Why do rainbow-like colors appear on the surface of oil?
When petrol is dropped on the road during a rainy day, a thin layer of oil will
appear on the water surface. Both the top and bottom surfaces of this oil
film can reflect light. If the path difference between two light rays is an
integral times of the wavelength, there will be constructive interference
(Fig .1). A light ray will pass through different thickness of oil when the angle
of reflection varies. The wavelength corresponding to the constructive
interference also differs and this causes the reflected light to have various
colours. As a result, a rainbow-like colour pattern is shown on the oil surface
and this phenomenon is called thin-film interference.
The oil films on the surface of water appear to be coloured due to the
interference of white light reflected from the two surfaces of the film.
Essay on child labour in India – Child labour is a plague in the society
Children are an asset to society. The welfare of the society is closely related
to the welfare of the child. India has the largest workforce of children in
the world. They are made to work as slaves in fields and factories in homes
and in cottage industries. They are deprived of their childhood. Children
are also self-employed as shoeshine, milk boys, rag pickers and rickshaw
pullers. They are overworked and underpaid. They miss the benefits of
education.
The evil of child labour is the product of poverty. Poor parents compel their
children to work in order to supplement the family income. Due to
insufficient education the poor unfortunately have a large number of
children. Poverty and population growth go hand in hand. The beggars are
never worried about their large family because every child becomes an
earning hand at an early age.
Children work in units making beedis or polishing vessels, or matches.
Crackers, rugs, and so on. They are exploited even when they are
employed as domestic helpers. Can you blame their employers? Not really.
A businessman works hard not to help society, but chiefly to make a profit.
In order to cut his costs he employs cheap labour, i.e. children. We cannot
blame the poor also for their helplessness. It is true that the conditions in
which they work is usually terrible. They inhale chemical fumes and metal
dust. Soon they begin to gasp for breath.
Are you wondering why children must work and why they don’t go to
school? Doesn’t the State do something to better their lot? Of course
-engaging children to do a few kinds of dangerous jobs is unlawful. The
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 is there to check the
evil. The Supreme Court judgment of December 10,1986 also addressed
their problem in detail. But the factory-owners prove smarter than any law
of authority. They get their goods made by children in their cottages.
In 2001. Children’s Day fell on Deepawali. November 14. It is a day when
we in India consider ways to promote the rights of children. But all the
plans to improve the lot of poor children exist on paper, Only there was a
campaign to boycott fireworks produced by little children. School children
took out processing’s also asking everybody’s to say no to crackers. But did
such a boycott help the children? The answer is No. A nationwide boycott
of all fire-crackers would only throw children out of job. The Diwali
festivities .went on as usual. How can we really help our tiny tots? The
solution lies in a check on population growth and stricter laws to save
children from torture.
Child labor is a serious blot on our efforts to project India as a dynamic
country on the move. According to International Labor Organization (ILO)
statistics, India has perhaps the largest child labor force in the world, which
is around 16.5 million. Unofficially however the estimate is around 45
million of which around 20 percent are in urban areas and the rest in rural
areas.
In a country where much of the people live below the poverty line, it is
simply not easy to eliminate this social problem. The root of child labor is
always poverty and to some extent ignorance. But it is a stark truth that
without getting into an employment these child labors would starve to
death. Their parents cannot afford to feed them on their own and these
little, children are simply forced to work. To acquire this basic necessity of
life, the family forgets all their sense of morality and sends their children to
work in factories and small scale industries. These children, deprived of the
precious memories of childhood, grow up into ignorant adults with hardly
any type of intellectual gain.
In the past, measures taken by the developed world against the developing
countries to check this social evil hardly had any impact because the
developing countries simply did not bother. The problem continued to
grow. The fact that this social evil is inextricably intertwined with other
common problems such as poverty, female literacy etc. make it a vicious
circle. To eradicate this social evil was laws were made and a national body
was set up against child exploitation. However, the situation worsened.
