Anganbadi childcare workers in India are in their second week of a hunger strike to press for their demand for permanent employment, an 8 hour day, a minimum wage and benefits on par with other government workers in India. Anganbadi is a government sponsored child-care and mother-care program which relies solely on the work of the Anganbadi workers most of which are women. The urban poor in Delhi rely heavily on these services from pre-natal care to accessing information about immunization. Apart from looking after malnutritioned children, poor and expecting mother s they make birth and death registrations and recently they also have been assigned election duties for which they receive no additional remuneration. These workers are paid a mere 5000 Rupees ($100AUS) per month for supposedly being volunteer workers. Their strugglehas been met with violence from police, and the health of 5 of the hunger striking workers is now starting to deteriorate.
