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(A Monthly Publication of Manavadhikar Samajik Manch)

Volume XV No. 8 August 2018
 Advisors: Bejon Mishra
President :Dr. A. Shanker Manoj Kar
Editor :Dr. Girija B. Nanda Prof. Sanjay Chandwani
Managing Editor :Dr. Srimoy Patra
Editorial Team :Dr. Arpita Verma UP Chapter
Dr. Virender Khatana Dr. Narendra Kumar, State Convenor
V. Mathew 6/348, Ramnath Deoria, Deoria - 274001
Correspondents :Swarup N. Panigrahi Uttar Pradesh - 274001
Maheswar Singh Phone :0-9415320183
Reporter :Sanjeevani
Odisha Chapter
Legal Advisors :Biswajit Swain
Umakanta Nanda, Adv, State Convenor
Malaya Kumar Chand
Amit Mishra, Associate State Convenor
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Manager -
Cuttack, Odisha - 753003
Publication & Editorial:Suvendu Saheb Sethy
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Human Touch
(A Monthly Publication of Manavadhikar Samajik Manch)

Human Touch is a platform for non-partisan portrayal of human rights issues in their different forms. Be it
the rights of the weaker sections of our population such as the women, the children, the aged and the
physically challenged, or the victims of some social customs, cultural traditions and economic & non-economic
policies, the publication brings out the issues objectively and in a manner that would give succour to the
people whose rights are either violated or put in jeopardy.

Human Touch acts as a forum for scholars, activists, concerned individuals and the common men &
women to ventilate their grievances, express their views and to highlight cases of human rights violations,
so that appropriate ameliorative actions can be taken by the concerned agencies. It is meant to help the
helpless and to speak for those whose voices are not heard. It engages in constructive and incisive debate
on issues that are not only of day-to-day concern but also on issues that are important for posterity. This
publication is a step forward in realising the vision of Manavadhikar Samajik Manch, i.e. creation of a
just and equitable society.

Owner : Manavadhikar Samajik Manch

Publisher/Printer/Editor : Dr. Girija B. Nanda
Printed at : Matha Offset Press, Y-16, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II, New Delhi
Published from: Manavadhikar Samajik Manch, 39, Sant Nagar, New Delhi - 110065
Tel.: 91-11-41621978, 46578478, Fax : 41621669
E-mail: officemail.masm@gmail.com, manavadhikar.india@indiatimes.com, masm@rediffmail.com
Website: www.manavadhikar.net, www.humanrightsnews.net
 In this issue...
World Humanitarian Day: 5
#NotATarget

International Youth Day: 7

“Safe Spaces for Youth”

International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: 9

Act to Protect and Assist Trafficked Persons

National News 16

News from the National Human Rights Commission 20

International News 25

Environment: 28
Need to Strengthen the Constitutional Safeguards for its Protection

Corruption in India: 30
Discretion is the Need of the Hour
 From the President’s Desk …
The roles of men and women in India have not adapted to keep pace with its rapid economic growth
and rise in opportunities for women, Indian men have a complex and often contradictory attitude
about gender equality. Their behaviors mirror the contrasts that define India’s swiftly transforming
society, one that at once is becoming a major player in the global economy, while also remaining home
to high rates of poverty, child marriage and HIV. Even though many Indian men support policies that
promote equal opportunities for women, they also feel that they lose out if women are afforded more
rights. And while they are aware of laws against violence against women, this knowledge does not
always coincide with their values.

Generally, it is known that Indian men are among the least supportive of equitable relationships and
roles between men and women. Most men believe that changing diapers, bathing and feeding children
are a mother's responsibility. They also think that they donot have any role in domestic matters such
as washing clothes, preparing food or cleaning the house. Throughout India, social norms and practices
are mostly governed by patriarchal ideologies that define the roles of men and women. Men are
confined to it, and it’s reflected in their attitudes and behaviors. And these views are playing out
alongside increasingly reshaped roles for women in society.

Although many Indians adhere to strict notions about roles of men and women in society, the country
is nonetheless home to some of the world’s most progressive affirmative action policies. Long-
standing reservations guarantee a proportion of university admissions and government posts to members
of scheduled castes and tribes. Meanwhile, legislation recently passed by legislators seeks to add
reserved spaces for women in parliament to their already guaranteed places in "gram panchayats," or
town councils.But, the existence of these laws does not necessarily reflect an overall endorsement of
women’s rights.

Men’s attitudes about violence against women also show similar contradictions. Even though Indian
men are increasingly aware of legislation against gender-based violence, including India’s domestic
violence law, which was passed in 2005, their awareness of and attitudes about domestic violence
laws do not coincide with a decrease in their use of intimate partner violence. It seems that men
acknowledge an overall cultural change happening around gender-based violence but have not yet
internalised this change into their personal behaviors.

The time has come for men to seriously think and work towards gender equality. It is abundantly
clear that men have conflicting attitudes about women’s – and their – roles in society. Their views
change depending on the context and situation with which they are presented, and this is something
which is alsarming. It is also time for policymakers and program implementers to address gender
equality and other women related issues.
Dr. A. Shanker

Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018 4

 World Humanitarian Day:
#NotATarget

"Every year on World Humanitarian Day, we shine a spotlight on the millions of civilians around the world
whose lives have been caught up in conflict. On this day we also take a moment to honour the brave health
and aid workers who are targeted or obstructed as they set out to help people in need, and pay tribute to the
government employees, members of civil society and representatives of international organizations and
agencies who risk their lives to provide humanitarian aid and protection."
— UN Secretary-General, António Guterres

Background
On 19 August 2003, a terrorist attack
hit the United Nations headquarters
in Baghdad, killing 22 people. Among
those who lost their lives was Sergio
Vieira de Mello, the UN’s top
representative in Iraq.
Five years later, the General Assembly
adopted a resolution designating 19
August as World Humanitarian Day.
Every year since then, the
humanitarian community has
organized global campaigns to
commemorate WHD, advocating for
the safety and security of
humanitarian aid workers, and for the
survival, well-being and dignity of
people affected by crises.
2018 WHD campaign: #NotATarget
This year we continue to bring
attention to the millions of civilians
affected by armed conflict every day.
People in cities and towns struggle
to find food, water, and safe shelter,
while fighting drives millions from
their homes. Children are recruited
and used to fight, and their schools
are destroyed. Women are abused and
humiliated. As humanitarian workers
deliver aid, and medical workers treat
the wounded and sick, they are
directly targeted, treated as threats,
and prevented from bringing relief and
care to those in desperate need.
The humanitarian concerns described
here can’t possibly capture the lives
of all those affected by conflict
around the world. From people with
disabilities, to the elderly, migrants,
and journalists, all civilians caught in
conflict need to be protected.
Deliver Humanitarian Aid
One of the purposes of the United
Nations, as stated in its Charter, is "to
achieve international co-operation in
solving international problems of an
economic, social, cultural, or
humanitarian character." The UN first
did this in the aftermath of the Second
World War on the devastated continent
of Europe, which it helped to rebuild.
The Organization is now relied upon
by the international community to
coordinate humanitarian relief
operations due to natural and man-
made disasters in areas beyond the relief
capacity of national authorities alone.
OCHA and the UN system
The Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) of the
UN Secretariat is responsible for
coordinating responses to
emergencies. It does this through the
Inter-Agency Standing Committee,
whose members include the UN
system entities most responsible for
providing emergency relief. A
coordinated, system-wide approach
to humanitarian relief is essential in
providing assistance quickly and
efficiently to those in need.
The UN Central Emergency Response
Fund (CERF), managed by OCHA,
is one of the fastest and most
effective ways to support rapid
humanitarian response for people
affected by natural disasters and
armed conflict. CERF receives
voluntary contributions year-round to
provide immediate funding for life-
saving humanitarian action anywhere
in the world.
What key UN entities deliver
humanitarian aid?
Four UN entities, the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP),
the United Nations Refugee Agency
(UNHCR), the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the
World Food Programme (WFP) have
primary roles in the delivery of relief
assistance. UNDP is the agency
responsible for operational activities
for natural disaster mitigation,
prevention and preparedness. When
emergencies occur, UNDP Resident
Coordinators coordinate relief and
rehabilitation efforts at the national
level.

Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018 5

 Secretary-General's Message
Every year on World Humanitarian Day, we shine a spotlight on the millions of civilians around the world whose
lives have been caught up in conflict. On this day, we also take a moment to honour the brave health and aid
workers who are targeted or obstructed as they set out to help people in need, and pay tribute to the government
employees, and representatives of international organizations and agencies who risk their daily lives to provide
humanitarian aid. Despite our efforts, civilians, including medial and humanitarian workers continue to bear the
brunt of intense conflicts around the world. They are attacked and their access obstructed, while humanitarian
supplies and hospitals are looted by fighting parties. In addition, in cities like Juba and Aleppo, housing, markets,
schools and vital civilian infrastructure are destroyed. In Yemen, a lethal cholera epidemic has killed more than
9,000 people. Health services and water and sanitation infrastructure are collapsing under the strain of war.

In Iraq, Syria, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and elsewhere, thousands of women
and girls urgently need protection, support and treatment for traumatic sexual violence and abuse. The result of
these crises is the record number of people – more than 65 million – forced to flee their homes from conflict. No
one is winning these wars. We are all losing.

