How is it possible that after having its membership in the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions deferred and being at the bottom of every human rights index, the National Human Rights Commission of India managed to find a collaborator in Australia-based Asia Pacific Forum to host the Biennial Conference of National Human Rights Institutions?

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THE National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRCI) is set to host the Biennial Conference of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) of Asia Pacific on September 20–21, 2023.

The conference  is being organised in collaboration with the Australia-based Asia Pacific Forum (APF).

The President of India is scheduled to address the conference.

“On 21st September, 2023, the Biennial Conference will mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UNDHR). It will also celebrate 30 years of National Human Rights Institutions and the Paris Principles, with a sub-theme on the environment and climate change,” a press release of the NHRCI states.

In a badly drafted repetitive press release, the NHRCI makes such basic mistakes as calling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the “UNDHR”!

In this theatre of the absurd, the APF is being represented by NHRCI on the management committee of the GANHRI even after its deferred status!

This only reflects the NHRCI’s staffing by government apparatchiks in violation of the Principles Relating to the Status of National Human Rights Institutions, also known as the Paris Principles.

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The Agnipath scheme introduced by the Union government for army recruitment on contractual basis is a catastrophe that would inevitably lead to militarisation of India. The fear looms large that after the end of contractual service these youths with arms training would be susceptible to exploitation by paramilitaries.

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AT a glance, a brief article in the July 23, 2023 issue of the Tribune merits no more than a quick look from the average reader.

The article discusses the establishment of a training centre by the Adani business group, intended for training individuals to join the Indian armed forces. Notably, the conglomerate is offering this training for free.

This endeavour by Adani prompts contemplation on how close India is from the creation of its own ‘desi’ private military companies (PMC).

Just as Russia has the Wagner group and the United States has Blackwater (which is now known as Academi), India might have its own private militaries soon. 

What is Agnipath?

It has been over a year since the Union cabinet approved what some are touting as the “biggest defence manpower reform” in India’s independent history— the Agnipath recruitment scheme.

On June 14, 2022, the Union defence ministry announced the details of Agnipath— a major departure from the current military recruitment scheme.

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The involvement of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India in matters outside their purview on a political level is worrisome. The political leadership of the Tibetan refugees is making provocative statements which impact India’s internal affairs and jeopardise the fragile relations between India and China.

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THE worry beads used by Tibetan Buddhists and Indian Hindus are believed to focus the mind. However, as we approach the end game of the Great Game on the Tibetan Plateau, focus seems to be the one thing missing in the Indian ruling party’s trans-Himalayan policy.

The return to an autonomous— forget an independent— Tibet is akin to a pilgrimage to the mythical Shambala.

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Since the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s era, populism and its twin, authoritarianism, have found their feet in what has become the present Hindu fundamentalist dispensation.

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INDIA was a successor state to the British Raj. For a post-colonial State, it had a design fault. From day one, it did little to democratise the repressive apparatus of the colonial State it inherited.

Preventive detention was retained and strengthened. Due process of law was given the heave-ho. The intelligence agencies who had served the colonial masters so well continued to do so under their Congress masters with no parliamentary accountability.

Institutional impunity for human rights violations and the calls for mandatory compensation were met with classic stonewalling.

On the economic front, the new Nehru government scuppered land reform, the one major issue that would have brought a degree of equity to rural India, where most of India lived then as now.

In spite of professed claims, no real effort was made to create a welfare State on the western social democratic model. Universal healthcare and education were not priorities. Employment generation was in the realm of ether.

Since then, populism and its twin, authoritarianism, have found their feet in what has become the present Hindu fundamentalist dispensation.

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“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

Nothing, beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

(Ozymandias— Percy Bysshe Shelley)

THE major theme behind Ozymandias is that no matter how arrogant or tyrannical a ruler may be, all power is temporary. Even the most powerful will eventually be brought low, their name nearly forgotten and monuments to their power becoming buried in the sand.

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