Various speakers at a consultation meeting on human rights in New Delhi emphasizes for a stronger and affective national network to pursue the movement for defending legal human rights. Reposing faith on the judiciary of India, most of the speakers argue that a systematic attack has been perpetuated by the authority and the situation is turning bad to worst. They have also insisted that National Human Rights Commission (of India) should be empowered to take timely actions to upheld the rights of the citizens of the country. Some speakers also advocated for enlightening the Press Council of India to properly monitor the activities of a section of newspapers that manufacture news with distorted facts.
Addressing the consultation meeting, which was organized by the Human Rights Law Network and the World Sikh Organization in collaboration with various other organizations at India Islamic Cultural Centre, Lodi Road on November 19 and 20, 2011, Dr Binayak Sen expressed concern that human rights situation in India is deteriorating in the recent past. Dr Sen, who was jailed for many months following accusation of being an anti-national, admits that Indian judiciary system has delivered amidst high expectations. The veteran social activist pointed out that a tendency has been grown by the authority and governments in India to term the human right activists as anti-national. So many of them are arbitrarily subjected to threat, harassment, jailing and even killing, Dr Sen added. Delivering the key-note address Paramjeet Kaur, widow of advocate Jaswant Singh Khalra-a victim of Punjab police extra-judicial killing- argued that the movement of Punjab was projected in a biased manner by the government. Later it was added with a religious twist. The movement in early Ninety in Punjab has snatched away the live of at least 25,000 youths. The government initially tried to hide the information but advocate Khalra disclosed the facts to the media. Ms Kaur also mentioned the name of KPS Gil, former Punjab police chief, who masterminded the extra judicial killings. She expressed shock that Mr Gill was later awarded by the government.
“Human rights activists have come under repeated attacks recently. Right to Information activists have been killed and many have had cases filed against them. Journalists have been jailed in criminal defamation cases, have been attacked, some of them killed, and media houses have had their offices ransacked. Tribal activists particularly in conflict areas have been hounded by the police and many of them are in jail today. The situation has never been so dire. The need of the hour is to protect and defend human rights activists in India today,” said Colin Gonsalves of HRLN, which is a collective of lawyers and social activists dedicated to the use of the legal system to advance human rights in India and the sub-continent. Others who spoke in the meeting include Kavita Srivastav, Henry Tiphagne, Iftikhar Gilani, Teesta Setalvad, Harish Dhawan, Mukul Sinha, Suhas Chakma, Shoma Choudhury, Advocate Phoolka, RS Bains, Navkiran Singh, Arshad Andrabi, GN Shaheen etc.
19 Oct 2016 - 4:53pm | AT Kokrajhar Bureau
Hiteswar Barman, president of All Koch Rajbongshi Students Union(AKRSU) slammed BJP led state and centre government for not taking initiative while bringing solutions of Six ethnic communities,who...
25 Oct 2010 - 7:38pm | Manoj Kumar Das
The Andaman & Nicobar Islands had been on our travel plan for quite some time. We are a family of sea lovers. Something in our veins draws us inexplicably to the vast blue waters… and this...
1 Apr 2012 - 4:51pm | editor
The chief minister’s vigilance cell on Saturday indicted 157 education department officials and contractors in the crore rupee operation black board scam that rocked the Mahanta regime in the...
20 Dec 2007 - 8:35am | editor
In a major setback for the ULFA. Seven ULFA hardcore activists of the dreaded 9th Battalion have surrendered in two places in lower Assam on Thursday even as a major surrender has yet to come. Four...
The recently concluded by-polls for 48 legislative assembly constituencies in 14 States (along with two Parliamentary constituencies in Kerala and Maharashtra) divulged an important fact that no less than 41 assembly seats needed the special elections as those were vacated by the respective legislators after they were elected to the lower house of Indian Parliament. The representatives of different political parties (irrespective of their ideologies or position in the governments) participated in the last general elections and succeeded to be lawmakers in the 18th Lok Sabha.
One may wonder how all these members of State legislative assemblies turned Parliamentarians...
Geneva based the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), a global organization advocating for media safety and rights, has expressed deep concern over the ongoing violence against journalists in Pakistan. The latest victim, Janan Hussain (40), was killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa near the Afghan border on November 20, during an ambush in the Kurram area that claimed the lives of 42 Shiite Muslims. Hussain, a journalist with Channel 365 and a member of the Parachinar Press Club, is the 11th media worker killed in Pakistan this year.
