We use the phrase slumdog ragpickers here as a take-off on the Danny Boyle film 'Slumdog Millionnaire' and in as much as the film didn't use the phrase the deride the children, we use it with utmost humility and respect, only as a means of describing their situation.
For every hundred residents of Delhi, there is one person engaged in recycling.
And among them are mostly underage kids. It is really ironical that the worst forms of child labour prevail in Delhi in a very high magnitude. At least half a million children are working in full-time jobs here. Mostly they are trafficked from their native villages. Some accompany their migrant worker parents and they live in slums. Rag-picking has been brought under the definition of a hazardous industry, but despite that 50,000 children are rag-pickers. None of the work children do is voluntary, if the child is below 18. Rag- pickers go to work due to some compulsion. There are layers of middlemen who profit from the child's labour. It is forced labour under the legal definition. Trafficked children are held in bondage and ill-treated. You go to Kalka Mandir, Hanuman Mandir or Jama Masjid, you will find disabled children begging. More often the kids are mutilated.This is Delhi's slumdog reality.
The Yamuna, also known as Jamuna or Jumna, is the largest tributary river of the Ganges in northern India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a height of 6,387 metres on the south western slopes of Banderpooch peaks in the Lower Himalayas in Uttarakhand, it travels a total length of 1,376 kilometers and has a drainage system of 366,223 km2, 40.2% of the entire Ganges Basin, before merging with the Ganges at Triveni Sangam, Allahabad, the site for the Kumbha Mela every twelve years.It crosses several northern states as India which is why nearly 57 million people depend on the Yamuna waters. With an annual flow of about 10,000 cubic billion metres and usage of 4,400 cubic billion metres, the river accounts for more than 70 per cent of Delhi's water supplies.
Just like the Ganges, the Yamuna too is highly valued in Hinduism and worshipped as goddess Yamuna, throughout its course. In Hindu mythology, she is the daughter of Sun God, Surya, and sister of Yama, the God of Death, hence also known as Yami and according to popular legends, bathing in its sacred waters frees one from the torments of death.
The water of Yamuna is rendered safe through its course from Yamunotri in the Himalayas to Wazirabad in Delhi, about 375 km. However, the discharge of wastewater through 15 drains between Wazirabad barrage and Okhla barrage Wazirabad in Delhi is severely polluted. In 1909 the waters of the Yamuna were distinguishable as "clear blue", as compared to the silt-laden yellow of the Ganges. However, due to high-density population growth and rapid industrialization today Yamuna is one of the most polluted rivers in the world, especially around New Delhi, the capital of India, which dumps about 58% of its waste into the river. One official describes the river as a "sewage drain" with biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) values ranging from 14 to 28 mg/l and high coliform content.
The main sources of pollution in the river are households & municipal disposal sites, soil erosion resulting from deforestation occurring to make way for agriculture along with resulting chemical wash-off from fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides and run-off from commercial activity and industrial sites.
Source: Wikipedia
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