dissenter, the most senior judge, was passed over for promotion.

The biggest damage she did in her 18-year-rule was to the institutions which her father, Nehru, had put in place. She manipulated even the parliament when she lost the majority in the Lok Sabha in the wake of the party’s split. She weakened the Congress and its ideological stance to such an extent that the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power.

Gandhi certainly began her political life with a remarkable mix of talents: a capacity to listen, to comprehend at different levels, to communicate with the common man. But these qualities diminished as time went by.

Later, another problem arose as Indira Gandhi’s son, Sanjay Gandhi, became the extra-Constitutional authority. He opened the door to lumpen youth. One can see his legacy in Indian governance even today.

Indira Gandhi used all methods at her disposal to break those who opposed her. I wonder if she deserves even a footnote in history. If she does get a mention, it would be because of Operation Blue Star against the Sikhs’ Golden Temple.

She paid a heavy price for this, as her Sikh bodyguards killed her to avenge the attack on the Golden Temple. The government’s retaliation was criminal, as it stood by for three days while 3,000 Sikhs were butchered at Delhi in broad daylight. So the Sikhs also had something to commemorate this week the 25th anniversary of the massacre.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Rajya Sabha member.

4 top cops to blame for Feb 19 clash: HC

T S Sekaran expressbuzz.com

First Published : 30 Oct 2009 03:18:00 AM

Last Updated : 30 Oct 2009 07:04:44 AM IST

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Thursday blamed four top police officers for the violence on the court premises on February 19, 2009.

The court held then City Police Commissioner K Radhakrishnan, Additional Police Commissioner A K Viswanathan, Joint Police Commissioner (North) M Ramasubramani and Deputy Police Commissioner (Flower Bazaar) Prem Anand Sinha responsible for the clash between lawyers and police.

We are of the view that there are overwhelming materials prima facie to show that the actions of the four officials had caused obstruction to the functioning of courts and interference in the administration of justice, a division bench comprising Justice F M Ibrahim Kalifulla and Justice R Banumathi observed.

The bench directed the government to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the officers and recommended that they be suspended till completion of proceedings.

To enable fair and unbiased inquiry, it will be in order for the government to exercise its discretion to place the four under suspension pending inquiry, the bench said.

The (then) Police Commissioner has miserably failed in his duty and responsibility to protect the interest of the public and instead made himself responsible for the most imprudent act of creating a situation of lawlessness, which ultimately resulted in very ghastly incidents to take place and thereby created a blot on the institution namely the Judiciary, the Bench observed and added that we have no hesitation to hold that there was absolutely no faith in their conduct much less good faith in order to enable them to avail the protection under section 132(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The court also ordered initiation of proceedings against the four police officers under the Contempt of Court Act and issued contempt notice to them.

The bench also chided the advocates for their behaviour.

After the February 19 incident, the public opinion is much against the lawyers.

They need to dispel the impression that they are law unto themselves.

Is employment of children as domestic and hotel workers really banned in India?

By Karthik Navayan

Child labour is one of the major bane for our Dalit, Adivasi and other lower caste children from rural areas. While you are reading this piece, millions of our community children are being deprived of their childhood which for others is their birthright. Though the government has come out with a strong legislation but it has no impact on a society that treats people from different backgrounds as subhuman and therefore have no remorse what soever in treating our unfortunate children as slaves. We all are equal partners in this crime by keeping quiet and allowing this inhuman practice to become a normal thing. As a part of Dalit movement, we must raise our voice against child labour and work together to provide them a better future than what the society has reserved for them right now. Below is an english translation of my essay, Endlallo Hotallalo Pillalatho Pani Cheyenchadam nishedam from my Telugu book Dalitawaj-I.

The employment of child labour within households, hotels, Dhabas, restaurants etc., has been banned by the Govt. of India, through Ministry of Labour and Employment, by recognizing these places as hazardous occupations and included them in the Part A of the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986. This amendment has been made effective from 10th October 2006. This gesture hopefully rekindles the 1986 Act, though, after 20 long years.

Is this law and its amendment enough to secure our childrens future and prevent their becoming slaves?

