CHILD MORTALITY IN INDIA

India tops the list of highest mortality rate of under –five children in 2011 a new United Nations Global Estimate on child mortality reports.

About 16.55 lakh children below the age of five died in India in 2011 that is 6 times higher than China. China has reported the death of around 2.49 lakh children under the age of five.

In 2011 around 50% of the global under five deaths occurred in five countries - India, Nigeria, Congo, Pakistan and China.

According to the report, though India has made a lot of progress with a 48% decline in death rate its performance was much lower than poorer countries such as Bangladesh, Rwanda, Nepal and Malawi.

While Bangladesh reported decline of 66.9%, Nepal reported a fall of 64.3%. This shows that the total number of under five child deaths was highest in India when compared to neighboring countries. The official sources say that the budget for children has increased manifold since the 1990s, the situation is bad in 200 backward districts regarding child mortality.

Globally the under five-child mortality rate has come down from nearly 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011.

Child Labour In India

Millions of children in today's world undergo the worst forms of child labor which includes Child Slavery, Child prostitution, Child Trafficking, Child Soldiers. In modern era of material and technological advancement, children in almost every country are being callously exploited. The official figure of child laborers world wide is 13 million. But the actual number is much higher. Of the estimated 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 who are economically active, some 50 million to 60 million between the ages of 5 and 11 are engaged in intolerable forms of labor. Among the 10 to 14year-old children the working rate is 41.3 percent in Kenya, 31.4 percent in Senegal, 30.1 percent in Bangladesh, 25.8 percent in Nigeria, 24 percent in Turkey, 17.7 percent in Pakistan, 16.1 percent in Brazil, 14.4 percent in India, 11.6 percent in China.

Some times children are abandoned by their parents or sold to factory owners. The last two decades have seen tremendous growth of export based industries and mass production factories utilizing low technologies. They try to maintain competitive positions through low wages and low labor standards. The child laborers exactly suit their requirements. They use all means to lure the parents into giving their children on pretext of providing education and good life. In India majority of children work in industries, such as cracker making, diamond polishing, glass, brass-ware, carpet weaving, bangle making, lock making and mica cutting to name a few. 15% of the 100,000 children work in the carpet industry of Uttar Pradesh. 70-80% of the 8,000 to 50,000 children work in the glass industry in Ferozabad. In the unorganized sector child labor is paid by piece-by-piece rates that result in even longer hours for very low pay.

Child labor is a global problem. If child labour is to be eradicated, the governments and agencies and those responsible for enforcement need to start doing their jobs. The most important thing is to increase awareness and keep discussing ways and means to check this problem. We have to decide whether we are going to take up the problem head-on and fight it any way we can or leave it to the adults who might not be there when things go out of hand.

Generation gap: who is to be blamed?

There always has been generation gap since the dawn of civilization. Old people act like a frog in the well. They are fully convinced with their ideas as ultimate and ideal. They ignore certain vital factors that are no longer valid in modern days.

Now a days the older people and the younger population complain of generation gap and of breaking down the communication between these twos. But who is to blame? I think both go amiss now and then.

There is a great hue and cry raised by the elders and the young both that the communication between them has broken down and they accuse each other for and bemoan this state of affairs. They attribute it to generation gap. Majority in the society carries along with this moroseness and never pauses to think the why and how of the problem.

The elders are more critical of the younger generation with a big inventory of complaints against the young and the young mostly tend to ignore the grumbling, mumbling and occasional loud protestations of the older generation. But now and then they do protest. They resent the petting attitude of the elders.

It is generally observed that the old behave like a frog in the well. They are fully convinced that the ideas they have had throughout their lives are the ultimate and ideal. They ignore certain vital factors that are no longer valid in the case of the modernity. There always has been generation gap since the dawn of civilization. The young have always deviated from the older standards and it was well that they did or there wouldn’t have been any progress today.

