Slumdog Success Brings Focus on Child Poverty

Re: # 5
VRV...
Mumbai houses the biggest slum and that is dharavi. Delhi and Calcutta slums are comaparable too...Most of it is due to migrant workers and lack of space. I don't think finance to improve the conditions of slum is big problem and people living in slums (all) are very poor. It is more of space constrain, that makes these people live in such condition....

Re: # 9

Madiha,
I agree with your observations.

Education can help lift people out of poverty.

As you say in your comments, many of the parents of the poor children (either) can not (or do not feel the need) to send their children to schools. The children either work or beg for food. It's important for the government as well as non-govt organizations in poor nations to provide the very basic incentives and opportunities to bring such children to schools. A few years ago during my visit to India, I heard of a government program that gave the parents a couple of kilos of wheat flour that increased primary school enrollment in UP. There is a need to have more such programs to create a brighter future for poor children, their parents and the nations in South Asia.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

http://ishare.rediff.com/filevideo-Azhar-on-the-Oscars-id-579970.php

To see the real face of poverty in some parts of Bombay which is other known as the city of gold where the child-actor Azhar lives soon after his arrival from Oscars.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India-tops-world-hunger-chart/articleshow/4 197047.cms

NEW DELHI: India is failing its rural poor with 230 million people being undernourished — the highest for any country in the world. Malnutrition accounts for nearly 50% of child deaths in India as every third adult (aged 15-49 years) is reported to be thin (BMI less than 18.5).

The same main page of Times of India.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Slumpdog-millionaires-IIM-C-grads-g et-Rs-1cr-jobs/articleshow/4198136.cms

The Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta which wrapped up the first round of placements this week saw three students accept pre-placement offers (PPO) of over Rs 1 crore each from investment banks that were made when those institutions were still flush with funds. At the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business too, some Rs 1-crore offers had flown in.

At IIM-C, ``Barclays Capital offered US $2,00,000 (Rs 1 crore) salary per annum to each of the three students who spent their last summer with that bank. They will go on and join the bank as associates in their London office,'' said a source in the placement committee.

&

A few days b4 an article detailing the planned manned space mission in 2013-14 (worth 12K+ crores).

THE QUESTION IS whose burden is it to eradicate poverty? Is it the state govts of Union govts? Perhaps it's nobody's child.

The best way to eradicate poverty is to eradicate illiteracy. And the best solution to the hopelessness and aimlessness that governs the lives of slum residents is giving their children the opportunity to break out of the vicious cycle of poverty, through education. A majority of children inducted into some of Karachi's most notorious madressahs come from slums. These children's parents have no resources to put them into real schools, only in madressahs, which feed and clothe them and in turn, brainwash them.

An NGO that is actually doing some great work in education (in Pakistan) is The Citizens Foundation. They've built 530 schools in some of the most neglected slums and rural villages of the country, including the NWFP region. The best thing about these schools is that they aren't just under-funded shacks with little facilities that mark a quality education, but real, modern schools with playgrounds, airy classrooms, libraries, computer labs and amenities like toilets and clean water.

TCF's kids from their school in Machar Colony, Karachi, recently made some beautiful drawings for the newspaper DAWN's web site. Check them out at www.tcfusa.org/blog.

nb, what makes a film british, indian or maori? was bollywood ever "indian"?

When there is hopelessness due to recession, people look for some story of hope, and that is slum dog millinaire. Simple as that.

Carnival greets AR Rahman at Chennai
26 Feb 2009, 0929 hrs IST, Times Now
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CHENNAI: Music maestro A R Rahman, the first Indian to win two Oscars, returned to his home city — Chennai to a rousing welcome by his fans and
Rahman returns with Oscars
A R Rahman arrives in Chennai after winning two Oscars. (AP Photo)
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friends in the wee hours of Thursday (February 26). ( Watch )

The 43-year-old musician, who won the Oscars for Best Original Music and Best Song for his compositions in "Slumdog Millionaire" at the 81st Academy Awards, arrived in Chennai from Dubai by an Emirates Airways flight at around 2.30 am.

A large number of people, who waited at the airport for the 'Mozart of Madras', cheered him up as he emerged out of the international terminal to the beats of drum specialist Sivamani and his troupe.

Kerala's "Kottu Melam" (percussion instrument) artists gave a performance on behalf of the Indian Airlines.

On behalf of the state government, Tamil Nadu information minister Parithi Ilamvazhuthi received Rahman with a bouquet at the airport terminal.

A visibly happy Rahman waved at the crowd acknowledging their support before leaving for his home.

After reaching his home town, the music genius spoke exclusively to times Now and expressed joy and said that there were more things to come, this is just the beginning for him.

It's not just child poverty but poverty in general. There's no serious study of slums in India, esp Bombay slums. Poverty alleviation if diff from cleaner neighbourhoods. They just dont clean-up slums on daily basis.

SDM's success and the publicity it's getting would influence the slum kinds in India and abroad to a gr8 extent.

Slums produce many gangsters and criminals coz lack of decent life pushes them to crime for easy money. Now we have role models for slum kids in the form of SDM heros. Their Oscar tour is another boost & that lingers for a long time.

It'd be a gr8 favour to them if local self-govts clean up the neighbourhoods on daily basis and give them basic amenities like water, drainage and health services.



That's not an expensive thing.

I totally agree it's a British film.
How can the future of slum children be better in the absence of a systemic change?

Would an American Slum Dog Milloniare get Oscars??

I mean would they celebrate their poverty??
Oh, come on!! slum dog is a story about the lowliest of the urchins from the slums.It is about the poor orphans for whom india has done nothing and indians certainly feel ashamed when they see all that pile of shit in their backyards..

But, what really amazes me is that it gets Oscars and a host of other awards. Compared to other movies that were nominated it appears as if the western jury can reward mediocrity provided one churns out a movie that reinforces the notion of India as a slum of the world and which makes the white man feel superior in every respect about his perverse colonial past and provides a self justification for their 'interventions' in these parts of the slum-countries.

As if putting Latika as Jenny and Salim as John in the backyards of American 'slums' and amongst their homeless would have equally made it eligible for the oscars.

The fact is that it is an ordinary movie about third world miseries and poor people built around an intelligent narration.
Heck,even Rehman's music is mediocre compared to his other scores

I do not think it deserved oscars on its merits because I do not think a Slum-dog Amarican millioniare story would have got the oscars. It probably got oscars because it reinforced long standing colonial prejudices and made the white men and jury feel good about their 'superior' colonial spaces.

Re: # 1

"good movie but over-rated. but it was entertaining--and it showed the reality of india for most of it's people"

It showed the reality that more than half a billion Indians live in slums? Please check your facts before you make such a statement.

"it was a BRITISH film by the way. Well done to AR Rahman too."

Indian cast, adapted from the works an Indian author, is it because the director is British that it makes it a British film?

"Why doesn't China have such slums? Serious question."

That is because China is a totalitarian regime while India is a democratic one. The Chinese do not tolerate poor people messing up their cities/urban areas and so ship them off to the countryside instead. A rural poor Chinese is not allowed to live a city unless the receving jurisidiction gives them a hukou (registration card).

good movie but over-rated. but it was entertaining--and it showed the reality of india for most of it's people.

it was a BRITISH film by the way. Well done to AR Rahman too.

Why doesn't China have such slums? Serious question.