Troubling paradox: Child poverty and child wellbeing in India

This study seeks to address a paradox - despite many laws, policies and programmes for ensuring child wellbeing and reducing child poverty, the indicators for children show an alarming situation of deprivation. In order to find the answer, this study has taken a new path by looking into the underlying assumptions of child focused policies, their interpretation by various stakeholders at different levels of policy implementation chain and prioritisation in budgetary allocations. As an answer to the paradox, the study found that at one end Government’s intent in translating the policy assumptions into reality is low and at other end children in India seems to be not recognised as right holding citizens. Moreover, the study also argued that both the ends are interrelated.