Children are objects of care. Adults decide what is good for them, and services are a matter of charity or policy choice. A child who is not helped has no complaint, only bad luck. Programmes in this frame count beneficiaries and rarely ask children anything.

Non-discrimination (Article 2) and best interests (Article 3) apply to all the others. For economic, social and cultural rights the state must act to the maximum extent of available resources (Article 4), and must make the Convention known to adults and children (Article 42).

Early childhood care (Article 45) remains a directive principle. Education from six to fourteen became a fundamental right only in 2002. A child of four has a weaker constitutional claim than a child of six.

"A child who is alleged or found to have committed an offence and who has not completed eighteen years of age on the date of commission of such offence" (s. 2(13)). The deciding body is the Juvenile Justice Board, one or more in every district (s. 4).

Children kept for months in a home "pending inquiry" because the Committee sits rarely, files are incomplete, or no one traces the family. Delay is a decision, and it is usually the institution's.

Whether an administrative officer should make an order creating a permanent legal relationship; whether 629 pending adoption cases (July 2018) justified the shift; and that in 2019 only 17 of 35 states and union territories had all the bodies the Act requires in every district.

Mandatory reporting overrides confidentiality. A counsellor, a doctor treating a pregnant sixteen-year-old, or a researcher who hears a disclosure is bound. Adolescents may then avoid health services. Programmes must tell young people, before they disclose, what the worker will have to do.

Child rights groups warned that a death penalty for offences mostly committed by family members and acquaintances could deter reporting, because families may not want a relative executed. The Act's own list of aggravated offences (relatives, staff of institutions, persons in positions of trust) shows how often the offender is someone the child knows. Harsher sentences also raise the stakes in adolescent relationship cases (next slide).

s. 15(1): storing or possessing such material and failing to delete, destroy or report it, with intent to share; s. 15(2): storing for transmission or distribution; s. 15(3): storing for commercial purposes.

Online lotteries that families without documents cannot enter; reimbursement paid late, so schools resist; children admitted and then made to feel unwelcome through fees for uniforms, books and trips. Programmes that help families apply, and then stay in touch for the first year, change outcomes.

Assent 10 January 2019. Substituted s. 16: a "regular examination in the fifth class and in the eighth class at the end of every academic year"; a child who fails gets additional instruction and a re-examination within two months; the appropriate government "may allow schools to hold back a child" who fails again.

Many teachers believe they are only disciplining the child, and many parents agree. A complaint against a teacher can cost a child more than the beating did. Programmes that train teachers in alternatives (the SEL Basics 101 deck) and set up a safe complaint route reach further than circulars.

"Family" means the child's "mother, father, brother, sister and father's sister and brother and mother's sister and brother". "Family enterprise" means work performed by family members "with the engagement of other persons" (s. 3, Explanation). So an uncle's workshop that employs outsiders counts.

The Court said "Parliament may consider outlawing child betrothals which may be used to evade penalty under the PCMA". A betrothal arranged at twelve and solemnised at eighteen falls outside the 2006 Act.

Personal laws do not all use the 2006 Act's ages. The 2021 Bill would have made the Act override "any other law, custom, or practice" (PRS), which shows how the question was seen by Parliament. With the Bill lapsed, take legal advice on the interaction in a specific case.

Allegations against children are still decided by a Children's Court, a judicial body: "there is no independent non-judicial forum as contemplated by the CRC to deal with children in conflict with the law".

At imminent risk of marriage (JJ Act s. 2(14)(xii)). Under the PCMA any person or an NGO may ask a Judicial Magistrate for an injunction (s. 13(1)-(2)); a marriage against it is void (s. 14). Route: talk to Salma first about what she wants; inform the Child Marriage Prohibition Officer; seek an injunction if the family will not postpone; keep her in school.

No photograph or story that identifies a child in the justice or care system (JJ s. 74). For other children, informed consent from the parent and assent from the child, with the right to withdraw. Never use a child's suffering to raise funds in a way the child would not accept as an adult.

Child protection is a small slice: 1.49 to 1.73 per cent of the Budget for Children in recent years (HAQ, February 2026). Underspending on protection is common because the posts and bodies it funds are not in place, which links the budget back to the PRS finding that only 17 of 35 states and union territories had all JJ Act bodies in every district in 2019.

Written for the child's developmental level: what the study is, how it helps, what will be done, and that the child can refuse or stop. The language must be "simple and appropriate to the age of the child".

The DPDP Rules were published in the Gazette on 13 November 2025 (G.S.R. 846(E)) and commence in three phases. Rule 10, verifiable consent of a parent, and Rule 12, the exemptions, apply from 13 May 2027, eighteen months after publication (Rule 1(4)). Section 9 of the Act itself commences on the same date (G.S.R. 843(E), 13 November 2025). As of October 2026 neither is in force.

Article 2 cannot be monitored without data by sex, age, caste, disability, residence and wealth. The NFHS-5 gradients in Section 08 are only visible because the survey records them.