Child traffickers rope in 8-year-old boys to beg at stations, bus stands

Begging is rampant all over India and they can be seen in not only outside temples but also at railway stations, bus stops. Very few of them are genuine beggars who have no other means of livelihood but, a majority of them belong to organized rackets of exploitation.
A gang with Bangladeshi and Indian members involved in trafficking girls is believed to be pushing the boys -as young as eight years - into organized begging rackets. These usually operate from railway stations, bus depots and long-distance trains.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 14 December 2015.

The Railway Police of Katihar rescued 14 children who had gone "missing" from Malda's Harischandrapur recently. The children had been hired for anything between Rs 2000-4000 per month and the money was being sent to their parents. When children go missing and are kidnapped, they usually land up in the nets of the child traffickers and the girls are pushed into the flesh trade.
Moreover, both boys and girls are also inducted into the begging trade - people have pity on them and give them money which ultimately goes into the pockets of the racketeers.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Mumbai auto rickshaw drivers not returning change, thrash passenger

People who use the auto rickshaws in Mumbai are faced with a problem of not having small change - the auto rickshaws have increased the minimum fare to Rs 18 from Rs 17 and when the passenger tenders either a Rs 20 note or two Rs 10 notes, the drivers do not return the balance of Rs 2 with the excuse that they do not have the change. This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 14 July 2015.

In the latest incident that took place at the Linking Road junction in Santa Cruz over "loose change", the driver thrashed the passenger and threw him out of a moving rickshaw by a group of drivers when he asked his driver for the change. An offence has been registered at Santa Cruz police station.
In order to resolve this problem, some of the unions plan to approach neighborhood temples and collect coins to distribute them among drivers at stands outside stations during morning and evening peak hours.
A more ambitious proposal in keeping with the age of mobile phones has been put forth by a member of Mumbai Autorickshawmen's Union. In his opinion, payment through mobile apps could be a solution to eliminate fights and arguments.
Incidentally, Kolkata already has experiences of such fights between drivers and passengers. In March 2015, an auto driver on the Jadavpur-Santoshpur route punched a passenger following an argument over loose change at the auto stand.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Marriages are made on Facebook and broken in the Court

The world of today is indeed a topsy-turvy place and the solemn institution of marriage has gone with the wind. The understanding in the days gone by was that marriages are made in heaven – hence, when the knot was tied, it was customary to keep God as witness. Therefore, marriages would be held in temples or churches or other places of worship.
The general belief was that marriage is necessary, some may feel that it falls in the category of a necessary evil. But – that is neither here nor there. Marriage is necessary for society to survive, for ensuring that the breed of humans does not die out.
However, the change in perception is emerging and is not a good trend.
I have listened to programs on TV where young men and women come and interact with the anchors – and, the anchors ask them pointed questions about their relationships. If married, the questions were about how they met, how they broke the barriers, how they eloped.
And – the revelations provide an insight into how society is changing, how new concepts are evolving. Marriage today is not left to God but to Facebook or matrimonial websites. That is how boys and girls meet. Of course, there are family connections at times or work place friendships that translate into marriage.
Unfortunately, no one elaborates on how long such relationships last. Wonder when some TV channel would break the ground and conduct programs where the focus would be on those whose marriages did not last long enough but ended in the Court. In the western countries, happy marriages are exceptions. Broken marriages are not uncommon and the plight of the offspring of such marriages have to struggle at every step to come to terms with reality. The result is a society where unhappy children grow up and find it difficult to cope with stress of being all alone in this vicious world. That is not a good sign. Ultimately, such children turn their back on society.

Children’s Day – do children really matter

Children’s Day is celebrated in India on the occasion of the birthday of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of the country – he was fond of children, hence the tribute to him. It was celebrated for the first time in 1954 and has continued. On this occasion, children hog the limelight but, only those who matter – in fact, while schools join in the celebrations and cities take this opportunity to promote various events focused to better the lot of the children, no one bothers about the multitude of neglected children. At times, a handful of them are selected from slums to provide photo ops for people who matter.
Just imagine children who have never tasted the joys of childhood – they toil in menial jobs to earn morsels of food. They are there in hotels and restaurants as dish washers and waiters, they are there in firecracker factories, they beg on the streets, they turn rag pickers and drug peddlers. Many of the have been born on the streets, many have been driven to the streets due to poverty, many have been discarded at birth.
There is no dearth of Fagins in this world – they control the huge empire of beggars. They engage children and, do not hesitate to even maim them to earn the sympathy of passersby. Many of them can be seen in temples and religious places and they not just beg but also steal items like purses, handbags, and mobile phones.
During annual Haj, beggars go to Mecca – it seems they earn thousands by begging from pilgrims who go for the holy Haj. The situation in the firecrackers factories in Andhra Pradesh is pathetic – they employ child labor and children as young as five who are known to mix sodium and nitrate with their own hands. Accidents are quite common and the deaths have no effect on the practice of using child labor because it comes cheap. Moreover, full families work together so that they earn a decent sum for survival.
Another section of children go to work as domestic helps – while many of them remain in their own neighborhoods, others venture out to other distant cities. Many of them land in trouble either at their place of work or get hijacked into prostitution. An example is that of a 15-yeat-old girl of Jharkhand – she worked as a domestic help in a Vasant Kunj home and was very badly injured and rescued by a joint team of an NGO and police. The police have arrested a 50-year-old woman who works at a private company in Noida and who had inflicted the injuries. She has been charged with assault and illegal confinement.
And then, of course, there is the rampant sexual exploitation of children – they fall easy prey to the evil minded and are forced into such relationships because of the need to survive. Those who are born on the streets need to have a roof above their heads and what better option than to team up with another person. The relationships are fragile but, so are relationships in the civilized world! It’s all about existence.