The power game
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become increasingly influential in the past 50 years. Awareness of human rights and social and …
DIRTY SEX
Every 10 years, the census of India comes out with a damning statistic: the country's abysmal female-male ratio. As per the 2001 census, there …
Empowered panchayats make for true liberalisation
A myth actively perpetuated by traditional politicians and a supportive bureauracy is that panchayat bodies are India's lowest ranked …
Labour vs pollution
Ever since the Supreme Court (sc) ordered closure/relocation of polluting units in Delhi, which subsequently left nearly 50,000 people jobless,…
"Polluters are today's environmentalists"
Crusader for the rights of over eight million Indian fisherfolk, Thomas Kochery , 57, made news headlines when he rejected the US $150,000 …
‘EIAs of mining projects have become a farce’
Christopher Albin-Lackey, senior researcher with New York-based non-profit Human Rights Watch (HRW), has documented the large-scale environmental …
Investment terror
Since the 1990s developing nations have been on a treaty spree, signing a vast number of bilateral and regional investment treaties to attract …
In search of the missing
In the undivided Koraput district of Orissa, there exist 190 villages that have slowly been pushed off the map of India. Hurled by fast-track …
On privatising water
What about privatising water? Should India move to do it? What tips the scales in its favour, and what doesn't? In 2003, two editorials in Down …
Secretive tribunals, hidden damages
Canadian academic Gus Van Harten is well known for his efforts to reform the global investment treaty regime through his research papers, …
India’s many investment treaties make it vulnerable
Senior international lawyer Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder, who heads the investment programme of the International Institute on Sustainable …
Bhima-Koregaon violence: Police raids homes of human rights activists, arrests at least five
In a multi-state raid, Pune Police seized laptops, pen drives and documents of human rights activists
No entry
Looks like the executive committee of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be held at Geneva in December this year, is choosy …
Human Rights Day: How children use their agency to build a safer, greener environment
Young crusaders in the Sundarbans are making efforts to convince community members to plant trees and nurture them so that their future is safeguarded
Would cats bell themselves? The wait for the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights
The recently concluded UN South Asia Forum on Business and Human Rights (March 17-19) evoked a lot of enthusiasm from diverse stakeholders. Would …
‘Transgender people suffer in this so-called civilised world without any reason’
Odia filmmaker Jitesh Parida talks about the trials and ordeals of transgender people and his upcoming movie inspired by the real-life story of …
Bhima-Koregaon case: Crackdown on Jharkhand tribal rights activist shameful
State surveillance is becoming a norm in the society, which does not allow citizens to exercise and practice their democratic rights
Life in limbo: the Rohingya refugees trapped between Myanmar and Bangladesh
Abuses on Rohingyas have reached new height but neither Myanmar nor neighbouring Bangladesh are taking responsibilities to grant basic human …
Investors are increasingly shunning mining companies that violate human rights
A growing body of research suggests that investors care about human rights impacts and consultation with Indigenous communities
Report links human rights abuse with environment
The report of a US human rights organisation cites the example of nine countries to prove its theory that governments that violate human rights …
Fracking, mining, murder: the killer agenda driving migration in Mexico and Central America
Are high levels of violence and displacement in Central America and Mexico caused by natural resource exploitation?
Trade-off- human rights and the market
The clarion call of open markets could override the North's 'insistence' on linking trade with human rights and environmental issues
The politics of interventionism
We all recognise that if an international force on the scale proposed is committed to Somalia, against the opposition of the loco] warlords, …
