Reality TV shows under government scanner

KEEPING AN EYE: Women & Child Development Minister Renuka Chaudhary says there are no laws which regulate such shows.

Child Rights Commission is looking into working conditions for child participants.

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Keywords: Renuka Chaudhary, Child Rights Commission

New Delhi: TV reality shows have come under the government scanner. The Child Rights Commission had recently been asked to look into working conditions for child participants in reality talent hunt shows.

Such shows have become a big hit and children are as much part of it as the adults. Now the government wants to know if the children making money for their parents are actually engaged in a form of labour.

"There are no laws which regulate all this. What are the conditions in the studios and whether there is any lay off or not," Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Women & Child Development Renuka Chaudhary asks.

It's a new dimension to the traditional concept of child labour where out of school children of poor parents working to eke out a living were included in the category. Now most of the children performing in studios are from well to do families.

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights member Sandhya Bajaj asks, " We would like to know about the loss to the studies and the stress under which these children are."

And they will see if these riveting television shows require hours of rehearsal and labour which even the adults would be scared to put in.