"Here it comes! Telecom tower destroyed! Five killed on the spot! Bank ransacked! Read it all, now!"

Uttam Ghimire is a student of Class 4 at Saraswoti High School in Koteswor, and he is shouting out the day's headlines at the top of his voice. And his paper is selling like hot cakes. He has skipped his classes to sell afternoon tabloids in the streets. He is more worried about selling his newspapers faster than other street hawkers than his exams in school the next day. The nine-year-old Ghimire earns as much as Rs 90 a day selling 30 copies of the afternooners. "Half of that goes to sahu and the rest to my father," says Ghimire with smile in his face. "And, I am left with nothing."

Uttam's father, Gyan Prasad Ghimire, brings with him a packet of afternoon newspapers from Ratna Park in the capital everyday and distributes them among his three sons for street hawking. Uttam's 12 and six year-old brothers, Arjun and Takdir, also can be seen out in the street reading out newspaper headlines loudly and trying to attract attention of as many passers-by as possible. The youngest of them, Takdir, has areceived slaps a couple of times from their father for buying chocolates worth a couple of rupees. Their only sister, Iswori, hasn't had an opportunity to go to school.

Originally from Gairimudi VDC in northern district of Dolakha, the Ghimire family arrived in the capital a few years back in search of a livelihood. Uttam's mother, Radhika, works as a maid for his landlord. His sister helps their. The supplemental income from newspaper selling is critical in balancing the Ghimire family budget.

Around one hundred children work as newspaper hawkers in the streets of Kathmandu. Nearly 70 percent of them are school dropouts while the rest are believed to be still attending schools. According to surveys, 21 percent of the total population of Nepal (2.6 million children) are engaged in various forms of child labourers. Chairman of Child Workers in Nepal Concern Centre (CWIN), Gauri Pradhan, says that the government must introduce compulsory and free education for children and launch campaigns for social awareness. "Though the education is said to be free at the primary level, in practice the situation is quite different," he said.