"Janan Hussain's murder marks the 129th journalist killed globally since January 1, highlighting the grim reality of impunity in such cases," said Blaise Lempen, President...
The Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) awarded its annual prize for the protection of journalists to Palestinian journalist Iyad Alasttal. This recognition comes amidst the unprecedented loss of over 150 Palestinian and Lebanese journalists since October 7, 2023, marking one of the highest tolls in such a short period in a conflict. The PEC dedicated the prize to the memory of these journalists who risk their lives daily.
Iyad Alasttal, a journalist from Gaza, was forced to flee due to Israeli reprisals following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Alasttal, who launched the Gaza Stories project in 2019, has been chronicling life in Gaza and reporting for French and Western media outlets....
On the midnight of August 31, 2019, an extraordinary bureaucrat unveiled the contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, amidst a large gathering of eager media personnel in Guwahati. Prateek Hajela, the then State NRC coordinator, not only explained various features of the NRC to the assembled reporters but also declared the supplementary list as the definitive one. Some television journalists, excited by the so-called "extraordinary work" of the technocrat-turned-IAS officer, went as far as to applaud Hajela as a superhero.
However, the ground reality paints a different picture. The Assam NRC has never been endorsed—nor is it today—by the Registrar General of India (RGI...
It’s shocking to report that a number of Guwahati-based scribes and RTI (right to information) activists have been facing interrogation and even arrest by Assam chief minister’s special vigilance cell following the allegations of Sewali Devi Sharma, the prime accused in Rs 105 crore State council of educational research and training (SCERT) scam, as being blackmailers to her in different occasions. The arrestees include a female reporter (identified as Pujamoni Das alias Honey Kashyap, who reportedly took a large volume of money from Ms Sharma) along with a satellite news channel reporter named Bhaskarjoti Hazarika. RTI activists namely Rabijit Gogoi (who pretended to be a...
Can we imagine a world of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero carbon emissions with a new approach in post-corona economics! Ask Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and he will answer in the affirmative. The university professor turned revolutionary banker believes that the human race should not only dream about a safer world by reducing global warming, wealth concentration and unemployment, but also work in that direction with personal and collective capacities.
In his latest book titled ‘A World of Three Zeros’, Prof Yunus proposes a new economic system focusing on every human being as an entrepreneur in the making. He believes that humans are not born to work only for...
Guwahati: Assam is all set to host first sustainable financial working group (SFWG) meeting and Youth 20 inception meeting as part of India's year-long G20 presidency, where it is meticulously chalked out various tour programs that would help in promoting the State’s rich biodiversity and socio-cultural heritage in international arena. The authorities have completed the preparation to welcome the foreign delegates to the State.
Guwahati is adorned with digital wall painting, thematic gates, flags of G 20 countries, LED cut-outs, standees, hoarding, etc as part of branding and beautification. The government has also completed the arrangement for the visiting delegates to places of...
Guwahati: India observes National Press Day on 16 November with an aim to pay tributes to everyone who contributed to the growth of print media along with its mentor & watchdog the Press Council of India (PCI). Moreover, it’s also an occasion for the practicing media persons to introspect seriously over their noble profession where it has been heading in the post-Covid-19 pandemic era. Since its inception and functioning, the PCI continues to symbolize a free and responsible press in the largest democracy in the world. Among all press or media councils, functioning in various countries, the PCI is recognised as a unique entity that exercises authority over the media and also safeguards...
Participating in a debate on satellite television or digital channels needs some homeworks to make the deliberations short and clear. Unless you face an arrogant anchor and unruly participants, the experience in talk shows normally emerges as an intriguing one. It happened to me, as I had recently participated in a digital media discussion on the pertinent issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, where the prime guest was none other than the immediate past State NRC coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma. The talk show host Dikshit Sharma put the questions in a clever way so that the issue comes alive and my part was just to interpret Dev Sarma’s version for clarity to the valued...
Guwahati: It was an amazing experience to attend the foundation day of a 25 year old press club in central Assam on a lazy Sunday, where a number of senior citizens along with rural scribes and novice journalists were waiting to listen to my speech. It’s easier to address a journalist’s meet- where we can discuss many issues with liberties, but while the audience includes respected senior citizens and young people, it becomes a difficult task to speak to them together.
First, the question that arises, how much should I highlight the eroding credibility of the mainstream media around India in general and Assam in particular and secondly what may be the role of social (alternate/digital)...
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