Right to food

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Defend Job Philippines (DJP), a social movement working to promote the human rights of the urban poor in Manila, about surveillance and harassment of Ms. Glacy Macabale. Ms. Macabale is human rights defender and community organizer, who has been resisting the forcible displacement […]

Dear friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Krushak Shakti Sangthan (KSS) about paddy crop failure having hit farmers hard in Nuapada district of Odisha. KSS has also informed the AHRC that most of the farmers had incurred loans for growing crops and the crop failure has thus exposed them to […]

By Avinash Pandey Even if one puts the cacophonous debate on the merits and demerits of demonetisation of Rupees 500 and 1000 currency notes aside, one thing is clear: it has hit hard the farmers all set to sow Rabi crops. Almost entirely dependent upon cash transactions for everything, starting from buying seeds and fertilisers, […]

Srikant Dixit, a 40-year-old farmer did not die of hunger, claim authorities in Uttar Pradesh. These authorities base their conclusion on the post-mortem report, which states that there was 50 grams of food in the man’s stomach. Yes, for authorities, finding 50 grams of food in the stomach of a man starving for 12 days […]

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 […]

Avinash Pandey One doesn’t often see a respected international media house asking a democratic republic’s prime minister to break his silence in an editorial. Even more rare is it to see this “silence” tagged with the adjective “shameful”. The New York Times did exactly that today, 8 August 2016. The editorial forewarns Mr. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of […]

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 […]

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from MASUM about yet another starvation death in Dumchipara Tea Garden owned by Duncans group. The tea plantation has been shut down for a while now and this has exposed workers to hunger and starvation. The AHRC demands immediate intervention and urges the authorities […]

Avinash Pandey Gujarat is simmering again. Dalits are agitating over criminals indulging in criminality. These criminals, who are fondly referred to as “cow vigilantes” by the mainstream media, have recently stripped and flogged four Dailit youth in Una. The resultant protests have claimed two lives: a policeman has reportedly been killed in stone pelting in […]

Beginning with Thailand this week, Just Asia covers three human rights defenders who have been accused of criminal defamation and violation of the Computer Crime Act for publishing a report detailing 54 cases of torture by the Thai Army in the country’s southern provinces. The three defenders, Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, Director of the Cross Cultural Foundation […]

The Supreme Court’s rap to the Union and to various state governments for their apathy to drought victims is welcome. But, it is akin to a few drops sprinkled onto a parched desert under the oversight of unconscious executive governance. The verdict in the writ petition, filed by Swaraj Abhiyan on 11 May 2016 (Swaraj Abhiyan v. Union […]

The pattern on display in the Bombay High Court yesterday, 9 May 2016, was not that of the cycle of drought affecting millions. It was that of callous – bordering on malicious – governance. According to media reports, like this one, the Maharashtra state government informed the Court that it would declare drought in over 29,000 […]

For millions of Indians hit by the devastating drought, death comes in myriad forms. Farmers’ suicides – oft reported by the media and denied by the State – are one of them. A recent and surprising pattern of drought death is heart attacks to those waiting in water collection queues. This is what killed 12-year-old Yogita […]

This week Just Asia begins with nine mothers cementing their feet in front of the Indonesian Presidential Palace on April 12. The mothers are calling on President Widodo to stop the development of a cement factory in Rembang, Central Java, which will damage a resource rich environment. Just Asia speaks to Mr. Ki Bagus Hadi […]

Dear Friends, The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) wishes to forward an appeal from Karapatan Alliance for Advancement for People’s Rights regarding thousands of farmers who have received harassment, threats and have been subjected to extrajudicial killings from the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines, North Cotabato Region, for demanding relief funds […]

Bangladesh police have once again killed protestors. This time four out of a few hundred villagers who protested on 4 April 2016 have been killed. The farmers were protesting against acquisition of their agricultural lands without consent or adequate compensation, for the purpose of establishing a coal-fired power plant at Gondamara Village of Banshkhali Upazilla […]

Avinash Pandey “A mob is the scum that rises upmost when the nation boils.”  John Dryden, English Poet The picture showing two Muslims – one of them a teenaged boy – hanging by a tree in Latehar, Jharkhandis going to haunt the Republic for a long time. Nothing indicts the failure of a criminal justice […]

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 […]

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 […]