This year, on World Humanitarian Day, the United Nations and our partners are calling on all global leaders to do
everything in their power to protect people caught up in conflict. Let the world know: Civilians are Not A Target.
I invite you to stand with us in solidarity with civilians in conflict, and with the health and aid workers who risk
their lives to help them. Get involved with our online campaign at worldhumantarianday.org. On World Humani-
tarian Day, let us commit to doing everything in our power to protect women, girls, men and boys in the line of
fire, and to give them hope of a better future.
António Guterres

Helping refugees Helping Children livestock disease and similar

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
emerged in the wake of World War II
to help Europeans displaced by that
conflict. The agency leads and co-
ordinates international action to protect
refugees and resolve refugee problems
worldwide. The General Assembly
created the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees
in the Near East (UNRWA) to provide
emergency relief to some 750,000
Palestine refugees, who had lost their
homes and livelihoods as a result of
the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. Today,
some 5 million Palestine refugees are
eligible for UNRWA services.
The UN General Assembly hosted a
high-level meeting on 19 September
2016 to address large movements of
refugees and migrants, with the aim
of bringing countries together behind
a more humane and coordinated
approach.
Since its beginning, The United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
has strived to reach as many children
as possible with effective, low-cost
solutions to counter the biggest
threats to their survival. UNICEF also
consistently urges governments and
warring parties to act more
effectively to protect children.
Feeding the Hungry
The World Food Programme (WFP)
provides relief to millions of people,
who are victims of disasters. It is
responsible for mobilizing food and
funds for transport for all large-scale
refugee-feeding operations managed
by UNHCR.
The Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) is often called on to help
farmers re-establish production
following floods, outbreaks of
emergencies. The FAO Global
Information and Early Warning
System issues monthly reports on the
world food situation. Special alerts
identify, for Governments and relief
organizations, countries threatened by
food shortages.
Healing the Sick
The World Health Organization
(WHO) coordinates the international
response to humanitarian health
emergencies. WHO is responsible
for providing leadership on global
health matters, shaping the health
research agenda, setting norms and
standards, articulating evidence-based
policy options, providing technical
support to countries and monitoring
and assessing health trends. In the
21st century, health is a shared
responsibility, involving equitable
access to essential care and collective
defence against transnational threats.

Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018 6

 International Youth Day:
“The hopes of the world rest on young people. Peace, economic dynamism, social justice, tolerance — all
this and more, today and tomorrow, depends on tapping into the power of youth.”
Background
“United Nations and Youth”
In 1965, in resolution 2037 (XX), the
General Assembly endorsed the
Declaration on the Promotion among
Youth of the Ideals of Peace, Mutual
Respect and Understanding between
Peoples.
From 1965 to 1975, both the General
Assembly and the Economic and
Social Council emphasized three
basic themes in the field of youth:
participation, development and peace.
The need for an international policy
on youth was emphasized as well.
In 1979, the General Assembly, by
resolution 34/151, designated 1985 as
International Youth Year: Participation,
Development, Peace.
In 1985, by resolution 40/14, the
Assembly endorsed the guidelines for
further planning and suitable follow-
up in the field of youth. The guidelines
are significant for their focus on
young people as a broad category
comprising various subgroups, rather
than a single demographic entity. They
provide proposals for specific
measures to address the needs of
subgroups such as young people with
disabilities, rural and urban youth and
young women. (Source: resolution
50/81)
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
“Safe Spaces for Youth”
— UN Secretary-General António Guterres
In December 2009, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted
resolution 64/134 proclaiming the
year commencing 12 August 2010 as
the International Year of Youth,
calling upon governments, civil
society, individuals and communities
worldwide to support activities at
local and international levels to mark
the event. The Year will coincide with
the 25th anniversary of the first
International Youth Year in 1985.
On 17 December 1999, in its
resolution 54/120, the United Nations
General Assembly endorsed the
recommendation made by the World
Conference of Ministers Responsible
for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998)
that 12 August be declared
International Youth Day.
The Assembly recommended that
public information activities be
organized to support the Day as a way
to promote better awareness of the
World Programme of Action for
Youth, adopted by the General
Assembly in 1996 (resolution 50/81).
Security Council Resolution 2250 on
Youth, Peace and Security represents
7
an unprecedented acknowledgement
of the urgent need to engage young
peacebuilders in promoting peace and
countering extremism, and clearly
positions youth as important partners
in the global efforts.
International Youth Day is
commemorated every year on 12
August, bringing youth issues to the
attention of the international
community and celebrating the
potential of youth as partners in
today’s global society.
There are currently 1.8 billion young
people between the ages of 10 and
24 in the world. This is the largest
youth population ever. But 1 in 10 of
the world’s children live in conflict
zones and 24 million of them are out
of school. Political instability, labour
market challenges and limited space
for political and civic participation
have led to increasing isolation of
youth in societies.
12 August was first designated
International Youth Day by the UN
General Assembly in 1999, and
serves as an annual celebration of the
role of young women and men as
essential partners in change, and an
opportunity to raise awareness of
challenges and problems facing the
world’s youth.
 Secretary-General's Message for 2018

The hopes of the world rest on young people. Peace, economic dynamism, social justice, tolerance – all this and
more, today and tomorrow, depends on tapping into the power of youth. Yet more than 400 million young
women and men live amidst armed conflict or organized violence.

Millions face deprivation, harassment, bullying and other infringements of their rights. Young women and girls
are particularly vulnerable. The world’s young people need safe spaces -- public, civic, physical and digital
spaces where they can freely express their views and pursue their dreams.

We must invest so that young people have access to education, training and decent jobs to achieve their full
potential. The United Nations is strongly committed to listening to the voices of young people – and opening
pathways for meaningful participation in decisions that affect them.

This September, we will launch a new strategy to step up our work with and for young people. In making the
world safe for young people, we make the world better for all. I wish all a happy International Youth Day!

António Guterres

“Safe Spaces for Youth”
Youth need safe spaces where they
can come together, engage in
activities related to their diverse
needs and interests, participate in
decision making processes and
freely express themselves. While
there are many types of spaces, safe
spaces ensure the dignity and safety
of youth. Safe spaces such as civic
spaces enable youth to engage in
governance issues; public spaces
afford youth the opportunity to
participate in sports and other leisure
activities in the community; digital
spaces help youth interact virtually
across borders with everyone; and
well planned physical spaces can
help accommodate the needs of
diverse youth especially those
vulnerable to marginalization or
violence.
Ensuring that safe spaces are
inclusive, youth from diverse
backgrounds especially those from
outside the local community, need to
be assured of respect and self-worth.
In humanitarian or conflict prone
settings for example, youth may lack
the space to fully express themselves
without feeling uncomfortable or
unwelcome. Similarly, without the
existence of safe space, youth from
different race/ethnicity, gender,
religious affiliation or cultural
background may feel intimidated to
freely contribute to the community.
When youth have safe spaces to
engage, they can effectively
contribute to development, including
peace and social cohesion.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, specifically Goal 11,
emphasizes the need for the provision
of space towards inclusive and
sustainable urbanization. Furthermore,
the New Urban Agenda (NUA)
reiterates the need for public spaces
for youth to enable them to interact
with family and have constructive
inter-generational dialogue.
Additionally, the World Programme of
Action for Youth (WPAY) which is the
UN framework for youth
development, prioritizes the provision
of “leisure activities” as essential to
the psychological, cognitive and
physical development of young people.
As more and more youth grow in a
technologically connected world, they
aspire to engage deeper in political,
civic and social matters, and the
availability and accessibility of safe
spaces becomes even more crucial to
make this a reality.

Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018 8

 International Day for the Total
Elimination of Nuclear Weapons:
Global Public Good of the Highest Order
Background
The 64th session of the United Nations
General Assembly declared 29 August
the International Day against Nuclear
Tests through the unanimous
adoption of its resolution 64/35 on 2
December 2009. The Preamble of the
resolution emphasizes that "every
effort should be made to end nuclear
tests in order to avert devastating and
harmful effects on the lives and health
of people" and that "the end of nuclear
tests is one of the key means of
achieving the goal of a nuclear-
weapon-free world.”
The main mechanism for eradicating
nuclear weapons testing is the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty (CTBT). It was adopted by
the United Nations General Assembly
on 10 September 1996. To date, 183
countries have signed the treaty and
166 have ratified it. For the Treaty to
enter into Force, it must be ratified
by several of the States with
significant nuclear capabilities.
While the general consensus within
the international community is that
nuclear weapons tests pose life-
threatening risks, there still exists to
some degree a mindset of one-
upmanship among States and a
lingering suspicion of the possibility
of clandestine nuclear weapons
testing. There is also a concern that
if nuclear weapons cannot be tested
their reliability may be in jeopardy.
However, over the years, science and
technology have advanced,
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
exponentially boosting the capacity to
monitor and verify compliance
mechanisms and nuclear weapons
proliferation detection. These
activities and tracking tools have been
initiated and developed by the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban
Treaty Organization (CTBTO)
Preparatory Commission. Despite the
stalled entry-into-force, an
increasingly robust public advocacy,
including activities and events
undertaken on the International Day
against Nuclear Tests, is exerting
pressure on the powers-that-be to
move forward on the ratification of
the treaty with a view towards the
ultimate eradication of nuclear
weapons testing.
There have been visible signs of
progress on various fronts by
Member States – acting on a
multilateral level, bilaterally and
through unilateral actions – scientific
institutes, civil society and grass
roots organizations. The latter two
have been driving the momentum to
pressure their own Governments and
others on rethinking the validity of
possessing nuclear weapons.
Nuclear disarmament, which the
former UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon described as a “global
public good of the highest order”
holds the key to peace and security.
9
The International Day against Nuclear
Tests speaks to this important
concept. Indeed, the significance of
“global public good’ is apparent while
reflecting on the threat of nuclear
tests and nuclear weapons, and in
recent years, the threat of nuclear
terrorism. Several international
commissions, as well as countless
General Assembly resolutions, have
endorsed this view, while
underscoring the horrific effects of
any such use—for humanity, for the
world’s economies, and for our
natural environment.
One of the most critical contributions
to current thinking was provided by
the Final Document of the 2010
Review Conference of the Treaty on
the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT) which expressed
deep concern at the catastrophic
humanitarian consequences of any
use of nuclear weapons and
reaffirmed the need for all States at
all times to comply with applicable
international law, including
international humanitarian law.
The Preparatory Commission of the
CTBTO and its 166 ratifying States
vigorously continue to push for the
Treaty’s entry into force. The
CTBTO’s unique monitoring system,
already encompassing nearly 90 per
cent of States, provides confidence
that no nuclear explosion will escape
detection.
However, nothing can play as crucial
a role in avoiding a nuclear war or
nuclear terrorist threat as the total
elimination of nuclear weapons.
Bringing an irreversible end to nuclear
explosions will prevent the further
development of nuclear weapons.
Various activities to commemorate
International Day against Nuclear
Tests, as well as efforts throughout
the year by nations and civil society
build the momentum towards a safe
and secure world.
Since nuclear weapons testing began
on 16 July 1945, nearly 2,000 have
taken place. Early on, having nuclear
weapons was seen as a measure of
scientific sophistication or military
might, with little consideration given
to the devastating effects of testing
on human life, let alone the dangers
of nuclear fallout from atmospheric
tests. Hindsight and history have
shown us the terrifying and tragic
effects of nuclear weapons testing,
especially when controlled conditions
go awry, and in light of the far more
powerful and destructive nuclear
weapons that exist today.
The human and environmental
tragedies that are the result of nuclear
testing are compelling reasons for the
need to observe the International Day
against Nuclear Tests – a day in
which educational events, activities
and messages aim to capture the
world’s attention and underscore the
need for unified efforts to prevent
further nuclear weapons testing.
The international instrument to put an
end to all forms of nuclear testing is
the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-
Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT),
unfortunately, this has yet to enter
into force.
On 2 December 2009, the 64th
session of the United Nations General
Assembly declared 29 August the
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
International Day against Nuclear
Tests by unanimously adopting
resolution 64/35. The resolution calls
for increasing awareness and
education “about the effects of
nuclear weapon test explosions or
any other nuclear explosions and the
need for their cessation as one of the
means of achieving the goal of a
nuclear-weapon-free world.” The
resolution was initiated by the
Republic of Kazakhstan, together
with a large number of sponsors and
cosponsors with a view to
commemorate the closure of the
Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site on 29
August 1991. The Day is meant to
galvanize the United Nations, Member
States, intergovernmental and non-
governmental organizations,
academic institutions, youth
networks and the media to inform,
educate and advocate the necessity
of banning nuclear weapon tests as a
valuable step towards achieving a
safer world.
2010 marked the inaugural
commemoration of the International
Day against Nuclear Tests. Each year,
since then, the day has been observed
by coordinating various activities
throughout the world, such as
symposia, conferences, exhibits,
competitions, publications, lectures in
academic institutions, media
broadcasts and other initiatives.
Since its establishment, many bilateral
and multilateral governmental level
developments as well as broad
movements in civil society have
helped to advance the cause of
banning nuclear tests.
Moreover, “convinced that nuclear
disarmament and the total elimination
of nuclear weapons are the only
absolute guarantee against the use or
threat of nuclear weapons,” the
General Assembly designated 26
10
September as the “International Day
for the Total Elimination of Nuclear
Weapons", which is devoted to
furthering the objective of the total
elimination of nuclear weapons,
through the mobilization of
international efforts. First proposed
in October 2013, the resolution (A/
RES/ 68/32) was a follow-up to the
high-level meeting on nuclear
disarmament held on 26 September
2013 in the UN General Assembly.
The International Day for the Total
Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was
observed for the first time in
September 2014. The International
Day against Nuclear Tests, together
with other events and actions, has
fostered a global environment with
more optimistic prospects for a world
free of nuclear weapons.
As the Secretary-General recognized
in his message to the Conference on
Disarmament, the security
environment is increasingly complex,
but the complexity cannot be an
excuse for inaction and cynicism.
Although challenges remain,
especially in terms of the deteriorating
international security environment
along with increased military
spending and a strategic tilt towards
nuclear weapons, there have been
visible signs of progress on various
fronts in 2017. This was most
apparent with the adoption of the
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons, consensus on
recommendations to the General
Assembly by the Open-ended
working group on the SSOD-IV, the
positive environment at the first
session of the Preparatory Committee
for the 2020 Review Conference on
NPT, and the adoption by the UN
Disarmament Commission of a
consensus recommendations
document after nearly two decades
of inactivity.
It is the hope of the UN that one day
all nuclear weapons will be eliminated.
Until then, there is a need to observe
International Day against Nuclear
Tests as we work towards promoting
peace and security world-wide. As
the High Representative Ms. Izumi
Nakamitsu remarked at the Annual
NATO Conference on WMD Arms
Control, Disarmament and Non-
Proliferation on 29 May, 2017, “there
is no one path to the elimination of
nuclear weapons. We should
continue to exert all efforts to bring
about other measures to achieve and
maintain a nuclear-weapon-free
world.” Initiatives such as the
International Day against Nuclear
Tests are part of the global efforts
towards a nuclear-weapon-free
world.
Ending Nuclear Testing
The history of nuclear testing began
early on the morning of 16 July 1945
at a desert test site in Alamogordo,
New Mexico when the United States
exploded its first atomic bomb.
Designated as the Trinity Site, this
initial test was the culmination of
years of scientific research under the
banner of the so-called “Manhattan
Project”.
In the five decades between that
fateful day in 1945 and the opening
for signature of the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in
1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were
carried out all over the world.
In the five decades between 1945
and 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests
were carried out all over the world.
After the CTBT was opened for
signature in September 1996, 10
nuclear tests have been conducted:
Breaking the de facto moratorium
About nine nuclear tests were
conducted between 1998 and 2016:
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
two by India and two by Pakistan in
1998 and five by the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
in 2006, 2009, 2013, and two in 2016,
thus breaking the de facto
moratorium that the CTBT had
established.
India conducted two underground
nuclear tests, code-named “Shakti
(Power) ‘98”, on 11 and 13 May 1998
at its Pokhran underground testing
site. In contrast to India’s initial
nuclear test in 1974, this time there
were no claims that these were
“peaceful tests”. On the contrary,
government officials were quick to
emphasize the military nature of the
explosions.
A scant two weeks later, Pakistan
reacted, conducting two underground
nuclear tests at its Ras Koh range.
Both India and Pakistan immediately
moved to announce unilateral
