After China stunned the world with the incredible show they put up for the opening of the Beijing Olympics. I do hope we in India have something at least more spectacular than our ever dependable star acts on stage. Actually they are very good and most of them (and the best really is A R Rahman’s concert act) have developed very professional acts on stage. But we need to go beyond that now.
What is of concern are the constant news items that keep appearing of the lack of preparation for the commonwealth games, even though I know that in India we are all used to somehow pulling everything off at the last minute. But of far far greater concern is this article that appeared in an Australian paper about child labor being used to accelerate the preparations. Of course the Western (and I guess now the Australian) press loves to put down accelerating economies like ours, but the following article is pretty disturbing :
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/delhis-commonwealth-games-slave-labour-shame/story-e6frf7jo-1225826064514
Disturbing – but true, f you take a look at the gallery there are many more pictures. Of course, expect our brethren to indignantly protest that the photo is doctored or it is all untrue 🙂 You only have to drive by the construction site to witness this. What I hope for is something positive to come out of it – if the world’s attention is drawn to it, maybe the Indian politicians will pay more attention to the child labor situation and give these guys homes and the children accomodation.
Regarding the opening show: for heaven’s sake, no Bollywood stars show puh-leeze! 🙂 We have a rich culture, and I hope they showcase that. 1982 Asian Games – we did a pretty decent job of that – but obviously need to step up. It’s just ‘commonwealth’ (by the way – that’s so archaic and colonial… We don’t have any wealth in common anymore with Aus/Can/Brit – wonder why even do these games anymore)
Articles like these should be out there everywhere, in every paper to make our politicians realize what they have been missing on all these years – These things should be taken to parliament, to every court house in the country wherever this is happening. God forbid – This country has still no values whatsoever – everywhere there is damn corruption and it breads itself. Sufferers are children born on roads and highways where they live and eat. WHY THAT NEW BORN has to suffer !!
SHekhar,
This thing is more dangerous than the Mumbai killings. This is killing everyday day after day – on the very fact that we are a poor nation and there is nobody who can actually work with these problems., where Slums are simply vote banks and nobody wants to improve.. this is a deep rooted problem.
Every country has labor laws and enforcement agencies to work on it. But India — “yahan to aise hi chalta hai bas”
WHY won’t other newspapers exploit something like this.. I am glad that some news paper actually recognized this and printed this. WHY this sham of games to earn money when you cannot enforce policies to improve basic living standards. Basic education.. _ ENFORCE means FINING those who sleep on roads like traffic tickets. fining those who still wants to live in slums where Govt. wishes to provide better housing…. List goes on.
Now which politician has the guts to do it… NOBODY knows..WHO is even thinking about it ?!
child labor has been in india since ages, perhaps in almost all over the globe! in india even if we go to a restaurant we will find a kid serving us water doesnt matter whether one is in a city or a village! jornos today are sensationalising anything, watever they can get! wat the australian jornos (media is a wrong term) are doing i am sure even an indian news channel can do! or would like to do!
but most important is this true? perhaps it could be!! unfortunately…
i am sorry… i dont believe in this.. it wud be one of the cases where in the pics are shot when the kids of the labourers are jus wandering around or they just might have picked up the shovels… Disturbing and painstaking pic. But i dont approve of this article.. No matter who says what!
I searched. No article on how China transplanted people and scared a nation into the best of manners during the Olympics in this very paper.
I do hope though that we are able to host the Commonwealth. Now that a generation has passed between our great leaders and the current lot, they seriously seem to have no clue of anything. (Remember the 10$ computer which was then raised to $100 and then dropped altogether?)
Approx.ly over a yr ago I had heard that Sheila Dikshit had inaugurated a creche for children of construction workers at the Commonwealth Games site (JNStadium). This creche bldg was to be operated by an NGO Mobile Creches. Perhaps I am biased- but would the Oz/1st world media report good things such as this ever?? We all know the western world loves to paint a horrific picture of India and its squalor. Of course there is lots to be done within our country, miles to go before we sleep…But that doesn’t take away from the fact that development is marching onwards.
Sheila Dikshit and Rahul Gandhi seem to be quite secular about the age for hard labour as well.
Yes its disturbing …….. hope we clean our backyard before pointing out at others front yard(attact of people in AUS)
And hence we say annoyingly, ‘this is how INDIA works’.
Hey guys
I am in Australia and i have seen this article in the front pages of some the newspapers here! So is the whole child labor at Nehru stadium false accusations? Or is it really happening?
