9 MPs including Arvind Sawant get UNICEF award for advancing child rights

• 'Parliamentarians' Group for Children' (PGC) awards are given away by UNICEF India for outstanding work in Parliament in advancing the rights of children

• Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant and 8 other MPs from both houses have been given away the awards for this year 

New Delhi: Former union minister and Shiv Sena member of Parliament (MP) Arvind Sawant has received the 'Parliamentarians' Group for Children' (PGC) awards by UNICEF India. Sawant, MP from South Mumbai has got this recognition for his role in Parliament in advancing the rights of children in India. Sawant was recognised for his "exceptional work" in initiating two debates and seven questions on matters of Right to Education, protection of children from atrocities, malnutrition and child health in Parliament in 2018-19, UNICEF India said in a statement.

Apart from Arvind Sawant, 8 other MPs received awards for their role in Parliament in advancing child rights. Heena Gavit (Nandurbar, Maharashtra) and Jugal Kishore Sharma (Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir), Jaskaur Meena (Dausa, Rajasthan), Kuldeep Rai Sharma (Andaman and Nicobar) and Sudhakar Shrangare (Latur, Maharashtra) and Rajya Sabha MPs Jharna Das Baidya (Tripura), K K Ragesh (Kerala) and Sanjay Singh (NCT Delhi) received the award for their overall performance and efforts, the UN''s child rights body said.

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The UNICEF said the awardees are selected using a transparent and rigorous statistical methodology based on carefully observed performance parameters. The parameters are derived from the three important pillars of parliamentary functioning, i.e., parliamentary questions, debates and private member legislations to capture the performance of MPs across broad outputs, namely, child health, child education, child nutrition and child rights, it said.

Awardees are selected based on their work on child and adolescent related issues with a focus on children health, education, nutrition, water and sanitation etc, it added. 

PGC awards organised by PGC, a platform by Parliamentarians working towards realising child rights, are supported by Swaniti Initiative and UNICEF.

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