Hey folks,

Have you met Ramu? The young boy who works at the construction site at the corner of the road you live on. He is the one who stands and stares as you take your school bus everyday, clutching on to his patch-worked pants, too big for him.

His parents work in the site as daily-wage labourers. He pitches in, too, with his three young siblings. He does not go to school. They have just come to the city two months ago, you see. Leaving the village where he was born, where he used to go to school, and where his father had a few acres of farmland. But then after the rains failed this year, his father decided to move to the city. “More work, and more money there”, he told Ramu’s mother. Well, now six of them live in a ramshackle tent pitched on the sidewalk.

If you have not met him yet, do not worry. Lakhs of such Ramus will be filling up the sidewalks soon. A recently published UN report says more than half the world’s population will be living in cities by 2008. Global experts are now urging the governments to ensure better shelters, schools, and toilets for the migrants.

Why can’t villages be made more live-able instead? So that Ramu’s father is no longer forced to flee to the city if one monsoon fails…