Gopi
Dear Shekhar,
Sorry to digress from the Commonwealth Games (and I agree that we need to be better prepared and showcase the HUGE talent that India has, along with the Bollywood numbers et all)…but can you please post SONYA’S book reviews again? Or maybe a link to her blog..?
I always read and like what she recommends and I havent seen her reviews that you have posted recently.
Thank you
Rashmi
I am commenting regularly whenever i find some reporting either by Kalmadi or ms dixit over prepartion of CWG 2010.
I 100% believe that Kalmadi and Mrs. Dixit nothing doing except to bring this nation on ground in the eyes of international community in world.They are not aware with ground reality? Only effective 95 days are available to complete the major Stadia and to revamp the Road and face lifting of the entire DElhi.
Dear Shekhar,
We might still be able to pass off a few virtuoso performances by our classical dance and music exponents in the name of a grand opening ceremony, but what we wont be able to defend is a stadium that crumbles down when people flock to see a Usain Bolt in full flight (well, he aint coming, but I guess you get the drift). I live half a km away from a stadium that supposed to be the venue for wrestling and swimming, and believe you me, driving down that road is some experience, with the whole road dug out. The entire site looks like what possibly hiroshima would have looked after the nuclear bomb aftermath. I really think we are in for a gigantic embarassment here.
Another point(unrelated to the above): I came to know that you are finalising a film ‘PAANI’ which borders on the scarcity of water in the times to come. I have made a 1-minute short film on the same issue, depicting a time in future when there would be no water, and how an average Joe would go through his daily ablutions without the ever important water. Since you are in that zone right now, it’d be great to know your feedback on it. Can you tell me a mail id where I can drop that link, where you can view my very short film.
Cheers.
Not sure what kind of growth India is witnessing.
I read big/egoistic news from Govt of India Ministers/Officials saying that India is posed for 10% spectacular growth which does not make sense to me as quality of life is becoming worse for poor people in India
We still have millions of children dying every year
We still rank as one of the most corrupt nation in world.
We still have hundreds of millions living under poverty line
what kind of growth is this ?
I can see we are becoming more and more like Latin American countries where poor are becoming poorer and rich are becoming richer.
In essence, the poor people are not seeing any improvement in their lives but with these monstrous inflation they are struggling even harder to even put two time decent meals
i partly agree. but i also strongly believe that the developed world, much like the media, only see what they want to see. stories like these are dug, even while a hundred others which talks about the development of the nation, get conveniently dumped. i might be wrong, but i do feel one of the strongest reasons for the awards/popularity of slumdog millionaire was because it only looked at the slums of india. one may even call it racism of a different kind. i am not saying that its right for these kids to work in the slums, but then, what has our government done to alleviate poverty over the years, other than making money themselves? why are we so good at planning and those plans never get implemented as planned? why do we plan for a super luxury penthouse apartment, and then end up delivering a hut? where does the deficit go??
http://facebook.com/corrupshun ; http://www.corrupshun.com
this was bound to happen..actually it happens all the time..Do we have the un organised sector in paper ? no .. daily day wage earners find their food, medical,home, children education etc. by themselves..so how are they suppose to give a shelter to their kids..??
this issue is to be taken care by the municipal,local administrarion..which is never taken care by them as long as i have seen. Even the night shelter for homeless people (Ran Basera)were destroyed by the local goverment to beautify Delhi..
Indian women have done lot of construction in history even Taj Mahal had women labourers..
The Common Wealth games are going to be another embarassing treat given by our Goverment..they are only their to make indivisual money the bureacrats and others..they’ll again embarass Indian people..like they always do..
I wish this whole CWG were given to a private company to manage..rather then the Indian Olympic Commitee..still a lot embarassment awaits for the Indian people..ahead..
I am one of the readers of your blog. Please find time to read my blog:
http://khasnabish.blogspot.com
If the blog creates your interest to read the book, please contact me.
I’ll send in to you the the book.
Thanks.
Nikhil
nabish.n@gmail.com
And how is any of that NEW? And how is any of this disturbing NOW? Why only NOW?
Havent you looked out your rosy tinted car windows as you pass construction sites? Every single day, as long as I can remember. There have been children worked to the bone in every enterprise in India.
We need to be ashamed of it EVERY SINGLE DAY IN THE FUTURE. We desperatly needed to be ashamed of it EVERY SINGLE DAY IN THE PAST.
How is it that we only talk about it when someone else points it out?
I think dilli during the 1982 asian games was a much more organized city than it is today. But then commonwealth games are not the same as asian games; the guests are more likely to have a “chalta hain” attitude than guests of asian or olympic games. I hope you are not saying that we shd also include 9 or 10 year old girls in our gymnastics team and impose restrictions on partying afer a day’s hard work like they did in beijing.