moratoriums on nuclear testing and
have conducted no nuclear tests
since 1998. To read more about the
1998 tests conducted by India and
Pakistan, see The Treaty: History.
The announced nuclear test by the
DPRK on 9 October 2006 broke the
eighth-year-long de facto moratorium
and was against the letter and spirit
of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-
Ban Treaty.
This was followed by four more
tests in 2009, 2013, and January
and September of 2016. These tests
were met with near unanimous
global expressions of concern. The
UN Security Council strongly
condemned them as clear threats to
international peace and security. To
read more about the DPRK’s
nuclear tests and the CTBTO
findings in connection with this
declared test.
11
- The United States conducted
1,032 tests between 1945 and
1992.
- The Soviet Union carried out
715 tests between 1949 and
1990.
- The United Kingdom carried out
45 tests between 1952 and
1991.
- France carried out 210 tests
between 1960 and 1996.
- China carried out 45 tests
between 1964 and 1996.
- India conducted two tests in
1998 (India had also conducted
one so-called peaceful nuclear
explosion in 1974.)
- Pakistan conducted two tests
in 1998.
- The Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea conducted
nuclear tests in 2006, 2009,
2013 and 2016.
See an approximate overview of all
nuclear testing to date, as well as the
CTBT status of the countries that have
conducted nuclear tests. See also
map.
Types of Nuclear Tests
Nuclear explosions have been
detonated in all environments: above
ground, underground and underwater.
Bombs have been detonated on top of
towers, onboard barges, suspended
from balloons, on the earth's surface,
underwater to depths of 600m,
underground to depths of more than
2,400m and in horizontal tunnels. Test
bombs have been dropped by aircraft
and fired by rockets up to 200 miles
into the atmosphere.
Atmospheric testing
Atmospheric testing refers to
explosions which take place in or
above the atmosphere.
All told, of the over 2,000 nuclear
explosions detonated worldwide
between 16 July 1945 (United States)
and 29 July 1996 (China), 25 % or
over 500 bombs were exploded in the
atmosphere: over 200 by the United
States, over 200 by the Soviet Union,
about 20 by Britain, about 50 by
France and over 20 by China.
International concern over radioactive
fallout resulting from atmospheric
tests escalated in the mid 1950s. In
March 1954, the United States tested
its hydrogen bomb Castle Bravo in
the Pacific’s Marshall Islands. The
Bravo test created the worst
radiological disaster in the United
States’ testing history. By accident,
local civilians on the Marshall Islands,
US servicemen stationed on Rongerik
atoll, and the Japanese fishing trawler
Lucky Dragon, were contaminated
with the fallout.
Nuclear weapon tests have been
carried out in all environments: above
ground, underground and
underwater. Atmospheric testing was
banned by the 1963 Partial Test Ban
Treaty. Negotiations had largely
responded to the international
community’s grave concern over the
radioactive fallout resulting from
atmospheric tests. The United States,
the Soviet Union and the United
Kingdom became Parties to the
Treaty; France and China did not.
France conducted its last
atmospheric test in 1974, China in
1980. CTBTO's infrasound IMS
stations are used to detect nuclear
explosions by monitoring low-
frequency sound waves in the
atmosphere. CTBTO Radionuclide
IMS stations are designed to detect
radioactive particles emanating from
an atmospheric test.
Underwater testing
Underwater testing refers to
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
explosions which take place
underwater or close to the surface
of the water. Relatively few
underwater tests have been
conducted. The first underwater
nuclear test — Operation Crossroads
— was conducted by the United
States in 1946 at its Pacific Proving
Grounds in the Marshall Islands with
the purpose of evaluating the effects
of nuclear weapons used against
naval vessels. Later, in 1955, the
United States’ Operation Wigwam
conducted a single underwater
nuclear test at a depth of 600 m to
determine the vulnerability of
submarines to nuclear explosions.
Underwater nuclear explosions close
to the surface can disperse large
amounts of radioactive water and
steam, contaminating nearby ships,
structures and individuals.
Underwater nuclear testing was
banned by the 1963 Partial Test Ban
Treaty. The CTBTO's hydroacoustic
IMS stations are those best suited to
detect nuclear explosions underwater.
Of the over 2,000 nuclear explosions
detonated worldwide between 1945
and 1996, 25% or over 500 bombs
were exploded in the atmosphere.
Underground Testing
Underground testing means that
nuclear explosions are detonated at
varying depths under the surface of
the earth. These comprised the
majority (i.e. about 75%) of all nuclear
explosions detonated during the Cold
War (1945–1989); that is, over 800
of all tests conducted by the United
States and nearly 500 of all tests
conducted by the Soviet Union.
When the explosion is fully contained,
underground nuclear testing emits
negligible fallout compared to
atmospheric testing. However, if
12
underground nuclear tests "vent" to
the surface, they can produce
considerable radioactive debris.
Underground testing is usually
evident through seismic activity
related to the yield of the nuclear
device.
Underground nuclear testing was
banned by the 1996 Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) that
bans all nuclear explosions on Earth.
75% of all nuclear test explosions
during the cold war were conducted
underground. The CTBTO’s seismic
IMS stations are used to detect
nuclear explosions underground. The
seismic data is combined with
radionuclide data. Only the
radionuclide technology can
determine if an explosion is nuclear
in origin; its stations and laboratories
around the world monitor the
presence of particulates and/or noble
gases in the atmosphere.
For more details see Nuclear Testing
Tally: A numeric breakdown of the
number of atmospheric and
underground nuclear tests conducted
by each testing country for each year
from 1945–2006.
Nuclear Testing 1945–2009
The beginning of the nuclear era
The United States launched the
Nuclear Age in the pre-dawn hours
of 16 July 1945 when it detonated a
20-kiloton atomic bomb code-named
”Trinity“ at Alamogordo, New
Mexico.
Under the umbrella of the “Manhattan
Project”, the test’s original purpose
had been to confirm that an
implosion-type nuclear weapon
design was feasible. It also gave
United States’ scientists and the
military an idea of what the actual size
and effects of such nuclear
explosions would be before using
them in combat.
While the Alamogordo test
demonstrated many of the
explosion's effects, it failed to provide
a meaningful comprehension of
radioactive nuclear fallout, which was
not well understood by project
scientists until years later.
The United States dropped two
atomic bombs on Japan towards the
end of World War II: one an untested
gun-type fission bomb called “Little
Boy” on Hiroshima on 6 August
1945; another implosion-type bomb
tested at Alamogordo for the first time
a month earlier and called “Fat Man”
on Nagasaki on 9 August. Together
these two bombs killed some
220,000 Japanese citizens outright,
with over 200,000 more dying
subsequently from lethal radiation
overdoses.
From “hot war” to Cold War
No sooner was World War II brought
to a close in August 1945 than an all-
out technical-industrial nuclear
weapons race ensued between the
two newly emerging superpowers,
the United States and the Soviet
Union. Between 1946 and 1949, the
United States conducted an additional
six tests. Then on 29 August 1949,
the Soviet Union tested its first atomic
bomb, “Joe 1”. This test marked the
beginning of the “Cold War” nuclear
arms race between the two
superpowers.
With the Soviet Union's first atomic
bomb test on 29 August 1949, the
"cold war" nuclear arms race between
the USSR and the United States was
on. At the outset, neither the United
States nor the Soviet Union had many
nuclear weapons to spare so their
nuclear testing was relatively limited.
However, by the 1950s the United
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
States had established a dedicated test
site (Nevada Test Site) and was also
using a site in the Marshall Islands
(Pacific Proving Grounds) for
extensive nuclear testing. The Soviet
Union also began testing on a limited
scale, primarily in Semipalatinsk in the
Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Early
tests were used primarily to ascertain
the military effects of nuclear weapons
and to test new weapon designs.
Exacerbated tensions and an
atmosphere of pervasive fear and
suspicion catalyzed competition to
build more powerful and
sophisticated bombs. During the
1950s new hydrogen bomb designs
were tested in the Pacific, as were
new and improved fission weapon
designs.
In 1954 India's Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru became the first
statesmen to call for a "stand still"
agreement on nuclear testing.
The United Kingdom became the third
country to test nuclear weapons on
3 October 1952. Initially, the United
Kingdom tested mainly in Australia
and later on in the United States. From
1958 onwards its programme was
closely coordinated with that of the
United States through the UK-US
Mutual Defense Agreement.
The first hydrogen bomb
On 1 November 1952 the United
States became the first country to test
a hydrogen bomb. The Castle Bravo
test on 1 March 1954 yielded 15
megatons and was the largest nuclear
weapon ever detonated by the United
States. By accident, the inhabited
atolls of Rongelap, Rongerik and
Utirik were contaminated with
radioactive fallout, as was the
Japanese fishing trawler Lucky
Dragon. The controversy over
radioactive fallout from testing
13
activities caused great international
concern.
India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru was the first statesman to call
for a “stand still” agreement on
nuclear testing on 2 April, 1954.
However, this did little to stop the
extensive nuclear testing that
characterized the following 35 years,
not subsiding until the end of the Cold
War in the late 1980s.
From 1955 to 1989, the average
number of nuclear tests conducted
every year was 55. Nuclear testing
peaked in the late 1950s and early
1960s. The year 1962 alone saw as
many as 178 tests: 96 conducted by
the United States and 79 by the Soviet
Union. This was the year of the
Cuban Missile Crisis when the Cold
War threatened to become a nuclear
war. The preceding year had seen the
testing of the largest nuclear weapon
ever exploded, the Soviet Union’s
“Tsar Bomba” with an estimated yield
of 50 megatons. It was tested at the
Novaya Zemlya test site near the
Arctic Circle.
France and China became nuclear
weapon States in 1960 and 1964
respectively, with both nuclear
programmes intended to provide
credible nuclear deterrents. France
initially tested in Algeria, and later on
in the South Pacific. China
conducted all its nuclear tests at Lop
Nur in Xinjiang Province.
The 1963 partial test ban treaty
banned nuclear testing, including
testing for peaceful purposes, in the
atmosphere, underwater and in
space... but not underground.
The early 1960s also saw the
introduction of the only testing
limitation effort that had concrete
effects on how testing was

