Sachin=GOD Posted October 12, 2014 Posted October 12, 2014 A lot of it' date=' at least.[/quote'] Up till now it looks like she has not done enough work to deserve a Noble Prize and that's what people (including me) have pointed out. That's not a case of envy according to me.
yoda Posted October 13, 2014 Posted October 13, 2014 She is too young to deserve the Nobel. If she continues her cause for 20-30 years, yea sure. That said, she surely is an inspiration. You only have to listen to her speech once to be impressed.
Mariyam Posted October 13, 2014 Posted October 13, 2014 It was better if Noble Prizes were limited to science and medicine. Currently it is used by west to dictate rest of the world to say what is good and who is good. Why not for literature?
Mariyam Posted October 13, 2014 Posted October 13, 2014 All that the Forbes article states is that he hasn't saved every child there is to save, and some purely anecdotal rant that he exaggerates numbers. In the end, the author admits that he has done good work, but is a flawed hero. Sure, he is flawed. So were Gandhi, Mandela, MLK Jr., George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and every other person who did good. This time, the Nobel Peace Prize committee got it right - after giving the prize to sham Arafat-Rabin-Peres, Obama etc. Arafat, Rabin, Obama etc were/are household names. Thing here is, most of us hadn't heard of even Kailash Satyarthi till he was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize. We simply had no idea. Or at least I didn't. Just goes on to show, that the comittee awarding the prizes does some kind of ground level research on the nominees and just doesn't simply base their opinion on the news/lies in the local media and/or the hype surrounding a personality. Makes me view the committe with that much more respect.
Crookbond Posted October 13, 2014 Posted October 13, 2014 Up till now it looks like she has not done enough work to deserve a Noble Prize and that's what people (including me) have pointed out. That's not a case of envy according to me. I wasn't talking about Indians.
Raghav_12 Posted October 13, 2014 Posted October 13, 2014 Why not for literature? I didn't have in mind that Nobels are given for Literature as well while making that comment so I didn't comment on whether Nobel should be given or should not be given for literature.
vvvslaxman Posted October 13, 2014 Posted October 13, 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghabahree/2014/10/10/my-experience-with-kailash-satyarthis-bachpan-bachao-andolan-was-anything-but-nobel-worthy/ What a shi%#y article
surajmal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 All that the Forbes article states is that he hasn't saved every child there is to save, and some purely anecdotal rant that he exaggerates numbers. In the end, the author admits that he has done good work, but is a flawed hero. Sure, he is flawed. So were Gandhi, Mandela, MLK Jr., George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and every other person who did good. This time, the Nobel Peace Prize committee got it right - after giving the prize to sham Arafat-Rabin-Peres, Obama etc. Piss prize is a strictly political award. GD award committee is filled with Norwegian MPs. If Child Labor disturbed the the goras' psyche that much, Brazilian bureaucracy should have been the rightful recipient of the award In Brazil in order to convince parents to send their children to school instead of work, the government pays families $4.50 per child a month. Currently, there are more than 1 million participants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_march_against_child_labor Swapan Dasgupta puts my thoughts forward far more eloquently Whether it is the Nobel Prize for literature or the local Rotary Club’s recognition of local distinction, all awards are governed by subjective preferences. Indeed, the honours lists often tell us more about the preferences and priorities of the award-givers than the achievements of the award-winners. The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded by a committee of Norwegian politicians, is no exception. Like the now-extinct Lenin Peace Prize or even our own Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace and what-not, its choice is out-and-out political and reflects the world as seen through the eyes of a Scandinavian country that now sees itself as a moral force for the good. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in the first year of his presidency, even before he had time to leave any mark on global affairs. The reason lay not in any tangible achievement but to the unspoken celebration of the first black man to occupy the White House. Mahatma Gandhi didn’t win any Peace Prize because Scandinavian opinion of the times regarded him as a subversive crank. But times have changed and Norwegians assess their own relevance these days in a different way. I am sure that they may even have awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to a Sri Lankan President and the LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran had Colombo been foolish enough to concede Eelam as the price of peace. Certainly, the Norwegian mediators tried very hard to push for a line of least resistance. To point a finger at the implicit political dimension of the Nobel award that was announced last Friday afternoon doesn’t amount to belittling the contribution of either our very own Kailash Satyarthi or the Pakistan-born, Birmingham-based Malala Yousafzai. Through his Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Satyarthi has liberated thousands from the indignity and drudgery of child labour. By incessantly