Human Rights

Threats of consumer backlash and criticism from unions and the media have sensitised many Western companies to pay greater attention to how their Bangladesh suppliers operate. But that's only a starting point, as many have been aseerting. So, what next? This subject has been explored by Motoko Aizawa and Salil Tripathi of the Institute of Human Rights and Business (IHRB) in a paper titled 'Beyond Rana Plaza: Next steps for the global garment industry and Bangladeshi manufacturers' in Business...

Senior journalist Salil Tripathi has long-standing experience in advancing the business and human rights agenda. As a researcher at Amnesty International (1999-2005) he participated in negotiations that created the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme and represented Amnesty in the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights process from its inception until 2008. Tripathi is a contributing editor at Mint and Caravan, and was formerly a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review...

In early April came the slightly disconcerting news that the Union government was planning to dilute the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012. It may soon be illegal to employ children below 14 years of age in any type of commercial or paid work, except in family shops and ventures. It is the exception here which is the dilution in question. And, there’s more in the details. Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Bandaru Dattatreya, was reported in the media...

The very nature of power is such that more it devours you, the more you need it to survive. You can never have enough. Power is about control, and absolute power is about being in control of things without being answerable. As power keeps consuming you, the more you crave for absolute power. And absolute power, to borrow a mathematical analogy, tends towards infinity. In a political theatre, a dispensation can be in control of things by making use of the law and order machinery that is there at...

If a Union Budget is supposed to be not just a document of numbers, but a precursor to the shape of policy initiatives to come, then the 2015-16 Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley needs to be seen as a recipe for unmitigated disaster. There is nothing wrong with a government that calls for economic growth; after all, everyone wants to have a better life. But when policy initiatives pave the way for a flagrant and unrepentant exploitation of natural resources and turns a Nelson’s...

And when they came for the men, there was nothing left to complain about. The men in question were three unsuspecting individuals who were attacked by detractors in Hubli last week. All three men were victims of acid attacks; and the fact that acid can be easily procured perhaps had made the incidents appear more facile. Yet, the consummate ease with which acid can be bought from hardware or even grocery stores, is something that campaigners have been screaming hoarse against all these years...

If one were to go just by the sheer numbers documented in the annual Amnesty International report on death penalty that was released last week, prima facie it would seem there is not much to write about India. Prima facie, of course. After all, on the face of it, the big numbers of 2012 are mostly about other countries: Only 21 of the world’s countries were recorded as having carried out executions in 2012 – the same number as in 2011, but down from 28 countries a decade earlier in 2003. In 2012...

India is one of the few countries where Amnesty International did not have a country office – except for an ephemeral period a few years back. The international human rights organisation has just launched operations in India, with a country office based out of Bangalore. Country Director Ananthapadmanabhan Guruswamy speaks to Subir Ghosh about the organisation’s immediate and not-so-immediate plans, the human rights situation in India, and of course Kashmir, Northeast and Vedanta – issues on...

The Indian government wouldn't want you to see this Channel 4 film. This is how the makers of the documentary describe the film: In the most militarised place on earth, one man is standing up to the armed might of the world's largest democracy. 'Kashmir's Torture Trail' follows a Kashmiri lawyer as he uncovers India's best kept secret. With the world's media attention focused on repression in Syria and the threat to the Euro, the Indian state of Kashmir, nestling in the shadow of the Himalayas...

The Indian mining industry has spiraled out of control, and the government has miserably failed to regulate it. The scale of lawlessness in the multi-billion dollar industry is hard to assess, and the industry has not only fuelled corruption, but also wrecked havoc on both local communities as well as the environment. This overview of the mining industry comes from a 70-page damning report – Out of Control: Mining, Regulatory Failure, and Human Rights in India, released by New York-based Human...