conducted during the Cold War. The
1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty banned
nuclear testing for military and for
peaceful purposes, in the
atmosphere, underwater and in
space. The Treaty was important
from an environmental point of
view, curbing the radioactive fallout
closely associated with atmospheric
tests, but did little to prevent overall
nuclear testing, which largely
moved underground.
Burgeoning nuclear arsenals
The world’s nuclear arsenals
ballooned throughout the Cold War,
from slightly more than 3,000
weapons in 1955 to over 37,000
weapons by 1965 (United States
31,000 and the Soviet Union 6,000),
to 47,000 by 1975 (United States
27,000 and Soviet Union 20,000),
and over 60,000 in the late 1980s
(United States 23,000 and the Soviet
Union 39,000).
According to the Nuclear Threat
Initiative, Israel initiated a nuclear
programme in the 1950s, and had
completed the R&D phase of its
nuclear weapon programme in 1966,
although it has not, to public
knowledge, tested such a weapon.
Israel has adopted a so-called “nuclear
ambiguity policy”, neither confirming
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
nor denying its nuclear status. It is
not a party to the 1968 Non-
Proliferation Treaty, and it has signed
but not ratified the CTBT.
Officially, India became the sixth
nation to develop nuclear weapons,
conducting a nuclear test, declared
as a peaceful nuclear explosion, in
May 1974.
In 1982, one additional nation, South
Africa, acquired nuclear weapons,
according to the Monterey Institute’s
Center on Non-Proliferation Studies.
To public knowledge, South Africa
did not conduct any nuclear tests.
Less than ten years later, with the
anticipated transition to a majority-
elected government, South Africa
dismantled all of its nuclear weapons,
the only nation to date that voluntarily
relinquished the nuclear arms under
its complete control. The dismantling
was completed in 1991. The same
year, South Africa acceded to the
1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty as a
non-nuclear weapon State. It voted
overwhelmingly to end apartheid on
18 March 1992.
Underground nuclear testing was
banned by the 1996 Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans
all nuclear explosions on Earth.
14
The world did not witness any
significant decrease in nuclear testing
activities and nuclear weapons
acquisition among the nuclear
weapon States until the early 1990s.
The total number of nuclear tests in
the second half of the 1980s
amounted to as many as 174.
But warmer relations between the
Soviet Union and the United States
from the mid-1980s prepared the
way, as did the fall of the Berlin Wall
in 1989 and the 1991 dissolution of
the Soviet Union, which was
superseded by the Russian
Federation. Belarus, Kazakhstan and
Ukraine who, together with Russia,
had hosted the Soviet nuclear arsenal,
became non-nuclear weapon States
under the Non-proliferation Treaty.
The USSR's main test site,
Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, was
closed in 1991.
Moratoria on nuclear testing
In 1990, the Soviet Union proposed
a moratorium on nuclear testing that
was agreed to by the United Kingdom
and the United States. This created
an opportunity to move ahead for
those advocates who, for decades,
had promoted a comprehensive ban
on all nuclear testing.
Some six nuclear tests were
conducted between 1998 and 2009:
two by India and two by Pakistan in
1998 and one by the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)
in 2006 and another one by the DPRK
in 2009.
The Soviet Union’s last nuclear test
took place on 24 October 1990; the
United Kingdom’s on 26 November
1991 and the United States’ on 23
September 1992. France and China
conducted their last tests in January
and July 1996 respectively, before
signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-
Test-Ban Treaty on the day it opened
for signature, 24 September 1996,
together with the other three nuclear
weapon States and 66 other
countries. (For the status of signature
and ratification of the Treaty today,
please click here). France closed and
dismantled all its nuclear test sites in
the 1990s — the only nuclear weapon
State to date that has done so.
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty (CTBT)
Central to the issue of the Day against
Nuclear Tests is the Comprehensive
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which bans
nuclear testing everywhere on the
planet — surface, atmosphere,
underwater and underground. The
Treaty takes on significance as it also
aims to obstruct the development of
nuclear weapons: both the initial
development of nuclear weapons as
well as their substantial improvement
(e.g. the advent of thermonuclear
weapons) necessitate real nuclear
testing. The CTBT makes it almost
impossible for countries that do not yet
have nuclear weapons to develop them.
And it makes it almost impossible for
countries that have nuclear weapons
to develop new or more advanced
weapons. It also helps prevent the
damage caused by nuclear testing to
humans and the environment.
History
Between 1945 and 1996, when the
CTBT opened for signature, over 2000
nuclear tests were conducted: by the
United States (1000+), the Soviet
Union (700+), France (200+), the
United Kingdom and China (45 each).
Three countries have broken the de-
facto moratorium and tested nuclear
weapons since 1996: India and
Pakistan in 1998 and the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016. Many
attempts were made during the Cold
War to negotiate a comprehensive test
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
ban, but it was only in the 1990s that
the Treaty became a reality. The CTBT
was negotiated in Geneva between
1994 and 1996.
The Treaty has yet to enter into force
All 44 States specifically listed in the
Treaty — those with nuclear
technology capabilities at the time of
the final Treaty negotiations in 1996
— must sign and ratify before the
CTBT can enter into force.
Of these, eight are still missing:
China, DPRK, Egypt, India, Iran,
Israel, Pakistan and the USA. DPRK,
India and Pakistan have yet to sign
the CTBT. Otherwise, as July 2017,
183 countries have signed, of which
166 have ratified the Treaty.
The Treaty Organization
Since the Treaty is not yet in force,
the Organization is called the
Preparatory Commission for the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Organization, or CTBTO. It was
founded in 1996, with approximately
260 staff from most of the CTBT’s
182 Member States. It is headed by
the Executive Secretary, Lassina Zerbo
(Burkina Faso). The CTBTO’s main
tasks are the promotion of the Treaty
and the build-up of the verification
regime so that it is operational when
the Treaty enters into force. The
annual budget is around
US$130,000,000 or €120,000,000.
Verification regime
It is a unique and comprehensive
system. At the heart of the
verification regime is the International
Monitoring System (IMS), which
consists of 337 facilities located all
over the world that constantly
monitor the planet for signs of nuclear
explosions. Around 90% of these
facilities are already sending data to
the International Data Centre at the
CTBTO headquarters in Vienna. The
15
IMS uses the following four state-
of-the-art technologies:
Seismic: Fifty primary and 120
auxiliary seismic stations monitor
shockwaves in the Earth. The vast
majority of these shockwaves – many
thousands every year – are caused
by earthquakes. But man-made
explosions such as mine explosions
or the announced North Korean
nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013 and
2016 are also detected.
Hydroacoustic: Eleven hydrophone
stations “listen” for sound waves in
the oceans. Sound waves from
explosions can travel extremely far
underwater.
Infrasound: Sixty stations on the
surface can detect ultra-low
frequency sound waves (inaudible to
the human ear) that are emitted by
large explosions.
Radionuclide: Eighty stations
measure the atmosphere for
radioactive particles, 40 of them also
pick up noble gas. Only these
measurements can give a clear
indication as to whether an explosion
detected by the other methods was
actually nuclear or not. They are
supported by 16 radionuclide
laboratories.
On-site-Inspection
If the data from the IMS stations
indicate that a nuclear test has taken
place, a Member State can request for
an on-site-inspection to be carried out
to collect evidence that will allow the
final assessment to be made regarding
whether a nuclear explosion — a
Treaty violation — has actually taken
place. This will only be possible after
the CTBT has entered into force.
Large on-site inspection exercises
were carried out in September 2008
in Kazakhstan and in 2014 in Jordan.
 National Human Rights Update
Assam’s Citizen Identification
Can Exclude 4 Million People
The Indian authorities should ensure
that documenting and updating the
names of citizens in the northeastern
state of Assam is transparent and
nondiscriminatory, Human Rights
Watch and Amnesty International
India said. The potential exclusion of
over 4 million people, many of them
Muslims, raises concerns over
arbitrary detention and possible
statelessness without due process.
On July 30, 2018, the Assam state
government published a draft of the
National Register of Citizens (NRC),
aimed at identifying Indian citizens
and legitimate residents following
repeated protests and violence over
irregular migration from Bangladesh.
The register only lists those people
as citizens who can prove that they
or their ancestors entered India before
midnight on March 24, 1971 – the
eve of the war that led to the creation
of Bangladesh. The process to update
the register, which various political
parties and ethnic groups in Assam
have demanded, is being monitored
by the Supreme Court.
“Assam has long sought to preserve
its ethnic identity, but rendering
millions of people stateless is not the
answer,” said Meenakshi Ganguly,
South Asia director at Human Rights
Watch. “Indian authorities need to
move swiftly to ensure the rights of
Muslims and other vulnerable
communities in Assam are protected
from statelessness.”
The government has said that this is
a draft list and those whose names
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
are missing from the register have
until September 28, 2018 to seek a
correction. “No one will be sent to
detention camps,” said Assam’s
finance and health minister, Himanta
Biswa Sarma. “Rights or privileges
will not be taken away from them
just because their names have not
appeared in the draft NRC.” The
central government has also said that
after the final list is published in
December, applicants left out will
have an opportunity to seek a
correction from the Foreigners
Tribunals.
However, the government has not
formulated an official policy for those
people who are excluded from the
National Register of Citizens and
declared foreigners by the tribunals.
In December 2017, Sarma said that,
“the NRC is being done to identify
illegal Bangladeshis residing in
Assam,” and that “all those whose
names do not figure in the NRC will
have to be deported.”
However, Bangladesh has not agreed
to claims that these people are
irregular migrants, making
deportation to Bangladesh unlikely.
India does not have an agreement on
deportation with Bangladesh.
Irregular migration from Bangladesh
has long been a volatile issue in Assam
and concerns over the inclusion of
these so-called “illegal immigrants” in
electoral rolls has grown in recent
years. Assam has a long history of
16
armed groups targeting those
considered outsiders to protect the
claims of “indigenous” citizens.
In May 2018, protests erupted in
Assam over a Citizenship Amendment
Bill, which would grant citizenship to
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains,
Parsis, and Christians from
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and
Pakistan. While the proposed law
deliberately excludes Muslims,
including Shia and Ahmadiyya who
also face persecution in Pakistan,
many groups in Assam fear that this
will increase influx of Hindu
Bangladeshi migrants to the state.
“The NRC should not become a
political tool to render stateless people
who have been living in India for
decades and have established strong
links with the country,” said Aakar
Patel, executive director of Amnesty
International India. “During the
process of claims and appeals, the
state government should ensure that
the people excluded from the NRC
are not deprived of any government
