I was looking at the news of age test of Ajmal Kasab, the Mumbai gunman who was captured in action. All national newspapers projected it in the front page of their respective dailies. I don’t have anything to do with this particular news but the effort of doctors, state and media force me to think about some other issues related to age. Interestingly, the group of specialist doctors still failed to find out his exact age and ended up in calculating approximate age. This is not the failure of the doctors but the failure of medical science. It is difficult to agree that age calculation happens only for some particular cases and it is not a general requirement.
Recently I had a talk with two of my friends who are scientists, one working in forensic department and other is working in an advanced lab in the capital city. I asked them whether there is any scientific way to calculate the correct age of a person with support of science and technology. Both, in different occasions, said there is no such way to find the correct age and one can measure approximate age of a person through testing his growth of his bone, tooth and skull. For them, such requirements are only for proving the age of a dead body in criminal cases. They forgot or never realised that there are thousands of living people who also will get the benefit of such facilities, if science provided.
Age is an important factor in everybody’s life. Proof of age is very crucial in some occasions and it affects the life of thousands of people in India. But all our science and technology institutions ignored the genuine need of age test for common people rather than going for some particular cases and only in special occasions.
Birth certificate is a very important document in everybody’s life. For children, it is compulsory to produce it during his or her school admission. Local authorities like panchayats, municipality and corporations are authorised to provide this official documents to the people. It is primary responsibility of a citizen to inform the local authorities about the birth and death happens in the family within in one week or so. The hospital who comes under the jurisdiction of the local authorities will furnish all details of birth and deaths occurred as a regular matter. When a parent requires the birth certificate, he has to approach the local authority and apply for the official declaration of the time of birth. The authority will cross check with its documents collected from the hospitals and provide the birth certificate.
In a country like India, where thousands of birth happens in the houses and majority of the people are illiterate and not informed properly about the benefits of registering birth and death details in local authorities, require some alternative facility to provide age proof. Those people who are illiterate, lives in really backward conditions where they don’t have access to any medical facility, and not informed properly about the legal requirement of age certificate will end up in bigger trouble. Government’s programme like National Rural Health Mission is successfully creating awareness among the rural population about the importance of birth certificates. The implementation of Janani Suraksha Yojna, a centrally sponsored scheme integrates cash assistance with delivery and post delivery care, started making changes in rural population in their approach. Still, majority of the people were unaware about the use of birth certificate and importance of registration of birth. Who will take care of those children who born in houses and not informed about their birth details to local authorities? The parents will look for the birth certificate when he requires it for his or her school admission. Then it is difficult to make because, the authorities will demand for the certificate from the doctor which shows the time of birth.
I have come across many poor people who migrated from states like Bihar, UP, Jharkhand etc., to cities like Delhi, complaining about the unavailability of birth certificate. The people belongs to lower strata of the society were completely ignorant about the legal formalities of their child’s schooling. Once they reach the school for admission, the issue of birth certificate comes. Without authorised birth certificate, age proof, the admission won’t happen. Those migrated families will remain helpless. They can’t go back to their villages to get this document and it is impossible to him when the delivery is occurred in the house and was not registered with local authority.
Just because of the absence of birth certificate, i have come across hundreds of children who were denied formal education even in government schools. Government has a number of schemes to accommodate the poor children in educational institutions, but those are only for those who have got admission. Who will take care of the children who were denied admission because of age proof? After all, birth certificate is just a document to prove the age of a person. If science finds an alternative way to find the exact age of a child, it will be beneficial for the family for today and to the nation for tomorrow.
A country like India, who gives proper emphasis to the development of science and technology, should use the facilities to find answer for such genuine issues. Science succeeded in calculating the exact age of mummies and fossils but failed to address the day to day requirements of poor people. There is no dearth of money for scientific studies and India has developed a good number of scientific institutions working in the areas of medical research, genetics, bio technology, nuclear science etc. I accept that there is a lack of direction in the field of scientific research and the focus is moving completely out from the requirements of common people. To correct these things, we require a better leadership along with support of scientific community to address these issues.
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