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Indian children work despite ban

Byoliveridley

When I mentioned India’s child labor ban last year, I had many obvious questions about the implementation. One year on, this BBC report highlights on findings by Save the Children that the ban has not had much effect.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian children work despite ban

A year after India banned children under 14 from working as domestic servants or in food stalls, millions continue to be employed, a study says.

The study released by Save the Children says these children are routinely subjected to different forms of abuse and a lot still needs of be done.

Many of the child workers are denied food, and are beaten up, burnt or sexually abused, the study says.

According to official estimates, India has more than 12 million child workers.

Of these, about 200,000 are estimated to be working as domestic servants and in teashops, restaurants, spas, hotels, resorts and other recreational centres – the areas from where they were banned last year.

Well, one can’t legislate away decades of a widespread and prevalent practice with one law. This law was always going to be a beginning, a marker that improving social and economic conditions will eventually catch up to (one hopes). So, color me as not surprised at all. The point is to label something as legally unacceptable, work towards making it socially unacceptable, then finally, unnecessary.

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    India Rejects Obvious Patents

    Byoliveridley

    Would have been my headline. Apparently, the New York Times byline writer was more concerned about a multi billion dollar company losing a small amount of money than the fact that a different ruling in this case would have made life saving drugs unaffordable for millions of people. When did American newspapers become shills for the elite?

    Setback for Novartis in India Over Drug Patent – New York Times

    Indian companies will be free to continue making less expensive generic drugs, much of which flow to the developing world, after a court rejected a challenge to the patent law on Monday.

    Aid organizations declared the ruling a victory for the “rights of patients over patents,” but the Swiss drug company Novartis, which filed the case, warned that the ruling would discourage investments in innovation and would undermine drug companies’ efforts to improve their products.

    At issue is the degree of innovation required for a drug to be regarded as truly “new”, where there is a significant enough chance for failure that the company would never develop it unless afforded monopoly rights for 10 years. A very well known tactic by drug companies is to make a slightly different formulation of an existing drug, say an extended release form of a drug which takes a little longer to dissolve, and hence is available to the body at a different time. Under US patent law, this qualifies for full patent protection on the extended release form. By now, the science of making an extended release tablet is well known, it’s just a question of formulating the drug with a different set of inactive ingredients that take longer to dissolve, or sometimes, through a differently engineered tablet. The chemistry of this change is predictable, published and not really innovative. Why should these small changes have patent protection?

    Bonus Note: Madras is my home city, so I’m glad it was decided there!

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  • Tehelka Stings Hindu fundamentalists

    Byoliveridley

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    Big news out of India in the last few days. Tehelka has posted plenty of video of what they say are the results of a six month operation investigating the Gujarat riots of 2002, in which an estimated 2000 people, mostly Muslims were killed. The state government led by Narendra Modi of the BJP looked the other way for the most part and was accused of inciting, even planning the violence.

    These videos are hidden camera interviews with people in the VIshwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and various other Hindu fundamentalist and extremist groups that do they BJP’s dirty work. They tell the story that the government had more than a passive hand in the riots. Not that this was not obvious to anyone with even a little bit of familiarity with goings on in Gujarat, but it is good to have all this information catalogued on YouTube in all its gory detail.

    Pass the Roti has more on this story…

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    Tuesdays With Turtles – Hometown Edition

    Byoliveridley

    I grew up in Chennai and worked with the Students’ Sea Turtle Conservation Network in the mid ’90s. It’s nice to see an article on them in the city’s biggest newspaper.

    The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Olive Ridley hatchlings go home

    CHENNAI: Scores of newborn Olive Ridley turtles entered their natural habitat — the sea — under the watchful eyes of conservationists at Elliots Beach, Besant Nagar, here early on Sunday. Conservationists said nearly 75 eggs hatched on Sunday alone and most of the young ones were safely released into the waters. But about 25 eggs reportedly did not hatch and some were stillborn. Volunteers of the Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN) annually collect Olive Ridley turtle eggs from the Besant Nagar coastline upto Neelankarai, a fishing village beyond Tiruvanmiyur. The eggs are then taken to a hatchery at Oorurkuppam, a fishing village located behind the Theosophical Society premises. It takes 45 days for the young ones to hatch.

    In Chennai, and most of South India, the adult sea turtles are not poached, only the eggs. Also, it is not possible to just secure the nest with “do not poach” notice! So the eggs need to be relocated to a hatchery where they’re re-buried. For more on sea turtle “management” in India, I would suggest visiting Kartik Shanker’s excellent website.