The impact of the Act and its implementation can be vouched from the fact that even today after almost three years of amendment that banned child labourers in hotels one can easily locate around 50 children working in different hotels that are located within the premises of various city courts in Hyderabad like at Ranga Reddy District Court, City Civil Court premises in Nampally and even within the premises of the Andhra Pradesh High court itself! There are about 40 child workers toiling within the various mess premises of residential colleges run by Sri Chaithanya in the city.

To make the ban effective, the government must initiate several measures and start working on implementing the same. But if we look back, right from the day of our Independence to the very day of conceiving the 1986 Act, for 40 long years, we have not done anything either to formulate or to enact a Law to ban the child labour. What little we had was a hope that remained in paper, as per our Constitution, that guarantees a universal and free education.

Background

The Act of 1986 divided the nature of child-labour work places as hazardous and non- hazardous. It concluded that the hazardous ones exist very fewer in number, thereby permitting 90 % of the work places to engage and employ young children as laborers. This has resulted in the continuous employment/ enforcement of child labour in both the banned and hazardous and non-hazardous occupations and work places entirely to the extent of cent percent. Therefore, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986, sans the recent amendment, was of little use to the laboring children in India.

Indias failure in its expressed objective of prohibiting child labour led many NGOs to take initiatives towards building a movement against its prevalence, highlighting the plight of child labourer. The likes of NDWM (National Domestic Workers Movement) then, came up in alliance with the domestic workers, child domestic workers and migrant workers. Together with many other such initiatives they were able to create pressure on the Government and the Labour Ministry for a better legislation against the rampant practice of child labour in India.

The cumulative campaigning and advocacy efforts of the NGO community, together with the all-round efforts of domestic, child domestic and migrant workers finally paid dividends and the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, GOI was forced to make amendments in the Part A of the 1986 Act, under the heading Occupations.

After item (13) and the entry relating thereto, the following items were added as banned in the 1986 Act -

(14) Employment of child as domestic workers or servants;

(15) Employment of children in Dhabas (road-side eateries), restaurants, hotels, motels, tea-shops, resorts, spas or other recreational centers.

Such a violation now would attract conviction with a jail term of not less than 6 months together with the imposition of penalty up to Rs. 25,000. However, the truth is that, till date, no offender has been ever subjected to such a conviction. In the cases of torture and violence against child labour, by the employers, the police had been merely registering such cases only under IPC 324 and 506 (inflicting injury with a criminal intent). Since both the IPC sections are bailable the culprits are going scot-free.

Among the children engaged in the domestic work, almost 90% of them are girls and are compelled to work for 14 to 16 hours, without a break. The nature of their work ranges from sweeping the floors, washing the cloths, cleaning the dishes, baby sitting and preparing food for the entire household. Apart from the inhuman workload the children are more often then not are subjected to severe physical violence from employer family members. More over, the children have to cope up with the wild gestures and sexual abuses and harassment.

The problems of Child Labourers in Hyderabad

According to the recent estimates, there are around 40,000 such households in the city of Hyderabad only that employ children as domestic workers. You take any multi storied apartment in the city and can easily find 15-20 child domestic servants who are otherwise completely invisible to the outside world. As the employers go out to their offices these child labourers are locked inside the apartments with no hope of dreaming about their own future.

Most of these children hail from drought affected rural areas and are from the families that are subjected there to severe oppression and exploitation. These are then exported to the urban areas by many gangs that indulge in human trafficking for the purpose of providing child-slaves to these city apartments. These cannibals target mostly the girl child, hailing from the poorest of the poor in the drought prone rural areas, promising their parents good money and excellent food and clothing for the children.

However, once bringing the child as domestic servant they turn them into slaves of rich families and are left to face inhuman work load, torture, rape, sometimes even murder. After a period of time these children often go missing or many are even find in jails on false theft charges.

Among the type of families that seek and employ the hapless girls as child labour are mostly hailing from middle class with secure Government jobs. And the kind of wages and salaries they dole out to the toiling girls is a monthly paltry sum of mere Rs. 200 or on occasion Rs. 300/- a month.

Some suggestions

The Act although bans the child labour and restraining hotels and restaurants from employing children. But the purpose of such legislation would all be futile if it is not implemented as envisaged and there is a strong need to devise some proactive means to sensitize the society about the law as well as the problems of child labourers. Some of these immediate proactive steps are -

- To inform the masses that child labour is an offence, all news papers, TV channels and Radio stations must undertake serious publicity for about an year.