Article 24 of the Indian constitution dealing with fundamental rights says
‘No child below the age of 18 years shall be employed to work in any
factory or mine or be engaged in any hazardous employment’. But this
provision also remains ideal. The problem of child labor has also started
affecting Indian economy. It is likely to threaten Indian exports. Germany
put pressure on India to stop export of products made by children. United
States also banned Indian exports of products involving child labor.
International labor Rights Funds also accused and threatened India that if
Indian Carpet Industry did not adopt Rugmark label, that guaranteed that
no child labor was used, they have to Indian into line with a boycott like
what was organizes by the child Labor coalition against Bangladesh.
It was then the country decided to take a hard and serious look into the
issue. But to their dismay, the government found that bringing in adequate
legislative measures to curb child labor is easy, but implementing them is
another matter altogether. Education and economic prosperity are the only
solution to fight against this problem. The problem facing the
implementation policy is defining what exactly a hazardous job is and
which kinds of jobs actually exploit children. With modernization and
globalization of the economy, the working conditions have considerably
improved, so the jobs which were considered hazardous yesterday are not
at all hazardous today. Secondly, children are exploited due to many
advantages. They are very cheap. Child laborers are often paid Rs. 3 per
day when an adult takes the minimum wages of Rs. 1,400 per month as per
law. Children never fight for their rights. They are meek and easily
submissive.
At many places child labor has consumed a sinister form. In Mumbai and
Goa sex with children is available as ‘Pleasure-packages’. It is estimated
that 20 percent of the one lakh prostitutes in Mumbai alone are below 18
years of age. In Tamil Nadu Children are employed in the highly hazardous
small scale match and firework factories. Around 30 lakh children work in
the Saree industry in Varanasi. More than 10 lakh children work in brick-
pits stone guarries o the banks of the Ganges. The carpet belt of India
employ about 1.5 lakh and hundreds of children work in bidi-rolling
factories in Tamil Nadu and so on.
The tough step taken by European governments against import of goods
whose manufacture involve child labor has forced the authorities to take
some concrete steps to eradicate child labor. Serious measures are being
taken such as providing education for children is made a topmost priority
and punishment is ensured through legal means to those who violate the
child labor Act. Special attention should be drown towards the plight of
bonded child laborers who are worse than the free child laborers and such
policies should be discouraged in which allowing non-formal education for
two hours or so and then sending the children to work. Full use of mass
communication such as Doordarshan, press, Akashwani etc. should be
made.
However, the task of eradicating child labor is not an impossible one
because European and the other developed countries have eradicated this
evil. The first and foremost task is to create awareness about the
magnitude of the problem and this can be achieved through economic
liberalization.
The Supreme Court in its historic judgment, given on 10 th December, 1996,
ordered the employers to pay Rs.20 thousand to each child-laborer due to
the disobeyance of child-labor law. In its 36 page judgment the court
clearly started that an adult from the family of every child-laborer will be
given a job so that parents will not be compelled to send their child to
work. These measures should be started immediately and children working
in hazardous condition should be given priority.
Children are the flowering buds of the country. They should never be
misused before their maturity. They have the fullest right to enjoy their life.
If children are compelled to be used as labour, will result, demolising of the
society. Utmost care has to be taken to stop child labour in every field like
hotels, industries, household jobs beggering or any other job which employs
child labour, either by enforcement or by persuation.
Even after 62 years of independence from the british rule, the children who
are considered as the futures citizines of the country are not allowed to
enjoy their valuable childhood. A stage in person's life when he has the
fullest right to go by his wishes and transform his dreams and thoughts into
reallity are ruined like any thing.
The intensity of government's approach against the social evil is understood
but it's not bringing out expected results. Today a large number of families
are poverty strucken in India and are giving their least cooperation to make
their children educated. They ignore the importance of their child as a
citizen rather using them as their economic skelton. This backwardness in
the society, if prevailed for a further decade, then surely the dream of our
farmer president Dr. A.P. J. Abdul Kalam to see India a super power by 2020
will remain unacomplished.
It's not just for the sake of his dreams that the social evil has to be removed
but it's also for the sake of little inquisitive kids who are working at such
small age when they are supposed to enjoy their dreams.
