Being Children In India

We, the children of India— Former Chief Justice Leila Seth makes the words of the Preamble to the Constitution understandable to even the youngest reader. What is a democratic republic, why are we secular, what is sovereignty? Believing that it is never too early for young people to learn about the Constitution, she tackles these concepts and explains them in a manner everyone can grasp and enjoy. Accompanied by numerous photographs, captivating and inspiring illustrations by acclaimed illustrator Bindia Thapar, and delightful bits of trivia, We, the Children of India is essential reading for every young citizen.

This publication focuses on the situation, opportunities and challenges in providing children an optimal environment for growth and development in India. Issues like early childhood care and education, nutrition opportunities through infancy, and physical and mental health of children are explored. An attempt has also been made to shed light on emerging challenges such as child development amidst pandemics like COVID-19, the increasing influence of media in the child's development, and tackling the triple burden of malnutrition. Implementation of related policies and programs, both by governmental and non-governmental agencies, has been detailed for lessons learnt.The contributors to this edition are experienced researchers, practitioners, and academicians with extensive work in their respective areas of expertise. There is a good representation from different parts of the country which gives the reader a flavor of the regional diversity while dealing with children and their issues.The book provides a comprehensive updated reference for the scientific community. In addition, students and researchers in public health, social work, epidemiology, community medicine, public nutrition, human development, anthropology and sociology are the target audience. Stakeholders involved in policy planning, program implementation and advocacy will also benefit from this publication.

Is the bicycle, like the loudspeaker, a medium of communication in India? Do Indian children need trade unions as much as they need schools? What would you do with a mobile phone if all your friends were playing tag in the rain or watching Indian Idol? Children and Media in India illuminates the experiences, practices and contexts in which children and young people in diverse locations across India encounter, make, or make meaning from media in the course of their everyday lives. From textbooks, television, film and comics to mobile phones and digital games, this book examines the media available to different socioeconomic groups of children in India and their articulation with everyday cultures and routines. An authoritative overview of theories and discussions about childhood, agency, social class, caste and gender in India is followed by an analysis of films and television representations of childhood informed by qualitative interview data collected between 2005 and 2015 in urban, small-town and rural contexts with children aged nine to 17. The analysis uncovers and challenges widely held assumptions about the relationships among factors including sociocultural location, media content and technologies, and children’s labour and agency. The analysis casts doubt on undifferentiated claims about how new technologies ‘affect’, ‘endanger’ and/or ‘empower’, pointing instead to the importance of social class – and caste – in mediating relationships among children, young people and the poor. The analysis of children’s narratives of daily work, education, caring and leisure supports the conclusion that, although unrecognised and underrepresented, subaltern children’s agency and resourceful conservation makes a significant contribution to economic, interpretive and social reproduction in India.

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of child well-being within the context of Indian states, focusing on the progress made in eight Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets. What sets this book apart is its unique perspective, as it delves into the well-being of children, examining their experiences across six key dimensions: child poverty and deprivation, anthropometric failure and undernutrition, child health and healthcare services, quality education, violence and gender equity, and overall child well-being. The book relies on data from various data sources such as the National Family Health Survey, Unified District Information System, and National Crime Records Bureau statistics. The child well-being score is calculated following the UNDP methodology, enabling a ranking of states and districts in terms of their progress between 2015-16 and 2019-21. In addition to rigorous quantitative analysis, the book delves into the implications of key policies like the National Education Policy, National Health Policy, social protection schemes, and Poshan Abhiyan on child development and their role in achieving SDG targets. It systematically compares the performance of Indian states in relation to SDG targets, using child-specific indicators, making this book truly unique. It incorporates more than 30 child-related indicators, spanning the eight child-specific SDGs selected for analysis. The child well-being achievement score from 2015-16 serves as a baseline for assessing the progress toward SDG goals. The indicators presented in this book serve as valuable tools for tracking SDG progress and sustainably monitoring child well-being at the state level. Ultimately, the book not only reveals the depth of deprivations but also provides a roadmap for region-specific priority areas, strongly advocating for child-centric policy interventions. This book will be useful for the academicians, policy makers, government officials, civil bodies, NGOs and other research communities including doctoral researchers who are working in the field of child wellbeing.

This Book Presents The Research Findings Of Action Research On Trafficking In Women And Children In India (Artwac) That Involved The United Nations Development Fund For Women, The National Human Rights Commission And The Institute Of Social Sciences. Through A Human Rights Perspective, The First Section Of This Book Analyses The Data Generated By Artwac And Gives Detailed Recommendations For Better Judicial Interventions, Law Enforcement And Community Participation In Anti-Trafficking Strategies. The Second Section Contains A Rich Collection Of Case Studies, Giving An On-Ground Picture Of How Exploiters Have Little Or No Respect For The Rights Of Trafficking Victims.

This book addresses issues concerning five major categories of disadvantaged children, namely street children, children involved in trafficking, child labor, slum children, and children in institutional care, which apply to a large number of children around the world, including India. Compiling primary and secondary research-based evidences in addition to the first-hand experiences of the authors, it describes the link between social dynamics and the plight of disadvantaged children from both social and cultural perspectives. Each chapter includes examples and case studies to offer readers essential insights into the real-life situations of these children. At the end of each chapter, a number of evidence-based measures and models are proposed for agencies working to support disadvantaged children. Given its comprehensive coverage, the book is of interest to scholars, and government and non-government agencies involved in the welfare of disadvantaged children, funding agencies, and social science, medical and public health professionals.

The book is a comprehensive compendium on child rights in India from a child development perspective. It discusses the challenges that Indian children face for survival, development and education, especially if they are marginalized through disability, lack of care, and poverty. The major issues expounded by the author in relation to rights are infant and child survival, early child development, street and working children, children in conflict with law, children with disabilities, child trafficking and child sexual abuse. The author goes further to delve into the causes, among which are high population, poverty, migration, illiteracy, poor legislation and deep-rooted social norms and behaviour. The book presents the existing policy and legal framework in India for each of these issues. The broad purpose of the book is to comprehensively discuss the roadblocks that the marginalized child in India faces, to understand the causes of these roadblocks and to evaluate government and civil society action for children in India.

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. Today, the majority of the world's population lives in a country with falling marriage rates, a phenomenon with profound impacts on women, gender, and sexuality. In this exceptionally crafted ethnography, Sarah Lamb probes the gendered trend of single women living in India, examining what makes living outside marriage for women increasingly possible and yet incredibly challenging. Featuring the stories of never-married women as young as 35 and as old as 92, the book offers a remarkable portrait of a way of life experienced by women across class and caste divides, from urban professionals and rural day laborers, to those who identify as heterosexual and lesbian, to others who evaded marriage both by choice and by circumstance. For women in India, complex social-cultural and political-economic contexts are foundational to their lives and decisions, and evading marriage is often an unintended consequence of other pressing life priorities. Arguing that never-married women are able to illuminate their society's broader social-cultural values, Lamb offers a new and startling look at prevailing systems of gender, sexuality, kinship, freedom, and social belonging in India today.