- All the State and Central Government employees shall have to be ordered to refrain from employing children in their households and other places.

- The child labour employed within the premises of any government establishments or offices must be liberated with immediate effect and to be rehabilitated through providing them with education and other help.

- Conduct raids and liberate all the child labourers from all the city based hotels and establishments and accord them rehabilitation coupled with their education.

- All hotels and apartments must be under constant scrutiny and monitoring.

- A police officer in every police station shall undergo training classes to build awareness about the Child Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act 1986.

Conclusion

Yes. The Act is great for all those persons who oppose child labour and believe that instead of working, a child needs education and recreation for his/her mental and physical development. Yet the battle is far from over. Apart from raising voices against its faulty implementation at ground level, many civil society organizations are demanding another amendment in the act with respect to governments definition of child labourer as those who are 14 years old and lower.

This is a big loophole in the Act and makes the Act futile. A Child, according to the Juvenile Justice (the care and protection of children) Act 2000, is defined as below the 18 years of age. It is the same with the International Child Rights Convention too. India as a country has accepted it and is one of the signatories. So now it is imperative to undertake struggle declaring any 18 year old child doing any work shall have to be treated as child labour. The Child Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act needs another amendment and for which we have to fight. Child labour is child labour whether the age is 16 or 18 it is still an offence. The future of our children is the future of our country. Hence we have to fight for another amendment in the child labour Act.

Is employment of children as domestic and hotel workers really banned in India?

By Karthik Navayan

Child labour is one of the major bane for our Dalit, Adivasi and other lower caste children from rural areas. While you are reading this piece, millions of our community children are being deprived of their childhood which for others is their birthright. Though the government has come out with a strong legislation but it has no impact on a society that treats people from different backgrounds as subhuman and therefore have no remorse what soever in treating our unfortunate children as slaves. We all are equal partners in this crime by keeping quiet and allowing this inhuman practice to become a normal thing. As a part of Dalit movement, we must raise our voice against child labour and work together to provide them a better future than what the society has reserved for them right now. Below is an english translation of my essay, Endlallo Hotallalo Pillalatho Pani Cheyenchadam nishedam from my Telugu book Dalitawaj-I.

The employment of child labour within households, hotels, Dhabas, restaurants etc., has been banned by the Govt. of India, through Ministry of Labour and Employment, by recognizing these places as hazardous occupations and included them in the Part A of the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986. This amendment has been made effective from 10th October 2006. This gesture hopefully rekindles the 1986 Act, though, after 20 long years.

Is this law and its amendment enough to secure our childrens future and prevent their becoming slaves?

The impact of the Act and its implementation can be vouched from the fact that even today after almost three years of amendment that banned child labourers in hotels one can easily locate around 50 children working in different hotels that are located within the premises of various city courts in Hyderabad like at Ranga Reddy District Court, City Civil Court premises in Nampally and even within the premises of the Andhra Pradesh High court itself! There are about 40 child workers toiling within the various mess premises of residential colleges run by Sri Chaithanya in the city.

To make the ban effective, the government must initiate several measures and start working on implementing the same. But if we look back, right from the day of our Independence to the very day of conceiving the 1986 Act, for 40 long years, we have not done anything either to formulate or to enact a Law to ban the child labour. What little we had was a hope that remained in paper, as per our Constitution, that guarantees a universal and free education.

Background

The Act of 1986 divided the nature of child-labour work places as hazardous and non- hazardous. It concluded that the hazardous ones exist very fewer in number, thereby permitting 90 % of the work places to engage and employ young children as laborers. This has resulted in the continuous employment/ enforcement of child labour in both the banned and hazardous and non-hazardous occupations and work places entirely to the extent of cent percent. Therefore, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986, sans the recent amendment, was of little use to the laboring children in India.

Indias failure in its expressed objective of prohibiting child labour led many NGOs to take initiatives towards building a movement against its prevalence, highlighting the plight of child labourer. The likes of NDWM (National Domestic Workers Movement) then, came up in alliance with the domestic workers, child domestic workers and migrant workers. Together with many other such initiatives they were able to create pressure on the Government and the Labour Ministry for a better legislation against the rampant practice of child labour in India.

