21 Feb 2002 | Voice of America

In addition to Islamic extremism, India faces a host of pressures, including a militant Hindu revival, and separatist activity in some states.

In 1992, militant Hindus destroyed a 16th century mosque in the city of Ayodhya. Since then, they have been trying to build a Hindu temple on the ruins over the opposition of India’s Muslims. The controversy helped bring the BJP party to power as the leader of India’s current coalition government.

Hindu fundamentalism is a serious challenge to Indian democracy, says Ravi Nair, executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center in New Delhi.

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India Faces Militant Hindu Revival, SeparatismRead More »

16 December 2002 | Dawn
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK: Asian human rights activists ended a week-long conference here on Friday determined to stall what they call the steady erosion of human rights principles and practices within the UN system.

Most troubling to some of the over 500 participants who attended the Asian Civil Society Forum 2002 here was an assault by governments on the global body’s human rights mechanisms and institutions, including the Geneva-based UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

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HR principles erode at UNRead More »

24 November 2002 | The Washington Post | Page A32
By Rama Lakshmi
SRINAGAR, India — The three young guests left as soon as the wedding feast ended. It was not safe to be out late on the streets of Srinagar. As they sped along on their motor scooter, relatives said, the men were stopped at a security checkpoint outside the city and an officer of India’s feared counterinsurgency police, the Special Operations Group, emerged from the shadows and began to question them. That was not a good sign.

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Kashmir’s Leaders Struggle to Deal With Feared PoliceRead More »

16 November 2002
Economic & Political Weekly, Vol.37 No.46
Knowledge is power. In few other fields is the saying as true as in the struggle for rights and justice. News about global developments in human rights is sparse. A recent issue of Human Rights Features (HRF) (July-September 2002) brings this home all too clearly. It is published by the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre at New Delhi. Its executive director, Ravi Nair, began as a trade unionist and braved police harassment to emerge as not only India’s foremost expert on human rights, but as one with an international repute.

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Human Rights LiteracyRead More »

27 July 2002 | The Hindu
By our Special Correspondent

Jaipur, July 21: Dalit human rights activists have warned that Durban was only a “trailer” and the real action would take place at such international conclaves in future.  “The world’s eyes are on India where the greatest racial discrimination after the Apartheid is being perpetuated on the basis of caste,” the speakers at a lecture on “Bringing accountability to issues of Dalit rights in Rajasthan’ cautioned.

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Dalits to Draw World Attention to Caste DiscriminationRead More »

June 2002
Justice and Peace
Newsletter of Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (Thailand)
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) of Thailand hosted and co-organised, with ACPP-Hotline Asia, a training on an ‘Introduction to the UN System: Mechanisms to Remedy Human Rights Violation’ on 9-13 June 2002 at the Assumption Personnel Development Center, Bangkok, Thailand. This training was organised in response to a request made at the 2001 Justice and Peace Worker’s networking meeting in Manila.

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UN system: Mechanism to remedy human rights violationsRead More »