Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that Turkey failed to protect the life of journalist and human rights activist Hrant Dink has been welcomed by press freedom and human rights organisations around the world. The ECHR on Tuesday held Turkey guilty of failing to protect Turkish-Armenian journalist Dink when authorities knew his assassination was imminent, and of then failing to adequately investigate his murder. The court said in its ruling, "None of the three authorities informed...

Hershey, one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the US, is lagging behind other companies in taking steps to ensure decent working conditions in its supply chain, a report has said. The company has even been linked to child labour. The report, titled 'Time to Raise the Bar: The Real Corporate Social Responsibility for the Hershey Company', said that Hershey dominates 42.5 per cent of the US chocolate market, even though it lags behind every major competitor in terms of programmes...

The two recent strikes by doctors have set extremely dangerous precedents. In both cases, in Rajasthan and in Delhi, the authorities went down on their knees and yielded to the demands of the doctors. Stalemates were avoided, but what went out to the entire country were dangerous signals — blackmailing tactics work. Around 1,200 doctors of Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital called off their strike on Wednesday after they were assured of more security. The doctors, including medical students, had gone...

Many Indian hospitals routinely subject rape survivors to forensic examinations that include the unscientific and degrading "finger" test, Human Rights Watch has said in a report. The 54-page report, "Dignity on Trial: India's Need for Sound Standards for Conducting and Interpreting Forensic Examinations of Rape Survivors," documents the continued use of the archaic practice and the continued reliance on the "results" by many defence counsel and courts. The medieval practice, described in...

Two months after his right palm was chopped off by Muslim fanatics for allegedly insulting Islam's prophet in a question paper, a lecturer in Kerala has now been sacked by the diocese which runs the college. That's a classic case of what you would call adding insult to injury. Old proverbs wreaked anew. Fr Thomas Malekudy, manager of Newman College, Thodupzuah, where TJ Joseph had been a selection grade senior lecturer at the Department of Malayalam, on Saturday announced the decision to remove...

The Manmohan Singh government is always in a rush when it comes to legislations and actions over which doubts are raised. Democracy, for it, is only about mustering enough numbers to bulldoze them through the two houses of Parliament. Democratic values, civil liberties, and all allied terms and phrases are thrown into the dustbins of history. All shamelessly done in the name of national fervour and security. Among other things on its twisted mind is the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010, a deeply...

The Indian elite is known for many things good, bad and ugly, its ostrich syndrome being one. Any ill that does not plague it, simply does not exist. A liberalised socio-economic regime gives it all the privileges that it barefacedly demands; civil liberties always go to hell and stay there. So when civil liberties activists raised the alarm after the Indian laws governing cyberspace and online activities came into force, no one took any cognisance of them. Street dogs after all are wont to bark...

Two drunk schmucks get horny in a bar, and try to fiddle around with a woman. (Commonplace behaviour, we might say, in a bar at least.) When they are asked to behave themselves, they turn violent. (Just as commonplace, we might agree too.) They are, thankfully, apprehended and detained at a nearby police station. And after a while, all hell breaks loose. For, a gang of their armed, pillaging, comrades land up at the police station and thrash the policemen black and blue. The script might sound...

The Best Bakery and Jessica Lall court rulings are now being seen in conjunction. It is natural that they would be. Not only did one judgment follow close on the heels of the other, they also provided an interesting study of contrasts. That of the consectaneous deduction that witnesses will gush forth with the truth in a conducive environment. [Henceforth, BB – Best bakery, and JL – Jessica Lall, for the sake of convenience] The court ruling in the JL case left everyone despondent. Disenchanted...

My colleagues were exhilarated. They were agitated too. So the woman who, they claimed, had killed hundreds and got away with it, had finally been gunned down. Quite rightly so, they belligerently maintained. Those who live by the sword must die by the sword, was the apology. But they were disturbed as well. What if the man, who had liquidated her and been subsequently nabbed, were to be hanged for the justice he had meted out? It would become a travesty of justice. The boss, barely able to gulp...