The cumulative campaigning and advocacy efforts of the NGO community, together with the all-round efforts of domestic, child domestic and migrant workers finally paid dividends and the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, GOI was forced to make amendments in the Part A of the 1986 Act, under the heading Occupations.

After item (13) and the entry relating thereto, the following items were added as banned in the 1986 Act -

(14) Employment of child as domestic workers or servants;

(15) Employment of children in Dhabas (road-side eateries), restaurants, hotels, motels, tea-shops, resorts, spas or other recreational centers.

Such a violation now would attract conviction with a jail term of not less than 6 months together with the imposition of penalty up to Rs. 25,000. However, the truth is that, till date, no offender has been ever subjected to such a conviction. In the cases of torture and violence against child labour, by the employers, the police had been merely registering such cases only under IPC 324 and 506 (inflicting injury with a criminal intent). Since both the IPC sections are bailable the culprits are going scot-free.

Among the children engaged in the domestic work, almost 90% of them are girls and are compelled to work for 14 to 16 hours, without a break. The nature of their work ranges from sweeping the floors, washing the cloths, cleaning the dishes, baby sitting and preparing food for the entire household. Apart from the inhuman workload the children are more often then not are subjected to severe physical violence from employer family members. More over, the children have to cope up with the wild gestures and sexual abuses and harassment.

The problems of Child Labourers in Hyderabad

According to the recent estimates, there are around 40,000 such households in the city of Hyderabad only that employ children as domestic workers. You take any multi storied apartment in the city and can easily find 15-20 child domestic servants who are otherwise completely invisible to the outside world. As the employers go out to their offices these child labourers are locked inside the apartments with no hope of dreaming about their own future.

Most of these children hail from drought affected rural areas and are from the families that are subjected there to severe oppression and exploitation. These are then exported to the urban areas by many gangs that indulge in human trafficking for the purpose of providing child-slaves to these city apartments. These cannibals target mostly the girl child, hailing from the poorest of the poor in the drought prone rural areas, promising their parents good money and excellent food and clothing for the children.

However, once bringing the child as domestic servant they turn them into slaves of rich families and are left to face inhuman work load, torture, rape, sometimes even murder. After a period of time these children often go missing or many are even find in jails on false theft charges.

Among the type of families that seek and employ the hapless girls as child labour are mostly hailing from middle class with secure Government jobs. And the kind of wages and salaries they dole out to the toiling girls is a monthly paltry sum of mere Rs. 200 or on occasion Rs. 300/- a month.

Some suggestions

The Act although bans the child labour and restraining hotels and restaurants from employing children. But the purpose of such legislation would all be futile if it is not implemented as envisaged and there is a strong need to devise some proactive means to sensitize the society about the law as well as the problems of child labourers. Some of these immediate proactive steps are -

- To inform the masses that child labour is an offence, all news papers, TV channels and Radio stations must undertake serious publicity for about an year.

- All the State and Central Government employees shall have to be ordered to refrain from employing children in their households and other places.

- The child labour employed within the premises of any government establishments or offices must be liberated with immediate effect and to be rehabilitated through providing them with education and other help.

- Conduct raids and liberate all the child labourers from all the city based hotels and establishments and accord them rehabilitation coupled with their education.

- All hotels and apartments must be under constant scrutiny and monitoring.

- A police officer in every police station shall undergo training classes to build awareness about the Child Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act 1986.

Conclusion

Yes. The Act is great for all those persons who oppose child labour and believe that instead of working, a child needs education and recreation for his/her mental and physical development. Yet the battle is far from over. Apart from raising voices against its faulty implementation at ground level, many civil society organizations are demanding another amendment in the act with respect to governments definition of child labourer as those who are 14 years old and lower.

This is a big loophole in the Act and makes the Act futile. A Child, according to the Juvenile Justice (the care and protection of children) Act 2000, is defined as below the 18 years of age. It is the same with the International Child Rights Convention too. India as a country has accepted it and is one of the signatories. So now it is imperative to undertake struggle declaring any 18 year old child doing any work shall have to be treated as child labour. The Child Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act needs another amendment and for which we have to fight. Child labour is child labour whether the age is 16 or 18 it is still an offence. The future of our children is the future of our country. Hence we have to fight for another amendment in the child labour Act.

