Unseen and Unheard

They generally go unseen and completely go unheard. Sometimes under the flyover or mostly on the pavements, they are exposed to risk 24*7 and yet they continue to live on the streets. They are helpless, poor and most vulnerable part of our society who is forced to live on the streets because they do not have homes to live in. They do not have roofs to cover their heads and therefore are compelled to suffer extreme climatic conditions. They just not lack basic protection but also suffer the neglect by the society and the authorities.

Few months back, Supreme Court had directed the northern Indian states namely Punjab, UP, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh governments to build shelter homes for homeless people before the onset of the winter season. The apex court had also warned the states of harsh consequences in case it fails to do the same. Supreme Court deserves all appreciation for the step taken. Now it is up to the state governments to responsibly follow the directions given as they have got enough time to arrange for such homeless people.

I remind of Subhash Kapoor’s National award winning film ‘Jolly LLB’ which basically focussed on the corruption present in our judicial system but the story revolves around hit and run case and talks about a whole lot of people living on pavements. Jolly played by Actor Arshad Warsi asked in the courtroom that who are these people? Where have they come from? What are they doing in our country? If they are living in our country then they deserve right to justice. Similarly they also deserve ‘Right to shelter’ because they are very much part of our country and the Supreme court had also stressed it by saying it is a fundamental right and therefore being a welfare state it becomes all the more important for government to provide them shelter homes.

I really hope that the government with its ‘Vikas agenda’ will also consider the homelessness of such people and will make sensible policies to end this phenomenon.  

Towards a cleaner India

Source: Google images

According to UNICEF 2014 report, India tops in the list of countries where people defecate in the open, exposing them to the soil and water-borne diseases which is the second biggest cause of death of children under five after respiratory infections. The government had launched ‘clean India’ campaign last year which aims at making India litter and dirt free in the next five years and Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2019. We need to accept that the vast section of our population still prefers to defecate in the open. There are people who carelessly throw garbage in the open streets, litter in the water and there are others who defaced walls and buildings of public property.

There are thousands of slums in India that do not have proper access to toilet and condition is worse in metro cities. Not going too far, the river Ganga is the largest river in India and has lot of religious importance but unfortunately over the years we people have made its condition so dilapidated that even after launching a series of projects, it would still take years to get clean.

Source: Gyangreen.com

People have become habituated doing this for years and to change them, it is very important to trigger change in their behaviour and more so in their habits. Cleanliness is basically a subject of etiquette for which one should have that mindset also. PM Modi’s call for clean India must be appreciated and adopted by each one of us. Community participation along with stringent punishment will do a lot in bringing a desired change. Healthy surroundings will only shape healthy thoughts and it further will shape healthy attitude. Let’s do it to convert this dream a reality and make India a cleaner place to live in!