Uniting India
Fight Against Poverty
Poverty in India is real and a very complex issue. In the year 2000 it was estimated that 26% of India’s population was living below their national poverty line. This is an improvement from the 1950’s figure of over 50% living in poverty but there are still well over 250 million people for whom poverty is a way of life in India.
Children in particular are badly affected by poverty. Problems such as malnutrition, child labour and high mortality rates are very real issues faced in their day to day life in the case of those affected badly by poverty. More than 40% of the world’s malnourished children are found in India although India contains lesser than 20 % of the World’s child population. Girls are more often affected badly than boys as gender inequality is also a fact of life in India.
Child labour is a significant problem in India where it is estimated that between 75 to 90 million children under 14 are working to earn bread and butter for their families some times and contribute to the family income most of the time. The jobs they perform are often difficult, mean and low-paying. They need their wages to help provide food or shelter for their families. These children are often deprived from Education.They stand no chance to come out of the poverty since they have no choice but to work at a very young age due to family compulsions.
What can we all do to improve and overcome this serious problem??
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Veera Narasimha Raju on March 12, 2011 at 9:55 am, and is filed under Miscellaneous. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
It is true. It is a very huge and complex problem related with economic disparity, blind faith and deliberately locking common sense in a cupboard. In one particular Religion they believe blindly that God has given children and God will look after them. This person being poor doesn’t know how to fulfill basic needs for him due to lack of Education. How can he have so many children when he can’t afford and then say that God has given him children. Where is his commonsense gone? It is there but his blind faith prevails. This type of people are in majority in this Religion. Even in other Religions such type of People are there but in minority. One child per family be made compulsory to start with. Primary Education should be made free for all if not done already. The Government should come forward to provide a monthly allowance sufficient to meet the family’s minimum requirement so that the poor parents do not need to send their children for work to help meeting their family expenses. There are many Millionaires and Billionaires who can always chip in with financial help. They should be reminded about their social responsibility towards the economically weaker sections of the society. Further Educated people can volunteer their services for teaching these children free of cost. NGOs can also contribute by making them aware about keeping their surroundings clean.