Is employment of children as domestic and hotel workers really banned in India?

By Karthik Navayan

Child labour is one of the major bane for our Dalit, Adivasi and other lower caste children from rural areas. While you are reading this piece, millions of our community children are being deprived of their childhood which for others is their birthright. Though the government has come out with a strong legislation but it has no impact on a society that treats people from different backgrounds as subhuman and therefore have no remorse what soever in treating our unfortunate children as slaves. We all are equal partners in this crime by keeping quiet and allowing this inhuman practice to become a normal thing. As a part of Dalit movement, we must raise our voice against child labour and work together to provide them a better future than what the society has reserved for them right now. Below is an english translation of my essay, Endlallo Hotallalo Pillalatho Pani Cheyenchadam nishedam from my Telugu book Dalitawaj-I.

The employment of child labour within households, hotels, Dhabas, restaurants etc., has been banned by the Govt. of India, through Ministry of Labour and Employment, by recognizing these places as hazardous occupations and included them in the Part A of the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986. This amendment has been made effective from 10th October 2006. This gesture hopefully rekindles the 1986 Act, though, after 20 long years.

Is this law and its amendment enough to secure our childrens future and prevent their becoming slaves?

The impact of the Act and its implementation can be vouched from the fact that even today after almost three years of amendment that banned child labourers in hotels one can easily locate around 50 children working in different hotels that are located within the premises of various city courts in Hyderabad like at Ranga Reddy District Court, City Civil Court premises in Nampally and even within the premises of the Andhra Pradesh High court itself! There are about 40 child workers toiling within the various mess premises of residential colleges run by Sri Chaithanya in the city.

To make the ban effective, the government must initiate several measures and start working on implementing the same. But if we look back, right from the day of our Independence to the very day of conceiving the 1986 Act, for 40 long years, we have not done anything either to formulate or to enact a Law to ban the child labour. What little we had was a hope that remained in paper, as per our Constitution, that guarantees a universal and free education.

Background

The Act of 1986 divided the nature of child-labour work places as hazardous and non- hazardous. It concluded that the hazardous ones exist very fewer in number, thereby permitting 90 % of the work places to engage and employ young children as laborers. This has resulted in the continuous employment/ enforcement of child labour in both the banned and hazardous and non-hazardous occupations and work places entirely to the extent of cent percent. Therefore, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986, sans the recent amendment, was of little use to the laboring children in India.

Indias failure in its expressed objective of prohibiting child labour led many NGOs to take initiatives towards building a movement against its prevalence, highlighting the plight of child labourer. The likes of NDWM (National Domestic Workers Movement) then, came up in alliance with the domestic workers, child domestic workers and migrant workers. Together with many other such initiatives they were able to create pressure on the Government and the Labour Ministry for a better legislation against the rampant practice of child labour in India.

The cumulative campaigning and advocacy efforts of the NGO community, together with the all-round efforts of domestic, child domestic and migrant workers finally paid dividends and the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, GOI was forced to make amendments in the Part A of the 1986 Act, under the heading Occupations.

After item (13) and the entry relating thereto, the following items were added as banned in the 1986 Act -

(14) Employment of child as domestic workers or servants;

(15) Employment of children in Dhabas (road-side eateries), restaurants, hotels, motels, tea-shops, resorts, spas or other recreational centers.

Such a violation now would attract conviction with a jail term of not less than 6 months together with the imposition of penalty up to Rs. 25,000. However, the truth is that, till date, no offender has been ever subjected to such a conviction. In the cases of torture and violence against child labour, by the employers, the police had been merely registering such cases only under IPC 324 and 506 (inflicting injury with a criminal intent). Since both the IPC sections are bailable the culprits are going scot-free.

Among the children engaged in the domestic work, almost 90% of them are girls and are compelled to work for 14 to 16 hours, without a break. The nature of their work ranges from sweeping the floors, washing the cloths, cleaning the dishes, baby sitting and preparing food for the entire household. Apart from the inhuman workload the children are more often then not are subjected to severe physical violence from employer family members. More over, the children have to cope up with the wild gestures and sexual abuses and harassment.

