Caste-based discrimination

The Supreme Court of India and its subordinate courts have, over the past six decades, issued more than a dozen directives and orders prohibiting the practice of manual scavenging in India. The evil practice, of literally carrying human faeces or cleaning the same from public toilets, is widespread in the country. In most cases the […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) appreciates the observations made by the Supreme Court of India that the Indian criminal justice process will immensely benefit from crime investigating agencies adopting scientific investigation methods. The apex court has said that the old style of conducting investigations, relying on confession statements and oral evidence in criminal trials, […]

The 30 July 2013 announcement of the Congress Working Committee decision to create a separate Telangana state within the Union of India spurred other statehood demands. In Assam, ethnic groups like the Bodos, Karbis, Dimasas, and Koch Rajbonshis – which have all been fighting for separate states for themselves – unleashed serial agitations and economic […]

The AHRC would like to congratulate the Jagaran Media Center for launching a national campaign of community radios of Nepal against all kinds of discriminations, especially against caste-based discrimination and untouchability on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 21st March 2014. A ‘South Asian Parliamentary Forum’ and ‘Asia Dalit Rights […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received disturbing information regarding 193 children starving to death in Thar district of Pakistan. The authorities have conceded half of the number while trying to attribute them to different diseases but independent sources have conclusive evidence that they are all caused by extreme poverty, chronic shortage […]

By Avinash Pandey At 218 in 2013 and 237 in 2012, one would expect a national outrage on the unusually high number of body bags returning to India from Qatar. One would think especially so, for the fact that these body bags belonged to Indian citizens. It must have incensed even the apologists of neoliberal […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that six Dalit women of the Siraha district Nepal were beaten after an argument at a local public well. The non Dalit villagers entered the Dalit settlement and beat the women. The same Dalit women were also previously beaten for using the public well […]

The Supreme Court of India has directed the Union Government to take adequate measures to guarantee the safety of the people from the northeast, in the rest of the country against alleged racial discrimination. The court issued the directive while hearing a public interest litigation filed in court, following a series of incidents, where people […]

Widespread prevalence of hunger in India is no secret. Neither is complete inaction in making efforts to eradicate hunger recognised as a national shame by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and as the biggest humiliation by President Pranab Mukherjee. Had there been a resolute effort, it would have shown in arresting hunger that is continuing […]

Maya Sarki was beaten, smeared with black soot, and garlanded with used shoes and slippers before being paraded in the village on 21 July 2013. She had to go through this ordeal merely for mistakenly blaming a man for an attempt to rape her. Maya apologized to Jivan Bhetwal, a local non-Dalit man for mistakenly […]

The parents of Shiva Shankar Das (21) who was allegedly poisoned to death are still waiting for justice and compensation after two years. Shiva Shankar had a love affair with a 20-year old woman from a so-called ‘upper caste’ community and was allegedly poisoned by the girl’s relatives on January 30, 2012. The Jagaran Media […]

The AHRC releases today the 14th Episode, of the Human Rights Asia Weekly Round up  with special reports from India and Hong Kong. In this week’s programme we bring you a special report from India, on how humiliation and hunger continues in refugee camps in the Uttar Pradesh. Four months after the unprecedented riots that […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that 32 Dalit families of Barmajhiya village development committee 2 in Saptari district of Nepal are living in fear of forceful displacement due to the ongoing construction of a drinking water pond near their village. These Dalit families have been living in their area […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from the National NGO Child Rights Coalition and local journalists about children housed in prison in Kokrajhar, Assam. The AHRC is concerned, as such an arrangement is denying children their basic rights. The children are being housed in prison not for any delinquency on their part […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received disturbing information from  local media KBK Samachar and CGNET Swara regarding two bonded labourers in Kalahandi district of Odisha who have had their hands chopped by middlemen. The AHRC has learnt that the middlemen illegally confined the labourers for almost a week before the incident. […]

The fact that every third child of Gujarat is malnourished comes as no revelation. It cannot be for a state whose Chief Minister Narendra Modi, now Prime Ministerial Candidate of the main opposition party in the country, had infamously blamed the growing malnutrition in his state on ‘beauty conscious girls’ trying to maintain slim figures. […]

By Avinash Pandey Ayodhya was in news, for all the wrong reasons, again. Vishva Hindu Parishad, that venomous organization with equal hatred for the minorities and the nation, had tried to infiltrate into Ayodhya yet again. They were stopped by the state government. It was a game well played. A communal organization has attempted to […]

Today, 30 August 2013, is the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance. According to the UN Resolution A/RES/65/209 adopted in the Sixty-fifth Session of the General Assembly, the 30th day of August has been declared, and has been so observed since 2011, as the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance every year. This Resolution […]

The passing of the Food Security Bill by the Lok Sabha comes as a big relief to the impoverished masses of a country that is home to hunger. The Asian Human Rights Commission congratulates India for taking a definite, even if grossly inadequate step, towards eradication of hunger with this move and hopes it will […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the plight of tribal villagers residing in a forest village named Dhurkuch, Gram Panchayat Kota in Jawa block of district Rewa in Madhya Pradesh from Panchsheel Sewa Sansthan,a local voluntary organization. Sansthan found that there is no Public Distribution Shop (PDS) shop, earmarked […]