By Prof R.B. Bhagat* All of us know what has happened during the last week of April to the first week of June 2020 in response to the nationwide lockdown to stave off COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly millions of migrant workers started moving out of the city and marched towards their respective rural destinations. It shook … Continue reading Policy-makers should focus on migrants’ vulnerability and violation of their rights
Category: Human Rights
By Archita Srivastava* For the longest time, Hong Kong to me was synonymous to a towering metropolis, steeped in ancient Chinese traditions and British urbanity. School textbooks relay their history as a positive engagement between the East and the West, a mere clinical engagement carefully evading its turbulent past. It was only in my law … Continue reading Tragic case of crushed civil liberties in Hong Kong, China’s growing authoritarianism
Responding to the Covid-19 lockdown crisis of job loss, displacement and hunger, a group of citizens started a relief initiative, for emergency cash assistance to working class families, including those affected by the violence, in Northeast Delhi. The relief was via direct donor transfers of Rs. 3000 or Rs. 5000 (for especially vulnerable families) into … Continue reading Responding to humanitarian crisis: Glimpses of lives from Northeastern Delhi
By Sheshu Babu* Almost all sections of people have suffered due to lockdown. Only a few elite upper classes and rich have not suffered much. The migrant workers, street vendors and petty business persons had to endure lot of hardship. Similarly, disabled have also bore the brunt of suffering due to lockdown. The disabled constitute … Continue reading Due to unplanned lockdown, visually disabled are facing physical and psychological problems
By Venkatesh Nayak* Readers may remember reading a previous despatch sent in April 2018, about an RTI intervention, regarding certain data tabled in Parliament that year, about cases involving allegations of custodial deaths and disappearances of civilians, alleged fake encounters, alleged instances of rape, and allegations of kidnapping, torture and extortion in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The … Continue reading Public interest? Sanction for prosecution under J&KAFSPA: CIC rejects detailed information
Massachusetts, US-based Asian American Commission (AAC) in a statement in support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement: This week, we grieve the senseless and unlawful death of another Black man at the hands of police violence and systemic racism. The Asian American Commission (AAC) stands with the activists and protesters demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, … Continue reading #BlackLivesMatter: India’s Dalit Panther movement was inspired by US Black Panthers
By Sheshu Babu* “He smiles,he laughsthrough the prison barsto shake me upfrom my early morning dreams,his morning greeting isclanking a huge bunch of keys into the cage of mylife sentence.” (From 'Ode to a Prison Guard” by Prof. GN Saibaba, written on 1 May 2017, in 'A World of Silence is Blown into Smithereens'. Ref: … Continue reading Prison guards have some humanity because they too face much suffering from higher officials