drawing attention to the evils of child labour, he has helped in drawing attention to a social evil. He has played a part in restoring an iota of childhood to many who were victims of both poverty and callousness. Malala’s own contribution to combating extreme religious bigotry within Pakistan may have been nominal. However, in her determination to receive an education — otherwise denied to women in parts of the world — she has been an inspiration to many. Through her book and speaking tours she has, in effect, become a force challenging the radicalisation of impressionable Muslims living in the West. Both Satyarthi and Malala are inspirational figures battling for noble causes. However, they didn’t receive the Nobel Peace Prize because of their good works. The choice of the Norwegian Parliament was dictated by other considerations, not all of which are flattering to India. For a start, there was the spurious equivalence drawn between Satyarthi and Malala by individuals for whom the “Third World” is one, big amorphous mass. “It is an important point”, declaimed the Nobel Committee, “for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle…” Yes, Satyarthi is a Hindu and Malala is a Muslim. But pray what has Satyarthy’s religion got to do with his crusade to restore the delights of childhood to those who have been prematurely exposed to the darker side of the market economy? Maybe there is an anti-theological underpinning to Malala’s feisty opposition to bigotry. To club the two, however, seems woefully contrived unless it was the Nobel Committee’s desire to expose the inherent barbarism of those outside the pale of Judaeo-Christian civilisation. If the Nobel Committee reflects on its rationalisation of the award, it may realise that many in the subcontinent would find it deeply offensive. The contrived India-Pakistan hyphenation brings with it a huge baggage of stereotypes, some innocent and others less so. The Talibanisation of a large part of the Islamic world has created a serious image problem for countries such as Pakistan. As a symbol against perverse theocracy, Malala is important. But where does Satyarthi fit in? The answer is: awkwardly. For the more calculating West — and I am not suggesting that the Norwegian Parliament is part of it — India occupies a grey zone. At one level, it has demonstrated its tremendous receptivity to modern science and technology — the very cost-efficient Mars Mission was a shining example. At the same time, there are patches of India where modernity is still a long distance away. In particular, India’s cheap labour costs are an unending source of concern to a West that is has lost its manufacturing edge. One way out for the West is to adjust lifetstyles and standards of living to more realistic levels. But since that is politically unacceptable, the temptation to create non-tariff barriers for products emanating in countries such as India has proved irresistible. Satyarthi is battling against child labour as a legitimate human rights issue. Most of enlightened India supports initiatives like the Bachpan Bachao Andolan. For Western activists, however, the child labour issue is a useful handle to tar the Made in India label. The idea is to either black out Indian goods on grounds of unethical practices such as environmental degradation and dodgy labour practices or, at least, to raise the cost of production by adding to the levels of certification. It is unduly simplistic to believe that there is a specific anti-Indian agenda. India has become an object of wariness partly because it has all the potential (and often shows the signs) of emerging as another variant of China. Bringing it down a notch or two by symbolically appropriating one man’s selfless agenda is clever politics. What Indians are celebrating as global recognition may well turn out to be a booster dose of Western condescension.
surajmal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 The gate keepers have managed to trivialize the Indo-pak conflict, conflate child labour with evils of Hinduism and equate that with Jahiliat of Islam : all with one award.
surajmal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 I don't mean to come off as an exhibition of crab mentality. If the guy saved even one child, that would be one more than myself. So kudos to him helping all these kids. BUT, considering his laundry list of awards, there is more here than just altruism. More, according to him, he has saved 80000 kids over several decades. I bet last year alone, in India, there were more kids born who would be entering the workforce at some point before or during their pre teen years. So the problem isn't solved. And it won't be solved. Just like poverty won't be solved. India has a got a resource problem. No amount of moral grandstanding is going to help in alleviating its consequences.
Raghav_12 Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 Anybody has contacts of this Kailash guy's organizations. I raised my objections with one of the firm in Chennai against rampant use of child labour but they don't seem to be caring about my objection. I guess this guy's organization can help.
FischerTal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 One of the biggest areas of child labour are children of domestic servant
surajmal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 One of the biggest areas of child labour are children of domestic servant From what I've seen, a lot of times, it is the mother of those kids who brings them along. It allows her/them to do more houses. So are you going to deny that woman another few hundred to a thousand or more rupees a month just so it puts your mind at ease?