I was once travelling by train. I noticed a gentleman in western dress talking to a small group of co-passengers. He was very critical of the younger generation. He was giving full rein to his criticism condemning point by point everything the young did. As is usual in such situations, his audience was nodding their heads authenticating his criticism. Finding me indifferent to this, he confronted me why I didn’t comment as others did. I politely told him I enjoyed listening to his discourse. But he pressed me to express my opinion, which others hadn’t dared or bothered to do.

I told him after he had verified through catechism my eligibility to contribute to this important discussion that I was also educated and I apologized in advance as I differed from him. The purport of his discourse was that the young should do exactly as the elders do. I asked him with all humility at my command if he followed his own advice to the young. His dress, occasional sprinkling of English vocabulary in his Hindi narrative, for he was educated upto Sahitya Ratan, purely a Hindi degree, his travelling in a train rather than on camel’s back or by a bullock cart and numerous such acts were in total divergence from his ancestors’ way of life.

Only they can save themselves by heeding early warning of the evils of the modern world and life based on their own assessment. The old can still tell them that they in their time faced these travails of transition and suffered now and then. They young should listen to the old but must take their own decisions with discretion and a balanced perspective. The coming generation will be better than each preceding one.

Generation Gap

There was always a conflict going on between the young and the old. This is usually referred to as generation gap. The best thing about the aged is having the experience. They have seen it all. May be this was infuriates the young about their elders. The young are reckless and wish to make their own mistakes and learn from them. When one is young them every thing in life is unlimited-hopes, dream, possibilities, physical energy and most important of all, the time! Yet the young are impatient and do not want to wait for tomorrow.

The aged have only few tomorrow left. Time is not on the side of the older, more experienced. If youth is marked by over confidence, age tends to be over cautious wary. Age has no illusion whereas the young hate to be disillusion. Age and youth seem to be whole apart and there seem to be no meeting ground. But aren’t these two, important facet of life? Each has its own reward to offer. The first forty years of life give us at the text, the thirty supplies the commentary on it. But usually it becomes very difficult for us to strike the balance.

The World today is poised at the brink of the new millennium-ushering out the old ushering in the new these are important time heralding significant changes. The whole mood is upbeat. The slogan is that every thing new, young and fresh is welcome. New ideas, a new look, new clothes etc.

Where does this leave the old? Does all these glitz add to their life and happiness or, on the other hand, it makes them feel even more tired and saddened? Does it sound like music or brings in a fresh whiff of air and color to their world weary eyes and ears? This celebration of youth is not a new thing. It is indeed the golden time of one’s life and the young should be given importance as well as recognition but what is wrong is the commercialization of the youth.

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic.

The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth".Natura was a Latin translation of the Greek word physis, which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord.The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word by pre-socratic philosophers, and has steadily gained currency ever since. This usage was confirmed during the advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries.

Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects–the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which all these things are composed. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness–wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention. For, example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "human nature" or "the whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things which can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human conciousness or a human mind. Depending on the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished from the unnatural, the supernatural, and the artificial.

Life Long Friendship

Friends are special people. We can't pick our family, and we're sorely limited in the number of them at any rate. Society and mores (and often our own conscience) dictate we select a single mate. But our friends can be as diverse and infinite as the adjectives we choose. Our friends, in a very real sense, reflect the choices we make in life.

Poem dedicated friends:                                                                          

Because existence can become severe in one day, just sense me and I'll be there. In the minds eye, I'm not so far away. If you hold out your hand, in the whispers, I'll become the zephyr. and besiege you. If your eye's upon the stars, in the crystalline darkness, I'll become the moon. And the light shall guide you. If you rest upon the ground, in the warmth, I'll become the grass. And embrace you. If you turn outside, in the wetness, I'll become the rain. An upon your forehead, kiss you. If you free the air, in the light of day, I'll become the sun. And smile for you. Between the miles- if you need me. If you need a friend. Let me be the friend, I want to be.