The problems of Child Labourers in Hyderabad

According to the recent estimates, there are around 40,000 such households in the city of Hyderabad only that employ children as domestic workers. You take any multi storied apartment in the city and can easily find 15-20 child domestic servants who are otherwise completely invisible to the outside world. As the employers go out to their offices these child labourers are locked inside the apartments with no hope of dreaming about their own future.

Most of these children hail from drought affected rural areas and are from the families that are subjected there to severe oppression and exploitation. These are then exported to the urban areas by many gangs that indulge in human trafficking for the purpose of providing child-slaves to these city apartments. These cannibals target mostly the girl child, hailing from the poorest of the poor in the drought prone rural areas, promising their parents good money and excellent food and clothing for the children.

However, once bringing the child as domestic servant they turn them into slaves of rich families and are left to face inhuman work load, torture, rape, sometimes even murder. After a period of time these children often go missing or many are even find in jails on false theft charges.

Among the type of families that seek and employ the hapless girls as child labour are mostly hailing from middle class with secure Government jobs. And the kind of wages and salaries they dole out to the toiling girls is a monthly paltry sum of mere Rs. 200 or on occasion Rs. 300/- a month.

Some suggestions

The Act although bans the child labour and restraining hotels and restaurants from employing children. But the purpose of such legislation would all be futile if it is not implemented as envisaged and there is a strong need to devise some proactive means to sensitize the society about the law as well as the problems of child labourers. Some of these immediate proactive steps are -

- To inform the masses that child labour is an offence, all news papers, TV channels and Radio stations must undertake serious publicity for about an year.

- All the State and Central Government employees shall have to be ordered to refrain from employing children in their households and other places.

- The child labour employed within the premises of any government establishments or offices must be liberated with immediate effect and to be rehabilitated through providing them with education and other help.

- Conduct raids and liberate all the child labourers from all the city based hotels and establishments and accord them rehabilitation coupled with their education.

- All hotels and apartments must be under constant scrutiny and monitoring.

- A police officer in every police station shall undergo training classes to build awareness about the Child Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act 1986.

Conclusion

Yes. The Act is great for all those persons who oppose child labour and believe that instead of working, a child needs education and recreation for his/her mental and physical development. Yet the battle is far from over. Apart from raising voices against its faulty implementation at ground level, many civil society organizations are demanding another amendment in the act with respect to governments definition of child labourer as those who are 14 years old and lower.

This is a big loophole in the Act and makes the Act futile. A Child, according to the Juvenile Justice (the care and protection of children) Act 2000, is defined as below the 18 years of age. It is the same with the International Child Rights Convention too. India as a country has accepted it and is one of the signatories. So now it is imperative to undertake struggle declaring any 18 year old child doing any work shall have to be treated as child labour. The Child Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act needs another amendment and for which we have to fight. Child labour is child labour whether the age is 16 or 18 it is still an offence. The future of our children is the future of our country. Hence we have to fight for another amendment in the child labour Act.

Collegium may withdraw recommendation for Justice Dinakaran By : Y.Prakash on 19 October 2009 Charges of land encroachment against Justice P D Dinakaran, Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, have been endorsed by an investigation ordered by the Supreme Court, dealing a serious blow to the prospect of his elevation to the apex court. Sources said that V Palanikumar, district collector of Thiruvallur near Chennai, found Justice Dinakaran to have encroached 197 acres of public land around his property in Kaverirajapuram village. In his report to the SC, the district collector has also held that the encroachments by Justice Dinakaran have blocked access to government land. According to sources, the Chief Justice of India, Justice K G Balakrishnan, and other judges who form the Collegium, are considering to withdraw their recommendation for Justice Dinakaran’s elevation in the light of the damning findings of the Thiruvallur collector. “The Collegium always keeps an open mind about its recommendations. It would not be difficult for it to withdraw the earlier recommendation when it meets next time over the reports of the collector and the response from Justice Dinakaran,” a highly placed source told TOI. After the controversy over the recommendation broke out, Justice Dinakaran had in a one-to-one meeting with the CJI on September 18 assured him that he had not acquired even an inch of land after his appointment as a high court judge. Justice Balakrishnan has asked the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court for his response to the report of Palanikumar. The CJI has also asked the collector to provide him with maps detailing the alleged encroachment of 197 acres of government land in Kaverirajapuram village, besides directing the revenue secretary of Tamil Nadu to update him about the nature and the period of encroachments. He had sought the report from the district collector in the wake of massive opposition to the recommendation for Justice Dinakaran’s elevation to the SC. With the collector’s damning report on encroachment virtually confirming a part of the allegation levelled by various members of the Bar against Justice Dinakaran, the Collegium would find it extremely difficult to stand by its earlier decision to recommend to the Centre to appoint him as a judge of the Supreme Court. The Collegium headed by CJI comprises Justices S H Kapadia, Tarun Chatterjee, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran.

