VOA常速英语2007年-Indian Cabinet Member Under Fire for Use of Chi

By Steve Herman
New Delhi
11 December 2007

India's Cabinet minister for rural development faces demands for his dismissal after television news reports showed scenes of children working the fields on his family farm. VOA correspondent Steve Herman reports from New Delhi.

Television news reports showed two boys yoked¹ together like oxen to level a field on the family farm of India's minister for rural development, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh.

The rural development minister's brother, Ragjuraj Prasad Singh, who manages the farm in Bihar state, told reporters that only children can do this sort of work.

Singh says when the fields are so soggy that tractors or oxen would get stuck, children have to be used and if these particular boys were not doing it then some other children would take their place.

One of boys, in television interviews, complained that their "hands and feet ache all the time" but they cannot quit because they need to work for food.

Newspapers Tuesday quoted the rural development minister as saying the scenes of the 10-year-old boys struggling to pull a rope tied to a tree trunk through soggy fields were "stage-managed" and blown out of proportion by his political enemies.

Opposition² politicians are calling for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to fire the minister.

There has been no response, so far, from the prime minister.

An assistant answering the telephone at the rural development minister's residence on Tuesday said he was out of New Delhi and not immediately available to comment on calls for his removal from office.

The incident highlights the pervasiveness³ of child labor⁴, especially in rural areas, despite laws against it. Advocacy groups estimate millions of children in India work instead of going to school.

Many critics of Prime Minister Singh's government and the economic reforms of the past two decades say that India's poorest citizens have not benefited from the nation's explosive economic growth.

The rural development minister is a top figure in the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the largest political party in Bihar, which is allied⁵ with the prime minister's Congress Party. According to his official parliamentary web site, Prasad Singh holds a doctorate⁶ in mathematics and lists one of his special interests as the "struggle against exploitation."

State officials in Bihar are investigating the incident to consider whether to file charges of violating labor laws.

1 yoked   

结合（yoke的过去式形式）

参考例句：

• The farmer yoked the oxen. 那个农夫给牛加上轭。
• He was yoked to an disinclined partner. 他不得不与一位不情愿的伙伴合作。

2 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

3 pervasiveness   

n.无处不在，遍布

参考例句：

• The consistency and pervasiveness of this effect is startling, perhaps even disconcerting. 外表的这种作用始终存在、影响甚广，这实在令人惊讶，甚至烦恼不安。 来自互联网
• A major cause of this pervasiveness is the structural difference between application logic and security logic. 这种普遍性的主要因素是应用逻辑和安全逻辑之间的结构差。 来自互联网

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 allied   

adj.协约国的；同盟国的

参考例句：

• Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
• Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。

6 doctorate   

n.(大学授予的)博士学位

参考例句：

• He hasn't enough credits to get his doctorate.他的学分不够取得博士学位。
• Where did she do her doctorate?她在哪里攻读博士？