Right to education

Javeria Younes Words fail to express the grief when the victim of a heinous crime is a child who has been a victim of parental greed. Children, who are the future of a nation, form the vulnerable faction of society; children are most prone to being beaten, sexually exploited, forced into bonded labor, and murdered […]

A wave of anxiety has gripped the most populated province of Punjab, following the kidnapping of more than 700 children within this past year.. Several areas in Punjab particularly Lahore, the capital city, has witnessed a sudden surge in child kidnappings. There have been reports of the dead bodies of missing children surfacing in deserted […]

This week’s episode begins with the surprising decision of Indian activist Irom Sharmila to end her 16-year fast, and join politics. Sharmila, known as Manipur’s ‘Iron Lady’, has been spearheading the state’s struggle to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Just Asia caught up with Babloo Loitongbam, Director of Human Rights Alert and long […]

Naseer Memon The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) have released a report “Multidimensional Poverty in Pakistan” which depicts a grim picture of social well-being in the country. The concept of poverty has evolved over time. As knowledge about the complexity of human societies is growing, poverty has […]

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) condemns racism, insults and assaults against indigenous Papuan students in the Papuan students dormitory at the Kamasan I Jalan Kusumanegara, Yogyakarta province, Indonesia. Since Friday morning, July 15, police officers have surrounded and forcibly closed the Papuan students’ dormitory. Inside there were approximately 100 Papuan students. The police did […]

In this month five-year-old Hindu girl, Shazia Bheel, was murdered by Zahid Sheikh, a man who was dressed as a woman when he raped and murdered the child in Hyderabad. An FIR (# 22/2016), was lodged for murder and rape against the culprit on the compliant of the father of the deceased child. Women and […]

Labour Day in Pakistan is oxymoronic, because the day is just another holiday for the nation’s better off population, while the labour class toils under the blazing sun. Perhaps on no other day does the class difference between the haves and have nots manifest itself as clearly as it does on this day. Throughout the […]

This week’s episode begins with Indonesia, where the trial of 26 human rights defenders began on March 21. The criminal charges against them are believed to be part of the government’s effort to end demands for labour welfare and for the cancellation of Government Regulation No. 78, which supports cheap labor in Indonesia. Just Asia […]

Cutting off electricity, water, and Internet facilities, closing down messes, chasing all the media persons out, and then calling in the Paramilitary to swoopdown on students in the campus sounds like routine work in a dictatorship, not a democracy. Yet, this is exactly what the University of Hyderabad administration, which works under the Union Ministry […]

The bail finally granted to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya is welcome. Despite the media gaze, it took almost a month for the students, who are accused of sedition on flimsy grounds, to be released. This showcases the nature of Indian Magistracy, and yet the repeated rejection of their bail […]

Just Asia is pleased to announce its new website www.alrc.asia/justasia. All episodes of the news programme can now be viewed there. This week, Burma’s Parliament elected Htin Kyaw as the country’s civilian President after decades of military government. Prevented from becoming president by a constitutional clause, Aung San Suu Kyi has said she will be “above […]

The government of Maharashtra has finally woken up to the agrarian crisis that has, according to official statistics, already ensnared the lives of 124 farmers in the state in the first 45 days of the year. Awoken, the government has decided to take action. And, the action that the government has decided to take is […]

Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar, President of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU), is finally out on interim bail following a Delhi High Court order. Kanhaiya has just spent 20 days in police and judicial remand on the charge of sedition. The manner and facts surrounding his arrest, charge, and detention have caused much consternation. Many eminent […]

In this week’s episode, Just Asia covers the commemoration of the 1989 Talangsari Massacre in Indonesia. Although the Talangsari Massacre was mentioned by President Widodo as one of his government’s priorities, until now no concrete solution has been provided. Next, Just Asia looks at the unrest at India’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The unrest […]

Although the right to education is a fundamental human right recognised throughout the civilised world, girls in Pakistan still have to fight for the right. Many even lose their life in this battle, such as 17-year-old Saqiba. A student of the Government Girls Degree College in Muslim Bagh, Balochistan, Saqiba Hakim Kakar committed suicide on […]

The trouble fomenting in Indian varsities ever since the new government came to power has now reached one of the most prestigious universities of the country, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The stir ostensibly started after a group of students organized an event commemorating the death anniversary of Afzal Guru and called his hanging a […]

RohithVemula’s suicide will not be just another suicide in the statistical records of the National Crime Records Bureau. It will not be so in the same way the 2006 massacre in Khairlanjiwas not. These two cases separated by almost a decade,are far more than a statistic of ordinary crime, such as that committed in a […]

A Statement from Roshni helpline Research and Development Organization forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission The missing children’s search and recovery organization Roshni Helpline has published its annual report for 2015 on missing children in Karachi Pakistan, one of the largest industrial cities. A total of 2160 children have been reported missing in the […]

The suicide of a young Dalit scholar, Mr. Rohith Vemula, in the University of Hyderabad is not merely the death of an individual. The sordid saga behind what made Rohith take this extreme step exposes all the pretensions of the Indian state and its institutions. It shows how six decades after independence, elitist Brahminical domination […]

It is just over a year since the Peshawar Army Public School carnage of December 2014, where some 135 teens were killed by terrorists. The subsequent promulgation of Pakistan’s National Action Plan (NAP) to combat terrorism, as well as the lifting of the moratorium on death penalties, has shown no sign of decreasing terror attacks […]