Cabinet okays panel for child rights

After a four-year gestation, Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi’s proposal for setting up a National Commission for Children (NCC),...

After a four-year gestation, Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi’s proposal for setting up a National Commission for Children (NCC), to defend the rights of the child in the country, was finally approved by the Union Cabinet on April 23.

‘‘The Bill will be certainly placed before Parliament in the Monsoon Session, if not before that. We expect the Commission to give protection to our children and act as an independent ombudsman for them,’’ Joshi said.

PM doesn’t spare Joshi, not even at HRD event

NEW DELHI: Who says the PM has a knee-problem? At an HRD Ministry-sponsored award function for non-Hindi speaking writers of Hindi literature on Wednesday, A.B. Vajpayee had to get up from his chair 36 times. Thirty-five times to give the awards and once for delivering the valedictory speech. So in his speech, at the end of the rather strenuous ceremony at his 7, Race Course Road residence, he did not fail to underline the ‘‘implication of the exercise’’ which he undertook at the behest of HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. ‘‘The time allotted to me, I think, I utilised quite well. And my strength was spent in the uthak-baithak that I was made to do,’’ Vajpayee said. Sometimes, he said, he found it difficult to fathom what is being written in Hindi literature today. However, the PM openly contradicted Joshi on the issue. In his speech, Joshi had taken a dig at the English language by saying it cannot reflect Indian sentiment. Giving an instance, what he called an ‘‘alien English idiom’’ ‘raining cats and gods’, Joshi said languages are rooted in their geography and culture. Turning to Joshi, the PM said: ‘‘I am not against English because it rains cats and dogs, but because it is spreading faster and wider than our own languages.
(Santwana Bhattacharya)

Sources in the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD) said the proposal got the Cabinet’s approval despite reservations from the Finance Ministry on the need for setting up another Commission when three others existed. The Finance Ministry instead advised DWCD to add a wing to the National Commission for Women to look after child rights.

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But the proposal had Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s full backing and hence was approved. Once cleared by Parliament, the National Commission for Children would be a statutory body protecting children’s rights, looking into cases of abuse, trafficking and forced/bonded child labour.

‘‘India will be the second country in Asia to have a National Commission for Children, Philippines being the other. It will investigate and examine all matters relating to the safeguards provided under the existing laws and also take suo motu action,’’ Joshi announced.

The six-member Commission will have experts from the field of child health, education, child care and development, juvenile justice, child disability and psychology, apart from being chaired by either a sitting or retired judge.

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