services, nor targeted or stigmatized
in any manner.”
Background
Assam’s National Register of Citizens
is being updated for the first time
since 1951, and has so far verified
28.9 million people as citizens out of
32.9 million who applied. The
verification process collects two sets
of documents from residents of the
state. List A is legacy data, which
includes the 1951 NRC and electoral
rolls up to 1971 to prove that the
applicant’s ancestors lived in Assam
before 1971. List B documents – for
instance birth certificates – establish
the relationship of the applicant to the
List A documents of their parents or
grandparents. The NRC then verifies
the documents, ostensibly creating a
family tree for each applicant.
Fact-finding reports by civil society
groups and the media indicate that the
NRC process is not free from error
or bias. According to several reports,
even people with legitimate
documents proving their citizenship
status have not been registered
because of technical reasons such as
spelling mistakes or different names
being used in the various documents.
Sometimes, several people with the
same name show up in old records,
creating confusion, said NRC
officials.
Millions of Indians in Assam, often
surviving on basic subsistence, have
no access to historical documentation
to establish citizenship claims.
Changes in requirements for
documents and notifications from the
NRC authorities have also plagued the
process. For instance, in March
2017, the Gauhati High Court ordered
that a residency certificate issued by
the panchayat secretary – an elected
local official at village level – has no
statutory basis and cannot be used
as a linking document. This was a
considerable setback for over 5
million married women who had
reportedly used it to establish their
connection to their parents. In
December 2017, the Supreme Court
modified it, allowing the use of the
document, subject to verification of
its authenticity.
The NRC allows those deemed “D”
or “doubtful” voters to apply for
inclusion but does not include their
names unless the Foreigners
Tribunals – statutory authorities set
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
up to detect illegal immigrants in
Assam – declare them as non-
foreigners.
However, in May 2018, the state
coordinator for the NRC sent a notice
to all districts saying that siblings and
other family members of “declared
foreigners” will also be put on hold
and not included in the NRC until the
tribunals decide their fate. He also
sent an order to the border police
authorities, requiring them to refer
family members of “declared
foreigners” to the Foreigners
Tribunals. The order did not mention
the police’s duty to conduct a prior
inquiry before referring someone to
a tribunal. Once a person’s case is
referred to a tribunal, they can no
longer be included in the NRC until
their citizenship has been determined.
In June 2018, four United Nations
human rights experts sent a letter to
the Indian government raising
concerns over the NRC process being
discriminatory “in light of the history
of discrimination and violence faced
by Muslims of Bengali origin due to
their status as ethnic, religious and
linguistic minority and their perceived
foreignness.” The letter also raised
concerns over the Foreigners
Tribunals disproportionately affecting
and targeting Bengali Muslims. The
letter pointed to allegations that there
had been a notable and significant
increase in the tribunals’ findings of
foreigner status as a result of the new
Bharatiya Janata Party-led
government coming to power,
resulting in large numbers of Bengali
Muslims ending up stateless or at risk
of detention.
Currently, six jails in Assam double
up as detention centers, holding more
than 1,000 people. The state
administration has received
permission to open a standalone
17
detention center to house 3,000
detainees. A fact-finding report by the
special monitor of minorities of the
National Human Rights Commission
found that detainees live in these
centers with no prospect of release,
without adequate legal representation,
flouting domestic and international
law. In the absence of guidelines as
to the rights of these detainees in the
state, these centers are administered
like prisons and the detainees treated
as convicted prisoners. However,
they do not enjoy the rights of the
prisoners to parole, waged work, and
are not allowed out of their barracks
even in the day.
The report found that the detention
centers also separated children from
their parents. It noted cases where a
child was declared Indian and both
parents foreigners. A child under 6 is
allowed to stay with the mother in
the detention center, but the legal
handling of children above 6 years
old remains unclear.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention has stated that asylum
seekers or immigrants should be
placed in custody specifically
intended for this purpose or, when
for practical reasons, this is not the
case, they must be placed in premises
separate from those for persons
imprisoned under criminal law.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International India have long
advocated against the unnecessary
use of immigration detention,
particularly of families with children.
India also has international obligations
under the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights and the
International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination to ensure protection
of the rights of all and prevent
deprivation of citizenship on the basis
of race, color, descent, or national
or ethnic origin.
From the Americas to the Far
East, Courts Are Advancing
LGBT Rights
In January, a colleague of mine at
Human Rights Watch predicted that
2018 would be the “year of the courts”
for LGBT people’s rights. Seven
months into the year, courts around
the world have indeed come down
with important rulings that help secure
those rights. Their decisions show that
judges in many countries, with a range
of different legal traditions, have come
to agree that that LGBT people are
legally entitled to equal treatment,
dignity and fairness.
In April, a High Court in Trinidad &
Tobago held that the country’s
sodomy laws, which criminalized
homosexual conduct, were
unconstitutional. The judge wrote,
“This is not a case about religious and
moral beliefs but is one about the
inalienable rights of a citizen under
the republican Constitution of TT; any
citizen, all citizens. This is a case
about the dignity of the person and
not about the will of the majority or
any religious debate.”
In Lebanon, media reports indicate
that the Mount Lebanon Appeals
Court upheld in a July ruling the 2017
acquittal of nine people prosecuted
for homosexual conduct. The
Lebanese penal code bans sexual
relations considered to be against
nature, punishable by up to one year
in prison. The appeals court
reportedly found that this law should
not be read as criminalizing
homosexual conduct. The ruling was
hailed by Lebanese LGBT activists as
the first such ruling by a Lebanese
appeals court, following several
similar lower court rulings.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
In Bermuda, the Supreme Court held
in a June 6 ruling that sections of a
recent law that revoked the right to
same-sex marriage were invalid
because they favored “one set of
beliefs about marriage over another”
and were therefore inconsistent with
provisions in the Bermudan
Constitution that guarantee the right
to freedom of conscience and creed.
The government has announced its
intention to appeal.
In Poland, a printer refused to print a
banner for an LGBT organization
because he did not want, in his eyes,
to “promote” the rights of lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, and
intersex people. The organization
took him to court. The state
prosecutor defended the printer’s
position, but Poland’s Supreme Court
in June upheld a lower court’s
decision that the printer could not
refuse to provide his services to the
organization.
In Ecuador, in two separate cases,
one brought by a lesbian couple and
the other by gay men, judges ruled
against the Civil Registry’s refusal to
allow them to marry. Both judges
cited in their rulings the advisory
opinion of the Inter-American Court
of Human Rights from January
stating that governments “must
recognize and guarantee the rights
that are derived from a family bond
between two people of the same sex.”
The two judges ruled that the Civil
Registry’s refusal to allow the
couple’s marriages constituted a
violation of the rights to equality and
nondiscrimination based on the sexual
orientation of the contracting parties.
In Chile, the president of the Supreme
Court stated that the advisory opinion
of the Inter-American Court
regarding same-sex marriage rights
is binding for Chile.
18
In Europe, the European Union Court
of Justice in Luxembourg ruled in
June that the term “spouse” in a
directive on the exercise of free
movement under E.U. law is gender-
neutral and therefore covers the
same-sex spouse of an E.U. citizen.
It emphasized that “although the
member states have the freedom
whether or not to authorize marriage
between persons of the same sex,
they may not obstruct the freedom
of residence of an EU citizen by
refusing to grant his same-sex
spouse, a national of a country that
is not an EU Member State, a derived
right of residence in their territory.”
The E.U. Court of Justice ruling came
from a case referred by the Romanian
Constitutional Court about whether
a gay Romanian-American couple
were entitled to the same residency
rights in Romania as other married
couples in the European Union, even
though Romania only recognizes civil
partnerships rather than marriage
between same-sex partners.
Following the E.U. court ruling, the
Romanian Constitutional Court ruled
in July affirming that same-sex
partners in Romania are entitled to the
same E.U. residency rights as other
married couples.
Similarly, media reports indicate that
in July an administrative court in
Sofia, Bulgaria, decided that Bulgaria
is not allowed to refuse a third-
country national married to a
European Union citizen of the same
sex the right to live in Bulgaria even
on the grounds that the Bulgarian law
does not provide for marriage
between persons of the same sex.
The issue of granting a visa to a same-
sex spouse, married elsewhere, also
came up in Hong Kong. The
administration refused to grant a
dependent visa to the same-sex
spouse of a British and South African
national who was admitted to Hong
Kong to accept a job. The Court of
Final Appeal of the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region ruled
in July that the government can only
refuse such a visa if it can provide
“particularly convincing and weighty
reasons” to justify the difference in
treatment between same-sex and
different-sex spouses. Since the
government could not meet this
standard, the court ruled that the
same-sex spouse was discriminated
against because of her sexual
orientation.
In the Netherlands, the Limburg
district court of Roermond found in
a June decision that the exclusive
option of “male” or “female” on
official documents, including birth
certificates, is too restrictive. The
court referenced precedent in India
and Nepal and concluded that self-
identification prevails over bodily
appearance or medical status. The
court suggested the Dutch
legislature initiate legislation to
ensure that gender-neutral self-
identification is provided for under
Dutch law.
In July, the Supreme Court of India
began hearing a case that could strike
down a 158-year-old colonial-era law
that criminalizes same-sex sexual
activity. Under Section 377 of the
Indian Penal Code, sex "against the
order of nature" draws a jail term and
a fine.
India’s government has declined to
take a position on the
decriminalization of gay sex, leaving
the a decision about whether to strike
down the law entirely up to the
country’s top court, requesting only
that the court not address broader
issues like equal marriage,
inheritance, and adoption.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
India has the second-largest
population in the world, with more
than 1.3 billion people. The Supreme
Court’s ruling, expected soon, is
highly anticipated in India and the rest
of the world.
Of course, not all court decisions on
LGBT rights in 2018 have been
positive. For example, in Uganda in
June, a court dismissed a case
challenging the Uganda Registration
