Rights body seeks a reality check on TV child stars

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has issues a notice to Labour Secretary on the impact of popular TV shows on performing children vis-à-vis time to study and play, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jun 9, 2008, 22:47:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Reality shows have come under the government scanner for a totally unexpected reason — to find out whether the shows involving children are putting a stress on them, thereby affecting their education.

On this issue, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has issued a notice to Labour Secretary Sudha Pillai asking the ministry to submit a report on the impact of these popular TV shows on performing children vis-à-vis time to study and play. The UN Convention on Child Rights prescribes enough studying and playing time for each child.

Two reality shows mentioned in the notice are Boogie Boogie on Sony and Chak De Bache on 9X, where children perform on stage in front of judges. “Children have been seen performing on vulgar songs on these shows without understanding what is being shown on television,” alleged NCPCR member Sandhya Bajaj.

The labour ministry has also been asked to examine whether the television channels have followed the Child Labour (Prohibition) Act by calling these children to rehearse for long hours and then perform.

Bajaj, in the notice issued on Monday, said that a child who spends a part of a day working does not go to school and therefore, remain uneducated. Therefore, it amounts to violation of child labour laws, she noted.

The labour ministry officials beg to differ. They say that television or entertainment sector is not included in the list of sectors banned for employment of child labour. But, regulations like employment of not more than six hours and adequate facilities at the workplace should be followed by producers of these reality shows, a ministry official told HT. The ministry has so far not received any complaint against television producers for violation of child labour laws.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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