Nobel laureate praises short film

‘Be Humane’, a short film on child labour and support for child education, was screened at Prasad’s Preview Theatre, Banjara Hills, recently. The film was directed by Vijay Das and produced by Prabhakar Patnaik.

Vijay Das had earlier directed the short film ‘Jana Gana Mana’ on national integration and won a gold award at COFFI Short Film Festival, Mumbai. The music was scored by Mani Sarma.

Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi sent the following message on the occasion, “We hope that your silent movie gives voice to the thousands of children who are exploited through child labour. We thank you for your efforts and hope that you will continue to work for children.”

The screening was attended by Telangana Deputy Chief Minister T Rajaiah, music director RP Patnaik, Meghana Jupally and Asmita Satyarthi, daughter of the Nobel laureate. According to Asmita, “There are hundreds of children who go missing every hour all over the country. These children are invariably exploited by organised gangs and put into menial and difficult laborious jobs.”

She also spoke of the life threats that were received by her father and also herself, because of which she left the country for further studies.

“The future goal and challenge is to involve the corporate world into supporting the endeavour of seeing that the children are rescued from such activities and given an opportunity to educate themselves,” Asmita added.