What may be actually blamed for the existance of child labour is probably
the poor implementation of laws, greeds of the profit earners of the society
and inadequate attention from the government. The removal of this evil
needs the cooperation of the common people, NGO's, various movement
and social group also so that the future of these children could be secured.
Child labour is an issue which has always been seen as a diabolic evil in the
society. It is a vexed issue, since it is seen to destroy the childhood of many
innocent souls. A childhood which is meant to play, to study and enjoy the
little joys of life is wrecked by the evil of child labour. Child labour is
disquieting not just because of its nature, but because of its target i.e.
children. They are the future human resource of our country and have to
blossom to their full potential by the right inculcation of values, habits and
education.
 India is the largest breeder of child labour, with about 120 million children
toiling in sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, processing, service and
repairs, mining and quarrying, construction, trade and commerce,
transport and as domestic helps. The United Nations as well as our own
Constitution has provisions forbidding child labour. Many industrial
countries have instituted trade embargoes on goods produced by child
labour. In fact, a major US apparel manufacturer GAP pulled out all ‘Made
in India’ garments from its outlets worldwide after reports that its
contractors were employing child labourers.
Child labour has deleterious effects on the physical, mental and social
functioning of a child. Children as young as 8 years are made to work for
long tiring hours in inhuman and ruthless conditions especially in the
crackers and carpet industries in Shivakashi and Mirzapur respectively.
They are paid deliberately depressed wages and are exposed to barbaric
forms of exploitation. Many of them end up being victims of pollution and
ill-ventilation and suffer from chronic respiratory diseases and cancers. In
the cotton spinning factories, they are used as “scavengers”, moving
underneath machinery to pick up loose cotton. If not attentive towards
there work, many kids are also subjected to amputation and corporal
punishment.
Whilst it is normally deemed a truism that child labour is inherently bad,
there are some factors which can’t be ignored. Despite of a plethora of
campaigns mounted against child labour, not much difference has been
made. This is because in the face of extreme poverty and destitute
conditions prevailing in our country, families often have no other
alternative but child labour. Impoverished households with no alternative
sources of income or with meagre earnings often resort to child labour to
meet their emergent needs. Also, in a country like ours, with invisible and
inefficient employment schemes, child labour surfaces even more as
finding work for children is easier than for elders in the family. Also,
children have a high efficiency and gullibility factor which every employer
desires.
In developing countries like India, some don’t perceive child labour in the
bad light. There’s an imbalance between the population and employment
opportunities in our country. As a result, most people are either
unemployed or underpaid. In such grim situations, child labour shares the
pressure with the only breadwinner of the family.
Also, there’s a section of researchers who believe that working in itself be
a learning process, enabling the child to acquire skills of social integration.
It is, therefore, argued by some that the real remedy is not to deprive the
families of essential resources but to make education relevant and
accessible to working children.
Child Labour cannot be treated just as an emotional or ethical issue. It
comes with many indispensable burdens of poverty, decent livelihood and
existence which the poor have to meet. It is easy to say that children
should be provided with a hassle free childhood so that they can grow to
their full potential. But for a child born in a poor Indian household,
childhood is about surviving. Because in a country like ours, where
governments have been incapable of imparting people minimum incomes
and basic amenities of life, child labour is inevitable. Until and unless
families have a comfortable income to live a dignified life, child labour will
continue to be a necessary evil for them. Thus, we can’t put a blanket ban
on Child Labour until we exterminate its root cause of poverty.
However, the youth, by virtue of noble campaigns like Teach India and
Indian Literacy Mission’s ‘Each one Teach one’, can definitely make a
difference in the lives of such children. The youth can help in augmenting
child as well as adult illiteracy by voluntary teaching assignments. This will
not only help in educating the unprivileged children, but also protect them
from exploitation by enlightening them about their rights. Harping over the
governments or berating them about what has not been done would only
spoil time. Instead, we should focus on what should and can be done to
give all these children a better tomorrow. After all, a single drop makes an
ocean; a single effort makes a movement.