Childhoods lost in a troubled paradise

Context This article speaks about incidents of Illegal detention, violence and torture in the valley region of Jammu and Kashmir and how this has led to mental trauma in the children and stress in Adults. Stats Between 1990 and 2005, a total of 46 schools were occupied by the armed forces In 2018, the Jammu…

Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Himachal top India’s child well-being index

Child well-being index, a tool designed to measure and tracks children’s well-being comprehensively has been released. Details: The report released by the non-government organisation World Vision India and research institute IFMR LEAD. The report is an attempt to look at how India fairs on child well-being using a composite child well-being index. The India child…

Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2019

Context Recently the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was passed by both Houses of Parliament with an objective of stopping the rampant sexual abuse of children. It seeks to provide more stringent punishment, including death penalty, for sexual crimes against children. The present bill is welcome in certain respects as it specifically defines…

A crumbling idea of progress—Child Labour

2001 National Census– More than 12 million children in the age group 5-14 are engaged in exploitative occupations that are detrimental to their rights and to the full development of their potentials 168 million child labourers, 59 million out-of-school children and 15 million girls under 15 are forced to marry every year ILO: 5.7 million…

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

Aim: To generate awareness and improve efficiency of delivery of welfare services meant for women Launched on 22 January 2015 with an initial corpus of Rs. 100 crore Joint initiative of Ministries of Women & Child Development, Health & Human Resource Development Districts Identified The three criteria for selection of districts: Districts below the national…

Neuroscience and the Juvenile Legislation

Article Link The Rajya Sabha, last week, cleared the Juvenile Justice (Amendment) Bill that allows juveniles between ages 16 and 18 years who are charged with heinous offences to be tried as adults. The popular outcry to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 16 years had become louder post the ‘Nirbhaya’ case. Noticeably,Neuroscience was…

Extreme justice is often injustice

While television anchors have harangued us about how juvenile crime has risen by 47 per cent, they have failed to inform us that actual juvenile crime is still less than 2 per cent of reported crime figures. Second, most of it is non-violent crime and often the result of vagrancy. Most importantly, most children in…