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    What can the U.S learn from homeopathy?

    Byoliveridley

    Homeopathy was all around me growing up in India, so I read this article with interest as it jogged many memories of visiting the family homeopath with my parents.

    Faith Healing with Homeopathy — In These Times

    Homeopathy rests on three unproven tenets: First, “Like treats like.” Because arsenic causes shortness of breath, for example, homeopaths prescribe its “spirit” to treat diseases such as asthma. Second, the arsenic or other active ingredient is diluted in water and then that dilution is diluted again and so on, dozens of times, guaranteeing—for better and worse—that even if the dose has no therapeutic value, it does no harm. And third, the potion is shaken vigorously so that it retains a “memory” of the allegedly curative ingredient, a spirit-like essence that revives the body’s “vital force.”

    Fooey, the description of the science is hilariously pseudoscientific, but homeopathy is no laughing matter in India. It is estimated to be a Rs. 250 Crore (that is 2.5 billion rupees or about $58 million) industry as of 2002-2003.  I do not think this includes doctors and clinics. This website lists 158 colleges in India offering the  valid (it is like an MD!) degree of Bachelor of Homeopathic Medicine and Surgery, or BHMS. My parents swear by it, most of my family living in India has either visited, or regularly visit one. It is hugely popular for hepatitis and liver disease, more so than conventional medicine in India.

    What’s the deal? Why is it so popular? I think Terry Allen is on the right track, this sentence here, buried in the middle, hits the nail on the head…

    Part of the effect comes from the ritual of consultation with a practitioner who treats the patient like a person rather than a body part on an assembly line.

    Allen does not quite grasp the significance of this sentence and tracks away into placebo effects and evil pharma. But here’s the deal: A lot of Indians (who can afford $4-$5 consultation fee) visit their homeopath every month. When I tagged along with my parents, we would go on a Sunday afternoon at 2 PM to this homeopath’s office, which was a wing of his house (a big house, I might add!). It was a relaxed and leisurely time, he spent 10-15 minutes with each of us (yes, my parents made me!) talking about the previous month, what we were up to, how stressed we’d been, how our ailments from the previous month were doing, had we noticed any changes to our health over the month, etc. We would be interrupted occasionally by his little kid, or his assistant relaying a message from his wife, it was as far removed from a doctor’s visit as possible. And yes, he would take your blood pressure, run simple blood tests, etc. At the end of it, he would give you little sugar pills/sugar coated powder formulations to take home. The formulations were individually dosed, it was all categorized and labeled for you.

    This is like having a mini physical every month. Surely, just the act of talking to someone made you feel better, the act of ritually opening up little packets of “medicine” and following detailed instructions for 5 days helped, surely the homely and relaxing atmosphere of visiting a family friend helped, I don’t know.

    Metrics? both my parents occasionally had their hypertension treated with homeopathy. This worked as long as they were borderline, and simple stress management would get the numbers down. This doctor was/is very good at stress management because he talked calmly, yet firmly, he would listen and tease their little everyday stressors out of them and that was probably good for a 10 point reduction. But I remember the homeopath sending mom off to a doctor for a more conventional treatment regimen as soon as she hit 160.

    It never ever worked for me because I was way too sceptical to buy into the process, so I would not listen, or relax enough to talk. I would take my pills, but it would make absolutely no difference whatsoever. Of course, he was trying to treat me for severe sinus related issues probably brought on by pollution, and by sleepless nights spent on a beach looking for turtles!

    I am sure that for every good homeopath, there were two bad ones who just handed out pills of sugar. But my parents’ homeopath was, and continues to be part Dr. Phil, part candyman, part cheerleader!

    Homeopathy probably “works” because it makes people take the time to think about their life and what’s ailing them. It’s a lesson that American primary care providers could do well to learn.

  • Terrorism in Bangalore and Ahmedabad

    Byoliveridley

    For the second time in two days, small explosions rocked an Indian city, this time in Ahmedabad on Saturday evening, killing at least 29 people. The Indian government said cities across the country had been put on alert for similar attacks.

    At Least 29 People Killed in Explosions in Indian City – NYTimes.com

    It’s sad, and clearly a deliberate attempt to frighten people and politicians into extremism. After all, nothing like escalating the tension and provoking the BJP government into an over-reaction. It did work before in Gujarat. And on the 25th anniversary of the Anti Tamil Pogroms in Sri Lanka, a frightening reminder that in general, state sponsored retribution acts as a force multiplier of huge proportions. Terrorist groups know this, and as anyone American or otherwise knows, 9/11 worked as the perfect force multiplier to get the Americans to widen the conflict and add more fuel to the fire.

