It was a day of children in the Rajasthan assembly and they used the platform with full confidence. In a special children’s session of assembly run by the children, there were more than 50 per cent of girls in participants and the future generation raised the issues ranging from child abuse, child marriages, to the use of e-vehicles to save environment and wastage of food in hotels and restaurants. There were interruptions, dharna in the well of the house and a walkout also on the issue of cheating in competitive exams but overall a quiet peaceful session.
The Rajasthan assembly has created history by organizing a special session for children, by children. 200 representatives of future generations from 15 states of the country participated in this as MLAs. Speaker of the house, CM, cabinet ministers and leader of the opposition. The session lasted for one hour with question hour and zero hours and the issues raised were quite interesting.
Children were asked questions related to child marriages, organic farming, use of narcotics among children, child labour, health issues of children and use of e-vehicles to save the environment. The answers were given by young ministers with full confidence.
The zero-hour was more impressive as some very good ideas came from children. There was a demand that government should come up with a policy and penal provisions to stop the wastage of food in hotels and restaurants. One suggestion was related to starting more outdoor activities for children to keep them away from smartphones and gadgets. While one young MLA suggests that the entry of students should be made free on historical places and the other one said that there should be more forest tours for children to make them more sensitive to animals and the environment.
After attending the session, Loksabha Speaker Om Birla said that it was a great experience to see that children are expressing themselves with full confidence. He announced that the children will be invited to Loksabha to see the proceedings of the house. While the speaker of Rajasthan assembly CP Joshi said that a project will be assigned to the psychology department of Udaipur university for the analysis of what children had said here. Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, leader of opposition Gulab C Kataria and many MLAs also attended the session.
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