Child labour needs to be redefined. Some of it is need-based, but most of it is greed-based Deepali, 12, who is forced to do domestic chores, was born to migrant parents. She dreams of going to school in the morning, riding a bicycle and playing badminton in the evening like children from well-to-do families. At present, her main concern is completing the little cottage that her father is building in his native place in Burdwan district of West Bengal. The young girl is cherishing the dream of returning to her native village with her family of seven sisters and a brother whom she wishes to educate once the cottage is complete. "Only a room, three doors and a window are left to be completed before we return," she says. Similar is the case of Harpreet, 14, who has come to Delhi with his uncle, since he was tired of assisting his father in their unyielding farm in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. Harpreet is now helping his uncle to pay back his father's loan to a moneylender. His uncle runs a small refreshment shop in an office in Connaught Place. The uncle-nephew duo is trying to build up the lost family fortune back home. But in an opposite instance, Darsheel Safary, the star of Taare Zameen Par, says that he works only during holidays and on weekends. So there is no question of strain or missing school. While academically brilliant child artist Swini Khera of Ryan International School is more concerned about her studies as she wants to become an astronaut. Meenu, 7, residing in Shahadra, Delhi, has been assisting her parents in preparing puppets for the puppet show that her father conducts when the fair season is on. Meenu dreams of a comfortable life with a warm bed during winters and good clothes. She also wants to go to school. Shobha (10) and Sunila (13) (name changed) are refugees from the Bihar floods. "Salam Balak Trust," an NGO, recently rescued these children from Gurgaon. Shobha was working in a carpet-manufacturing unit while Sunila was doing domestic chores at an exporter's house. The young girls came together from Bihar after their parents went missing during the Bihar floods, reveal police records. There is an amazing difference between children from well-to-do families and children who are not so fortunate. But for children from both ends of the social strata, the question is: whether the child labour laws or the WCD ministry's efforts can help them come out of their existing situations. For children like Deepali or Shobha, who work to supplement their family's income, their work is in complete contrast to Swini, who is reported to have been earning over a lakh of rupees a month as she is exceptionally brilliant, as her mother claims, and can manage both her studies and career. Little do these children or even their parents know about the international child's 'code' that considers everybody below 18 years of age as children. It has several "foundation principles" listing child rights