    It’s burning well now. The last few terrorists attacks in India have not resulted in escalation of violence. But how much longer can this situation last? Things are crazy and lawless on the Durand Line and though not as well known, Bangladesh is another safe haven for “insurgents”.

    India is surrounded by turmoil and it is a testament to the resilience of the population that life goes on without much fear.

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    Climate Change Adaptation

    Byoliveridley

    I read a peripherally related blog post on a book about experiencing local climate change and that set me thinking a bit.

    One of the book’s biggest ideas is simply to emphasize what Seidl calls “true-to-life actions” (p.82), actions that discourage one’s habit of living without engagement with the people and the nonhuman around us, individually and in communities

    I like this sentiment a lot, and agree wholeheartedly. The book (I haven’t read it) appears to talk about local ecosystem adaptation, which got me thinking about adaptation in general. When we talk about climate change adaptation, we need to be very specific on who/what can/will adapt, and what community engagement will entail. Of course, I believe mitigation, or minimisng the causes comes first, but this post is primarily about adaptation.

    Species will adapt, so will ecosystems, and so will many humans. The Earth will, as well. It will just be a different world. Those of us living in affluent countries will feel the pain peripherally and will have enough buffer to change our ways of life. Some of us may even find ways to profit.

    Now some investors are taking another approach. Working under the assumption that climate change is inevitable, they’re investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter. Their strategies include buying water treatment companies, brokering deals for Australian farmland…

    Climate Change Vulnerability by region: White means low vulnerability (Ha!) – via http://www.careclimatechange.org/

    Adaptation is not a choice for the majority of humans on this planet that live in poor, coastal and vulnerable areas. They do not have the money to adapt, the effects on their ecosystems are bigger and faster, and we will not let them move to safer countries like Canada. They will lose land, resource, and when they have to fight to survive, their wars will be treated as caused by their virtue or ethnicity rather than being caused by our past and present consumption. Much of the resources that could mitigate effects may already be controlled by those who can profit from the resources. 

    Humans will have to adapt, and use any and all strategies, but there’s no “we” in climate change adaptation, there’s the vulnerable and the not-so vulnerable. So, it is insufficient to only think locally. We aren’t the first humans who will be forced to move because of abrupt climate change. But those needing to move this time will face closed borders and hostile states. We have seen time and again, resource stress increases racism and xenophobia, and decreases trust.

    What can affluent states do? For starters.

    1. Decarbonize. WIth intention, haste and unilaterally. 
    2. Help less affluent countries increase wealth, quickly.
    3. Help less affluent countries decarbonize, if less quickly because 2 is more important.
    4. Think long and hard about their borders, because current projections call for millions of environmental migrants.

    We are, of course seeing the opposite. Carbon infrastructure in US and Canada is being expanded. Resources in less affluent countries are being developed for the use of the affluent (not always from affluent states). Trade wars being fought to protect affluent interests over cheap expansion of non-carbon infrastructure. Of course, race-based immigration policy, while not officially stated as such any more, is still operational.

    We have a long way to go as a species to help everyone adapt to climate change. Humans are generally in a better place to take the necessary steps than we’ve been in the past, but the work should have started 20 years ago.

     

One Comment

  1. I am afraid there are some socio-economic leverages at work behind the scene which will prove your optimism unjustified. Your post of last year raised a number of questions which were pretty much on point then, and are still relevant today: “who will enforce? will they selectively enforce? Will this be just another extortion excuse? Will people complain if they see any child labor in their local tea shop? What will poor parents make their kids do to earn extra income for the family?”

    Merely labeling something as unacceptable does not work in a two-step process like to suggest: “making it socially unacceptable, then finally, unnecessary”. I think it does, indeed, issue a clear message to the citizens that child labor is unacceptable. But what follows this clear message is not invariably behavioral change, which makes the law unnecessary.

    Take homosexuality for example: Some believe it to be illegal, relying on section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. I do not intend to give legal advice on whether or not Indian law criminalizes homosexuality per se, but it is clear that even though a “clear message” is sent to the citizens, it will not have the effect of modifying significantly behavior. Rather, it will render the object of the law more taboo, and modify social codes and conventions as a consequence. Then, insofar as the “necessity” of the law is concerned, I believe that the “clear message” conveyed by the law contains some highly moral content (like the interdiction to kill somebody for example). Whatever behavioral change is achieved by the effect of the law, I think the law should remain provided its moral content is just.

    Bruno Héroux
    http://www.deactivate.wordpress.com

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