-Outlook New Delhi: Over 8,000 children are working in garment factories in different parts of the national capital, an NGO report has revealed. The report, titled 'The Hidden Workforce', by NGO Save the Children, was today released by Delhi Minister for Women and Child Development Sandeep Kumar. According to the report, over 8,000 children are engaged in the booming garment industry and up to 70 per cent of them could be girls. The highest...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Anganwadi centres across the country will soon go hi-tech with the government planning to equip them with tablet PC devices installed with a customised software for regular monitoring of nutrition supply to malnourished children. The software will enable anganwadi workers (AWWs) to upload various data like dietary intake and health updates of children and supply of foodgrains and supplementary nutrition on a daily basis. The move will help the government...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Hindu The child’s ‘right to be heard’ has been validated by a UN Convention. It’s time to let children decide when and what kind of labour is right. The debate over children working has been raging for centuries, with policies constantly changing to reflect the attitudes of a given time. During the World Wars, children were allowed to work as they were needed in factories and other services. When the soldiers...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Various rights groups have urged the government to hold a public consultation on the proposed amendments to the Child Labour Bill, which they warned will end up legitimizing economic exploitation of children and rob them of their childhood. They have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a public consultation on the amendments and called for the removal of the provision seeking to legitimise use of children under 14...