Collegium may withdraw recommendation for Justice Dinakaran By : Y.Prakash on 19 October 2009 Charges of land encroachment against Justice P D Dinakaran, Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, have been endorsed by an investigation ordered by the Supreme Court, dealing a serious blow to the prospect of his elevation to the apex court. Sources said that V Palanikumar, district collector of Thiruvallur near Chennai, found Justice Dinakaran to have encroached 197 acres of public land around his property in Kaverirajapuram village. In his report to the SC, the district collector has also held that the encroachments by Justice Dinakaran have blocked access to government land. According to sources, the Chief Justice of India, Justice K G Balakrishnan, and other judges who form the Collegium, are considering to withdraw their recommendation for Justice Dinakaran’s elevation in the light of the damning findings of the Thiruvallur collector. “The Collegium always keeps an open mind about its recommendations. It would not be difficult for it to withdraw the earlier recommendation when it meets next time over the reports of the collector and the response from Justice Dinakaran,” a highly placed source told TOI. After the controversy over the recommendation broke out, Justice Dinakaran had in a one-to-one meeting with the CJI on September 18 assured him that he had not acquired even an inch of land after his appointment as a high court judge. Justice Balakrishnan has asked the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court for his response to the report of Palanikumar. The CJI has also asked the collector to provide him with maps detailing the alleged encroachment of 197 acres of government land in Kaverirajapuram village, besides directing the revenue secretary of Tamil Nadu to update him about the nature and the period of encroachments. He had sought the report from the district collector in the wake of massive opposition to the recommendation for Justice Dinakaran’s elevation to the SC. With the collector’s damning report on encroachment virtually confirming a part of the allegation levelled by various members of the Bar against Justice Dinakaran, the Collegium would find it extremely difficult to stand by its earlier decision to recommend to the Centre to appoint him as a judge of the Supreme Court. The Collegium headed by CJI comprises Justices S H Kapadia, Tarun Chatterjee, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran.

Collegium may withdraw recommendation for Justice Dinakaran By : Y.Prakash on 19 October 2009 Charges of land encroachment against Justice P D Dinakaran, Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, have been endorsed by an investigation ordered by the Supreme Court, dealing a serious blow to the prospect of his elevation to the apex court. Sources said that V Palanikumar, district collector of Thiruvallur near Chennai, found Justice Dinakaran to have encroached 197 acres of public land around his property in Kaverirajapuram village. In his report to the SC, the district collector has also held that the encroachments by Justice Dinakaran have blocked access to government land. According to sources, the Chief Justice of India, Justice K G Balakrishnan, and other judges who form the Collegium, are considering to withdraw their recommendation for Justice Dinakaran’s elevation in the light of the damning findings of the Thiruvallur collector. “The Collegium always keeps an open mind about its recommendations. It would not be difficult for it to withdraw the earlier recommendation when it meets next time over the reports of the collector and the response from Justice Dinakaran,” a highly placed source told TOI. After the controversy over the recommendation broke out, Justice Dinakaran had in a one-to-one meeting with the CJI on September 18 assured him that he had not acquired even an inch of land after his appointment as a high court judge. Justice Balakrishnan has asked the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court for his response to the report of Palanikumar. The CJI has also asked the collector to provide him with maps detailing the alleged encroachment of 197 acres of government land in Kaverirajapuram village, besides directing the revenue secretary of Tamil Nadu to update him about the nature and the period of encroachments. He had sought the report from the district collector in the wake of massive opposition to the recommendation for Justice Dinakaran’s elevation to the SC. With the collector’s damning report on encroachment virtually confirming a part of the allegation levelled by various members of the Bar against Justice Dinakaran, the Collegium would find it extremely difficult to stand by its earlier decision to recommend to the Centre to appoint him as a judge of the Supreme Court. The Collegium headed by CJI comprises Justices S H Kapadia, Tarun Chatterjee, Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran.

