On Chidren's rights
*Shimla schoolgirl petitions court for a playground*
* *
*ASIT JOLLY*
CHANDIGARH
*Sept 19: *At a time when India prepares to host its biggest ever sports
spectacle in Delhi, a ten-year-old Shimla schoolgirl has petitioned the
Himachal Pradesh High Court for the simple joy of having access to a
playground in the country’s erstwhile summer capital.
Vipasha, who is a student of Class Five in a local school, wrote a letter
complaining about the serious lack of outdoor playing facilities in the city
that is now home to an estimated 200,000 residents excluding thousands of
tourists that throng the place every summer.
Evidently helped by a parent, the Himachal High Court’s youngest ever
petitioner said, “Shimla is a concrete jungle with no parks, open spaces or
grounds for children, forcing them to remain glued to television, which we
know is not good for our health.”
Insisting the “absence of parks and playgrounds” are forcing young
schoolchildren like her stay indoors, young Vipasha wants the government to
build more playgrounds instead of permitting the unbridled spread of
concrete buildings in the once unspoiled ‘Queen of the Hills’.
Originally built by the British Rulers as India’s summer capital to house no
more than 16,000 residents, Shimla is now quite literally bursting at its
seams as one of the largest human settlements across the Indian Himalayas.
Ten-year-old Vipasha’s “jungle of concrete” has innumerable multi-storied
buildings including some very posh facilities to accommodate high-end
tourism but hardly any neighborhood playgrounds to indulge its children.
Chief Justice Kurien Joseph and Justice Rajeev Sharma were surely touched by
little Vipasha’s rather innocent request in her neatly handwritten two-page
letter, as they asked the state government to respond. They have listed
October 28 to hear what Shimla’s planners have to say.