surajmal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 Nobel Winner Satyarthi’s Ardha Satya Sorry Mr Satyarthi, you are wrong. Poverty is the root cause of child labour In his first set of interviews after winning the Nobel Peace Prize along with Malala Yousafzai, child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi has claimed that poverty is not the cause of child labour; it was actually the other way around – child labour causes poverty. This is not a giddy-headed off-the-cuff statement made in the excitement of winning the world’s most prestigious award. This is a considered position Satyarthi has held for a long time now. But it needs to be questioned now, because in India the conferring of any foreign award means that a person’s words will go unchallenged. And this is the Nobel, no less, so there is danger that this statement will become gospel truth. At one level, it’s easy to understand why Satyarthi takes this position. Saying that poverty is the root cause of child labour could lead to a resigned acceptance of the situation – what can anyone do when there is so much poverty around? And since poverty will always be around, the problem of child labour will be shrugged off as an inevitable irritant. Reversing the argument confronts this complacency (as it should be) and questions any kind of justification of child labour. But it is one thing to put this statement out as a rhetorical device, quite another to let it become an accepted fact. If, as Satyarthi asserts, accepting the line that poverty drives child labour will dilute the fight against the scourge, then refusing to acknowledge this will also make the fight completely meaningless. What else but benumbing poverty could push people into putting their child to work, often in inhuman conditions? Yes, there is the issue of illiteracy and lack of awareness, especially about the importance of education, but underlying all this is the economic circumstances of the family. That is why laws like the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act (CLP&R), 1986 and the Right to Education Act (which insists that children must be sent to school and is often touted as a powerful instrument against child labour) and policing have made only minor dents in the problem. (There are several loopholes in the CLP&R Act, but that is another huge issue altogether). That is why there is a fairly high incidence of children rescued in anti-child labour drives relapsing into child labour situations. This is only partly because there are no schools available for them to go to (sending rescued children to school is part of the rehabilitation effort) or that the quality of education in government schools is pathetic. Most parents of child workers are illiterate and uneducated, they will not be able to judge the quality of education. They send their children back to work because they need the money. Anti-child labour activists often encounter hostility from parents themselves and confess that they are a big hindrance to addressing the problem. Satyarthi is right that child labour perpetuates poverty and illiteracy. When parents see the economic value of child labour being more than the economic value of education, they will send children to work instead of school. So the vicious cycle never ends. But parents will understand the economic value of education only when they themselves are in jobs and their circumstances improve. Parents are not genetically programmed to exploit their children. Between 1991 and 2001, child labour (children in the 5-14 years age group) actually increased – from 11.2 million to 12.6 million. But in 2011, the numbers fell drastically to 4.3 million. These are official Census figures and could be understating the problem hugely (unofficial estimates say India has 60 million child labourers). Even keeping that caveat in mind, could this drastic fall between 2001 and 2011 not have anything at all to do with the decade seeing several years of high growth and a significant reduction in poverty? Poverty fell by 0.74 percentage points between 1993-94 and 2004-05 and by 2.18 percentage points between 2004-05 and 2011-12, according to the Suresh Tendulkar formula. The absolute number of poor has also been falling since 2004-05. Awareness and vigilance has increased and policing may have improved during this period as well, but can we honestly say there is no link at all between all these numbers? Does this mean that growth and poverty reduction alone will eliminate, or drastically reduce, child labour? Obviously not. The number of children who are working, especially in hazardous occupations, is still uncomfortably large. In a paper, Why does child labour persist with declining poverty, published by the National Centre for Econometric Research, Australia, Jayant Sarkar and Dipanwita Sarkar note the persistence of child labour in many developing countries despite rising income. There are far too many inter-related issues, especially relating to education and health, which need to be tackled and bans, they argue, can sometimes prove counterproductive. But the bedrock of all this has to be high growth – growth that generates jobs for adults in a family, that brings down poverty further, that generates resources for the government to finance physical and social infrastructure. Once he is done with congratulating Satyarthi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to get down to putting the economy back in shape, making a decisive break from the UPA style policies that his government has not entirely jettisoned. Certainly, legislative and policing measures must continue and loopholes plugged. But without addressing the basic economic causes of child labour – grinding poverty and unemployment–these will not be successful. http://swarajyamag.com/economy/nobel-winner-satyarthis-ardha-satya-2/ India truly is a crab bucket. :winky:
FischerTal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 From what I've seen' date=' a lot of times, it is the mother of those kids who brings them along. It allows her/them to do more houses. So are you going to deny that woman another few hundred to a thousand or more rupees a month just so it puts your mind at ease?[/quote'] is the child getting any skill-based education? otherwise all that will happen is in the future the child will be bringing along her own child to earn some extra money. with due respect, its easy for us to say that it will allow them to earn more money but should short term gains be justified for a non-ending status quo?
surajmal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 is the child getting any skill-based education? otherwise all that will happen is in the future the child will be bringing along her own child to earn some extra money. In the current environment, is there a guarantee that any skill based education will lead to a skill based job? with due respect, its easy for us to say that it will allow them to earn more money but should short term gains be justified for a non ending status quo? I think we ought to leave that to the parents of those kids. Atleast, that is how it still works in India: Parents supersede the state in matters of their children.
Sachin=GOD Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 Anybody has contacts of this Kailash guy's organizations. I raised my objections with one of the firm in Chennai against rampant use of child labour but they don't seem to be caring about my objection. I guess this guy's organization can help. http://www.kailashsatyarthi.net/contact/ http://bba.org.in/?q=content/contact-us - this is the website of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan You can also contact him on twitter I guess. He has a verified account.
FischerTal Posted October 14, 2014 Posted October 14, 2014 In the current environment, is there a guarantee that any skill based education will lead to a skill based job? I think we ought to leave that to the parents of those kids. Atleast, that is how it still works in India: Parents supersede the state in matters of their children. of course not. one of the biggest failures of congress was turning india into a service based economy and completely shying away from pushing steadfast into manufacturing like China. Hopefully modi is able to achieve this but it is a tough task. parents know best for their kids, i agree with that, but here options are limited for parents. its not like the west or even rich kids in india where my parents can choose for me to go to college or just start working in a family business. there is just one option and that IMO is what government has to change. broaden the range of options for children of poor families.
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