Amnesty International Press release
15 October 2009

In the run-up to the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October, Amnesty International called on world leaders and policy makers to shift the debate on poverty from economics to addressing the human rights problems that impoverish and keep people poor.

Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan stated: “Poverty is the world’s worst human rights crisis.

“Discrimination, state repression, corruption, insecurity and violence are as much defining features of poverty as the lack of material resources. These human rights problems can’t simply be solved by raising income levels,” said Irene Khan.

“Material benefits alone do not guarantee an end to discrimination, or improve security or give voice to those living in poverty. Investment in agriculture may boost crop yields for poor farmers but does not guarantee security of tenure against unscrupulous land owners. Building new schools doesn’t guarantee that girls will have the same access to education as boys.

“In many countries economic growth levels may be high but people’s right to be informed and consulted in public policy is ignored; their right to express their views and be heard is curtailed. The poor are shut out and ignored.

“Any successful poverty alleviation strategy must empower the poor to claim their rights, so that they can control their destiny and can hold decision makers to account.”

Launching her book The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights in New York, Irene Khan argued that eradication of poverty requires respect of economic, social and cultural rights – such as health care, education and housing – alongside civil and political rights.

“There can be no sequenced or partial approach to human rights if we want to solve poverty. Demanding participation rights is as important as directing resources to meet basic needs for food, health and shelter. Protecting people against violence is as crucial as ending discrimination. Reducing maternal mortality calls for better health care but also for the improvement of the status of women.”

With ten chapters addressing topics such as why freedom matters, discrimination, the poverty trap, maternal mortality, slums, corporate accountability and legal empowerment, The Unheard Truth calls for justice and empowerment for the world’s poor and puts a human face to a problem that is all too often illustrated by abstract statistics.

The Unheard Truth marks a new phase in Amnesty International’s worldwide campaign to Demand Dignity in which world leaders will be targeted and challenged to address human rights abuses that drive and deepen poverty.

"The fight to end poverty is this generation’s greatest struggle. We will win it if we put freedom, justice and equality at its core," said Irene Khan.

–> Learn more about the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Amnesty International Press release
15 October 2009

In the run-up to the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October, Amnesty International called on world leaders and policy makers to shift the debate on poverty from economics to addressing the human rights problems that impoverish and keep people poor.

Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan stated: “Poverty is the world’s worst human rights crisis.

“Discrimination, state repression, corruption, insecurity and violence are as much defining features of poverty as the lack of material resources. These human rights problems can’t simply be solved by raising income levels,” said Irene Khan.

“Material benefits alone do not guarantee an end to discrimination, or improve security or give voice to those living in poverty. Investment in agriculture may boost crop yields for poor farmers but does not guarantee security of tenure against unscrupulous land owners. Building new schools doesn’t guarantee that girls will have the same access to education as boys.

“In many countries economic growth levels may be high but people’s right to be informed and consulted in public policy is ignored; their right to express their views and be heard is curtailed. The poor are shut out and ignored.

“Any successful poverty alleviation strategy must empower the poor to claim their rights, so that they can control their destiny and can hold decision makers to account.”

Launching her book The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights in New York, Irene Khan argued that eradication of poverty requires respect of economic, social and cultural rights – such as health care, education and housing – alongside civil and political rights.

“There can be no sequenced or partial approach to human rights if we want to solve poverty. Demanding participation rights is as important as directing resources to meet basic needs for food, health and shelter. Protecting people against violence is as crucial as ending discrimination. Reducing maternal mortality calls for better health care but also for the improvement of the status of women.”

With ten chapters addressing topics such as why freedom matters, discrimination, the poverty trap, maternal mortality, slums, corporate accountability and legal empowerment, The Unheard Truth calls for justice and empowerment for the world’s poor and puts a human face to a problem that is all too often illustrated by abstract statistics.

The Unheard Truth marks a new phase in Amnesty International’s worldwide campaign to Demand Dignity in which world leaders will be targeted and challenged to address human rights abuses that drive and deepen poverty.

"The fight to end poverty is this generation’s greatest struggle. We will win it if we put freedom, justice and equality at its core," said Irene Khan.

–> Learn more about the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.