Sad but why ?
Can’t India stand against it ?
Oscar in 30 Days
Short Film (Live Action
Kavi
Gregg Helvey
“An Indian boy and his parents are forced to work as slave labor in a brick kiln.”
Why
But WHY
Only this type ???
Does India have nothing else which they want to show, promote ?
Where is the Real India ?
HDMI 1.4’s 3D spec publicly released
3D’s happening whether you like it or not — but the good news is that there won’t be any format war to go with the adoption of the new tech. At least that’s the sense we’ve been getting, as most manufacturers are adopting active shutter glasses, delivery will happen on cable, satellite, and Blu-ray, and now the HDMI Licensing group has opened up the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 spec so non-licensees can make their gear compatible. There’ll be some changes coming down the pike in HDMI 1.4a, but that’s also due for public release, so really we’ll all be one big dorky family in 3D glasses when this is all over.
If people think commonwealth games will be a threat to the environment, especially riven yamuna then it needs to be understood firstly that before the games also the situation is worst for the river, as its full of chemicals and its not safe for human usage. The things cannot get worst than it is in the present state.The only solution to this is commonwealth games, due to which the international presurre may be put on them which may make goverment some serious steps to find a solution to it. Without games, then dont acpect anything new.
The world (Australian newspapers in this case) are only creating awareness. I respectfully disagree with your statement ..”Of course the Western press loves to put down accelerating economies like ours”.
What are we doing such shameful illiterate acts at the first place?
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@DEEPAK SHARMA
http://www.kavideepaksharma.com
All Bay Area Indo American Organizations are participating
proudly showing the United Indo American Efforts.
Let us all participate to make a difference …
http://www.bayareaindoamerican.com/events/haiti
Valentine Musical Night for
Benefit of Haiti Earthquake Victims
Friday Feb 12, 2010 8:00 PM
100 % proceeds will go to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.
Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, ETC, ETC, etc, etc, >>>etc, etc, etc….
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‘Sigh’
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I wish we the people of India were asked for a joint decision too?
WHY THE F*^&^%*^ a handful of people sit on their arses and make decisons?
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A year ahead of this, voting should have progressed via internet or snail mail…on forms or some sensible manner
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Right to permit this freekin ‘ram leela’ or raas leela whatever….with certain rules to stick to?
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Child labour
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basic labour salary
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their medical, housing, fooding etc
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or best of all NOT HAVE THIS DRAMA AT All
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would we be punsihed, if we decided to invest this resource in our very own system…setting up medical facilites in villages, electricity, water etc…
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I mean what crap is this? ECONOMY BOOM? GROWTH?
Shit I wanna cut Indias map out of the world map
.
argHHHHH!!!!
child labour is being used these are the children of lower caste indians so no one cares
In my opinion, pakistani cricketers should not be allowed to play in india. Not just cricket, they should be stopped to do anything in india until they co-operate with Kasab’s Trial.
The story has also broken here in the U.K and the USA. Children as young as five are working 12 hour shifts to get the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi ready for the Commonwealth Games. Their parents are being paid below the standard minimum wage and have been promised bread and milk if they bring their children and put them to work.
THE IMAGES ARE SHOCKING ! INDIAN SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HER SELF
VEIW WEBSITES
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/sports/Upcoming-Commonwealth-Games-Brings-Thousands-of-Poor-Migrant-Workers-Children-to-New-Delhi-86252977.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1247685/Slaving-Commonwealth-The-child-labourers-work-building-new-stadium-India.html
Hi Shekhar,
Yesterday when i went to college i found many of the big trees, which were there the day before yesterday were uprooted.When i asked one of the labour working over there he told me that in order to construct a new (metropolitan )divider the trees have been uprooted.about 200 trees in the mere range of about 250mtrs. have been uprooted which include the small plants which were planted before 5-7 months n the big trees.It’s is really disgusting that only to show that there country is as good as any developed nation the govt. is doing every possible thing.on one side govt. is speaking about the global warming n Environment on the other hand it is doing such things.
Dear Sir
Hi
I am professional sculptor for Jammu kindly send me information about parchaging art works.
Thanks with regards
Chander
I have Tweeted this, I will keep a eye on your other posts. Ohh what do you all think about the about the oil spil?
inspite concreating delhi with all material dust why shound’nt we prepare our athleats to grab medals for country ,instead of inviting others to come and win them ,make fun of our players