Services Bureau’s refusal to register
Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG),
an organization that has long
defended the rights of LGBT people
in the nation. The court agreed with
the respondents that SMUG was
promoting “illegal behavior” and
contended that both its name and its
objectives were prejudicial to the
public interest.
Courts cannot always be counted on
to deliver justice for LGBT people,
but LGBT activists and their allies are
seeing the benefits of turning to the
courts to get their fundamental rights
recognized. They no longer accept
the passivity of lawmakers who are
supposed to represent them. They
want to see the right to equal
treatment and nondiscrimination
secured. If the legislature is not yet
ready to protect the rights of LGBT
people, the courts can often help.
Mob Attack in India Highlights
Broader Violence
Swami Agnivesh, a 78-year-old
Hindu monk who has long promoted
social causes including the rights of
Dalits (formerly “untouchables”) and
the abolition of bonded labor, was
recently attacked in Jharkhand state.
Agnivesh said after the attack that he
was targeted by two youth wings of
the state’s governing Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “They
alleged that I was speaking against
Hindus,” he said.
19
The BJP, which leads the central
government in India as well as in
several states, campaigns on the
promise of good governance and
development, but includes members
of groups that militantly promote a
Hindu nationalist ideology.
In recent years, groups affiliated with
the BJP have attacked Muslims and
Dalits over allegations of illegally
trading in cows or beef. They have
forced Christian tribal groups and
Dalits to “re-convert” to Hinduism.
They have attacked journalists,
human rights lawyers, and activists.
Their leaders have frequently enjoyed
political patronage, and some even
hold political office themselves.
The use of organized mobs to express
“offended” sentiment with violence
has undermined the rule of law in
places, with scores of people beaten,
even killed, in attacks that the Indian
media has described as “lynchings.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court
condemned these “horrendous acts
of mobocracy,” and called upon the
government to enact new legislation
to tackle the growing problem. BJP
leaders said there was no need.
Laws are only as good as their
enforcement, and there appears to be
little interest from the BJP in ending this
violence. The BJP denied its members
were involved in the attack on
Agnivesh, but justified it nevertheless.
One leader declared him to be a “fraud,”
who “survives on foreign donations,”
and concluded that he “had himself
planned this attack to gain popularity.”
Another said that Agnivesh had “hurt
religious sentiment.”
Unless the BJP ends this wink-and-
nod approach that allows its
supporters to get away, literally, with
murder, it will bear responsibility for
the resulting mobocracy.
News From the National Human Rights Commission
NHRC concludes Open Hearing
and Camp Sitting at Bengaluru,
Karnataka
The National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) today
concluded its two days' 'Open Hearing
and Camp Sitting' organized in
Bengaluru for the cases of Karnataka.
The Commission took up 185 cases
in its Open Hearing on the day one
and recommended monetary relief of
Rs. Five Lakhs in one case and also
issued Show Cause Notices to the
State government in seven matters for
providing monetary relief for prima-
facie violation of human rights. In
some cases, reports received from
authorities were ordered to be sent to
the complainant for their comments
and, in some cases, further reports
have been called for. 106 cases were
closed after satisfactory response
from the State Government.
Earlier, inaugurating the programme
Mr. Justice H. L. Dattu, Chairperson
NHRC said that the open hearings and
camp sittings provide an opportunity
to look at human rights situation in a
State and the grievances of the
people, particularly the marginalized
sections, and recommend on the spot
relief to the victims of human rights
violations besides creating awareness
and helping the official machinery in
improving the governance with
proper implementation of Socio-
economic Flagship programmes and
provision of basic facilities.
Mr. Ambuj Sharma, Secretary
General, NHRC said that the
Commission is able to interact directly
with various stakeholders including
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
victims of human rights violations,
human rights defenders, NGOs,
Media at the Camp sittings/Open
hearings. Mr. T. M. Vijaybhaskar,
Chief Secretary, Government of
Karnataka, assured the Commission
of prompt action on the various
complaints received from NHRC.
Besides, the issues of atrocities on
SC/ST, the cases pertain to water
drainage in Hassan district,
compensation and rehabilitation for
acquisition of land for metro rail by
KIADB in Bengaluru, allotment of
land to scheduled castes,
construction of homes for scheduled
caste in Gadag, alleged suicide by a
person due to police torture in
Gulbarga, release of retirement
benefit and rape on Dalit minor girl,
release and rehabilitation of bonded
labourers, death in main hole,
electrocution death, failure by the
police to take action, death of children
due to vaccination in Mandya etc.
On the 2nd day, 11 cases were taken
up by the Full Commission. These
included matters pertaining to illegal
quarrying in Shimoga district and
Mandya district, atrocities by a mob
on a Tanzanian national women by a
mob in Bengaluru, rescue of slave
farmers from Mysore district, police
atrocities on villagers in Belgaum
district, contaminated water supply
in Shivamogga district and air and
water pollution caused by land filled
garbage in Mysore. The Full
Commission was informed that Rs.
20
4.53 lakh have been paid to victims
of atrocity in Mandya district and Rs.
1.50 lakh paid to the victim from
Bengaluru district. Further, in the case
of contaminated water supply Rs.
two lakh each have been paid to the
families of the four deceased. The
Commission also recommended
monetary compensation of Rs. 5000/
- each for 35 victims who were taken
ill by contaminated water. Upon
consideration of the reports, the Full
Commission closed four cases and
called for further reports in the
remaining cases.
The Full Commission meeting was
followed by an interaction with the
NGOs, Human Rights Defenders and
LGBT community representatives.
During the interaction, the civil
society representatives raised
sensitive issues such as victimization
of barber community members,
problems faced by transgender,
human trafficking and bonded labour,
delay in registration of cases by
police, problems faced by human
rights defenders including threats to
their life, physical violence and sexual
harassment against women at work
place even in corporate sector etc.
NHRC announces winners of its
Short Film Award Scheme - 2018
The National Human Rights
Commission, based on the
recommendations of a jury, has
announced the three winners of its
Short Film Award Scheme - 2018.
These are:
1. 'Behind the Bars' by Dr. Ms. Dev
Kanya from Himachal Pradesh
has been selected for the first prize
 of Rs. 1 lakh. The film gives an
insight into the significance of
prison reforms.
2. 'Third Gender' by Mr. Biplab
Majumder from Mumbai has been
selected for the second prize of Rs.
75 thousand. The film highlights
the denial of rights to transgender
and their challenges in life.
3. 'It's Possible' by Mr. Jayajose Raj
CL from Kerala gets the third prize
of Rs. 50 thousand. It focuses on
the importance of crusade for
protecting right to clean
environment. The first as well as
the second film is in Hindi with
subtitles in English and the third
is in Malayalam with subtitles in
English.
The jury headed by Mr. Justice P.C.
Ghose, Member, NHRC comprised
three senior officers of the
Commission including Mr. Ambuj
Sharma, Secretary General, Ms.
Chhaya Sharma, DIG, Mr. Jaimini
Kumar Srivastava, Dy. Director
(M&C) and the two external experts
as members including, Mr. Arun
Chadha, National Award Winner Film
Maker and FTTI alumnus and Mr.
Sunit Tandon, Director, IHC and
former DG, IIMC.
Besides these, three cash awards, the
Commission has also accepted the
jury's recommendations to give a
certificate of 'Special Mention' to four
films. These are:
1. Tritio Chad by - Mr. Tathaghatha
Chatterjee. The film, in Bengali
with subtitles in English, is on
giving women the right to equal
opportunities.
2. No Woman's Land by - Dr. Ms.
Dev Kanya - The film, in Hindi
with subtitles in English, is on the
denial of rights to tribal women
of Kinnaur.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
3. El Amasung Eihak by - Mr.
Hamom Ashish Kumar - The film,
in Manipuri with subtitles in
English, is on corruption and
malpractices of voting rights.
4. Nazariya - by- Mr. Alok D. Rajput -
The film, in Hindi with sub titles in
English, is on the rights of
transgender and the necessity to
accept them with dignity in society.
The three awards will be given at a
function to be organized in New Delhi
on the 5th September, 2018. The
Commission had received total 53
entries till the last date on the 2nd
July, 2018 to compete for its Short
Film Award Scheme. The jury judged
48 films, which it found were
fulfilling the terms and conditions of
the competition.
The aim of the Short Film Award
Scheme is to encourage and
acknowledge cinematic and creative
efforts of the Indian citizens,
irrespective of their age, towards the
promotion and protection of human
rights. This is the fourth year of this
competition which has received
tremendous response from various
parts of the country.
NHRC's Open Hearing and
Camp Sitting at Bengaluru for
the cases of Karnataka, from
2nd - 3rd August, 2018
The National Human Rights
Commission, NHRC will be holding
two days 'Open Hearing and Camp
Sitting' in order to address the
grievances of the people speedily at
Karnataka, Bengaluru on the 2nd - 3rd
August, 2018.
Mr. Justice H. L. Dattu, Chairperson,
NHRC will inaugurate it at Vikas
Soudha, Doctor Ambedkar Veedhi,
Sampangi Rama Nagar, Bengaluru,
Karnataka at 10.00 am on the 2nd
21
August, 2018. Besides the hearing of
the cases, the Government officers
will also be sensitized about the issues
concerning human rights.
After the inauguration, the
Commission will take up 183 cases
in the 'Open Hearing' which will be
heard by the Chairperson, Mr. Justice
H.L. Dattu, Members, Mr. Justice
Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Mr. Justice
D. Murugesan and Mrs. Jyotika
Kalra. These relate to the grievances
and complaints of atrocities against
the persons belonging to Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes
communities due to action, inaction
or omission by the public authorities.
Apart from the complaints received
in response to the public notices, the
Commission has also decided to take
up some of the cases of Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes victims,
already under consideration of the
Commission in the Open Hearing.
The authorities concerned have been
asked to remain present at the time
of hearing of these cases.
On the 3rd August, 2018, the second
and the concluding day of the
programme, 14 important cases will
be taken up in the sitting of Full
Commission in the 'Camp Sitting.'
These include cases of rehabilitation
of more than 400 slave farmers
rescued between 2011-2016, illegal
quarrying and excavation work at
Vadera Basapur Village and other
adjoining villages in Mandya District
of Karnataka, supply of contaminated
water by the Gram Panchayat at
Maidolalu village in Bhadravati taluk
of Shivamogga district etc.
The Commission will hold a meeting
with NGOs & HRDs/Transgenders
between 11.00 and 12.00 Noon
followed by discussion with the Chief
Secretary, DGP, DMs, SPs and other
senior civil, police and jail officers of
the Sate on the issues raised by the
NGOs and media persons at Vikas
Soudha, Doctor Ambedkar Veedhi,
Sampangi Rama Nagar, Bengaluru,
Karnataka from 12.00 Noon - 12.45
pm.
Later on, the Chairperson and Members
will brief the media about the outcome
of the Open Hearing/Camp Sitting as
well as discussions with the NGOs and
senior officers of the State Government
for wider dissemination of information
on the human rights issues and action
taken by the NHRC for their protection
and promotion.
So far, the Commission has held its
Camp Sitting/Open Hearings in the
States of Assam, Andhra Pradesh,
Andaman & Nicobar, Bihar,
Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana,
Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand,
Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Nagaland,
Odisha, Punjab, Rajsathan, Tamil
Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh,
Uttarakhand and Chandigarh for the
States of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal
Pradesh and UTs of Chandigarh and
Poducherry.
Besides this, the Commission also
organized one Regional Public
Hearing on Right to Health Care in
collaboration with the Jan Swasthya
Abhiyan (JSA) at Mumbai on 6th -
7th January, 2016 for States of
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Goa
and Union Territories of Daman &
Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli.
NHRC extends by 10 days the
last date for entry to its first
'Street Theatre Festival and
Awards Scheme-2018'
The National Human Rights
Commission has extended the last
date by 10 days from 31st July, 2018
to 10 August, 2018 for receipt of
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
entries for its first 'Street Theatre
Festival and Awards Scheme-2018'.
This is the final extension and no
entries will be entertained after 10th
August, 2018 till 05.00 p.m.
The aim is to recognize, encourage
and promote the creative methods of
the Indian citizens for communication
through street plays in order to build
awareness about the protection and
promotion of human rights.
The inaugural run of the competition
is open for the participation of the
college theatre groups as well as
registered theatre groups of Delhi-
NCR region with their street plays in
the contemporary spoken Hindi only.
The groups whose street plays will
be shortlisted for performance will
be paid Rs. 25,000/- each to meet
various expenditures towards the
production cost etc apart from the
participation certificates. Besides this,
the three best performances for the
first, second and third positions will
be given the prize money of Rs.1
lakh, Rs.60 thousand and Rs.40
thousand respectively along with
certificates and trophies.
The themes of the street plays could
be broadly-based on various socio-
economic, cultural and political rights
within the ambit of right to life, liberty,
equality and dignity and covering
issues specific to bonded and child
labour, women & children's rights,
rights of elderly persons, disabled
rights, right to healthcare, issues of
fundamental freedoms, human
trafficking, domestic violence,
human rights violation due to police
atrocities, custodial violence and
torture, socio-economic disparities,
rights of indigenous people, prison
reforms, right to education, right to
clean environment, right to work,
right to equality before law, right to
food and nutritional security, various
22
human rights violations and their
redressal mechanism.
The NHRC is completing its silver
jubilee in 2018, hence street plays
may also be educative and informative
about the human rights violations and
their redressal mechanism in the
country and challenges being faced
by those involved in the promotion
and protection of human rights.
The detailed terms and conditions of
the competition along with the
application form can be downloaded
from the Notice Board on the home
page of the website of the
Commission, www.nhrc.nic.in. For
any further queries, the Deputy
Director (Media & Communication),
NHRC can also be contacted.
NHRC notice to the government
of Andhra Pradesh over the
reported lack of road
connectivity and health care
facilities leading to loss of life in
tribal belt of Vijayanagaram
district
The National Human Rights
Commission, NHRC has taken suo
motu cognizance of a media report,
carried today on the 31st July, 2018,
that in the Vijayanagaram district of
Andhra Pradesh a pregnant woman in
labour pain had to be carried by her
husband and other villagers for about
12 KM, through a forest, so that she
could make it to an ambulance to reach
hospital. But before she could get an
ambulance, the child was delivered and
died. Reportedly, this is not an
uncommon incident in Vijayanagaram,
a tribal region in the State, which lacks
in proper roads and access to health
care facilities.
The Commission has observed that
the contents of the media report, if
true, raise a serious issue of violation
of human rights. Proper roads and
health care are basic amenities to be
provided by the State to its citizens.
Accordingly, it has issued a notice to
the Chief Secretary, Government of
Andhra Pradesh calling for a detailed
report in the matter within four
weeks.
The State Government is expected
to inform how many such incidents
have occurred during the last one
year and the action taken by the
authorities on them. The
Commission would also like to know
the status of the treatment being
provided to the victim woman and
relief, if any, granted by the state
authorities to her.
The Commission has further
observed that the State is under
obligation to ensure access to timely
acceptable and affordable health care
services to its citizens. There are
several flagship schemes being run
by the government for pregnant
women, newly born and their
mothers to fight neo-natal and pre-
natal deaths and deaths of mothers
during pregnancy and deliveries.
NHRC issued notice to the
Government of Bihar over
reported sexual exploitation of
girls at a Shelter Home in
Muzaffarpur
The National Human Rights
Commission, NHRC has taken suo
motu cognizance of a media report
that in a State funded Shelter Home
at Muzaffarpur in Bihar, at least 16
girls were raped. There were 44 girls
living in the home run by an NGO
under the supervision of the Social
Welfare Department. Reportedly, the
Child Protection Officer of
Muzaffarpur District has been
arrested in connection with alleged
sexual exploitation of girls in this
Shelter Home. The Commission has
issued notices to the Chief Secretary
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
and the DGP, Government of Bihar,
directing them to enquire into the
matter and submit a report within two
weeks.
The Commission has observed that
the contents of the media reports, if
true, raise a serious issue of violation
of human rights of the victim girls.
The Shelter Home is supposed to
give security and protection to the
victim girls but under no stretch of
imagination the Shelter Home can be
a playing ground of predators for
their monstrous and vulturous
activities, which are against the
human dignity and sobriety of the
women. However, in the instant
case, the girls have apparently
become victim of rape at the instance
of the protectors in the Shelter
Home, as the Government officials
and the Shelter Home staff have been
allegedly found to be involved in the
incident. The State and the local
administration have failed miserably
to protect the rights and dignity of
the victim girls.
Accordingly, the State authorities
have also been asked that their report
should also contain the reply to the
following specific points:
1. Whether any approval was given
by the Social Welfare Department
to run the Shelter Home in
question and what is the
mechanism to monitor its
functioning. If any monitoring
mechanism is at place, why such
incident took place;
2. Whether any of the victims belong
to Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled
Tribe. If yes, whether the police
has registered FIR under relevant
sections of SC/ST Act and
whether steps have been taken to
pay monetary relief to such
victims under SC/ST (POA)
Rules;
23
3. Whether any Govt. official, as
reported in the media, has been
found to have involved in the
incident. If yes, the details thereof
be sent.
They are also expected to ensure that
immediate legal action is taken against
the accused persons and necessary
arrangements/steps be taken for relief
and rehabilitation of the victim girls.
According to the media report,
carried on the 24th July, 2018, the
girls have been shifted to other shelter
home after the incident came to light.
The medical report of 21 of the girls
have been submitted to the
Muzaffarpur police which confirms
16 cases of rape. The report further
states that one of the inmates stated
that one girl was killed when she
retaliated to the sexual harassment by
the staff and she was buried in the
premises.
Reportedly, the sample of debris is
to be sent for forensic test. 10 out of
11 accused have been arrested. In the
social audit report prepared by
TISS(Tata Institute of Social
Sciences), the inmates had narrated
their ordeals. The Social Welfare
Department has filed the police
complaint which has exposed the
plight of the girls. A special
investigation team has been formed
to enquire into the matter.
NHRC notices to the Centre and
Delhi Government over reported
death of three minor sisters due
to malnutrition/starvation in
Mandawali area of National
Capital
The National Human Rights
Commission, NHRC has taken suo
motu cognizance of media reports
that three minor sisters (Mansi, 8
years, Shika, 4 years and Parul, 2
years) allegedly died due to
malnutrition / starvation in East
Delhi's Mandawali on the 24th July,
2018 as per the per the preliminary
post-mortem report.
The Commission has issued notices
to the Chief Secretary, Govt. of NCT
of Delhi and Secretary, Ministry of
Women and Child Development,
Govt. of India calling for reports in
the matter within four two weeks,
whereby both the authorities are
requested further to submit the status
report of Antodhya Yojana.
The Commission has observed that
contents of the media reports, If true,
raise a serious issue of violation of
human rights of the victim children.
"Right to Food" is an integral part of
the Fundamental Right to life so
enshrined in Article-21 of the Indian
Constitution. Moreover, the National
Food Security Act, 2013 has also
been enacted to provide food and
nutritional security in human life cycle
approach, by ensuring access to
adequate quantity of quality food at
an affordable price to all its citizens
to live a life with dignity.
It is, therefore, evident that despite
legal provisions and machinery in
place, the children had to starve to
death. The deceased children have
been denied their basic human rights.
The State authorities, therefore, are
lacking in discharging its duty by not
fulfilling its obligation without
providing food to all.
According to the media reports,
carried today on the 26th July,
2018, a Medical Board has been
formed to re-conduct the post-
mortem and to confirm the exact
cause of death. A Magisterial
Enquiry has been ordered in the
matter. It is further reported that
the mother of the victim children is
suffering from mental health issues
and their father is untraceable.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
NHRC notice to the Government
of Rajasthan over reported mob
lynching of a man in Alwar
The National Human Rights
Commission has taken suo motu
cognizance of media reports that on
the 20th July, 2018, a 31-year old
man, Rakbar Khan, from Haryana's
Mewat district was attacked by a
group of 8-10 cow vigilantes in
Rajasthan Alwar district, who
succumbed to injuries a few hours
later. The cow vigilantes have,
reportedly, alleged that the victim died
in police custody and not because of
mob violence as claimed by the
authorities. There are further reports
in the print media that it took Alwar
police more than 3 hours to travel six
kms while taking a critically injured
victim of lynching to the closest
hospital, the Community Health
Centre in Ramgarh.
The Commission has observed that
the contents of the news reports, if
true, raise a serious issue of violation
of human rights of the victim man.
Accordingly, it has issued notices to
the Chief Secretary and DGP, Govt.
of Rajasthan calling for reports in the
matter within two weeks.
According to the media reports,
carried on the 22nd July, 2018, the
victim of mob lynching, in his dying
statement, told the police that he and
his friend were walking back with two
cows they had bought when they
came under attack in Alwar's
Ramgarh area by the mob, which
accused them of being smugglers
taking the cattle for slaughter.
Reportedly, rather than saving the life
of the victim, the two cows
recovered from him seemed to have
been the priority of police. The cows
were taken to gaushala 10 kms away,
a good one hour before the victim of
mob lynching was brought to the
CHC, dead.
24
NHRC announces the results of
its Logo design and Slogan/
Tagline writing competitions
The National Human Rights
Commission, NHRC India, has
announced the winners of its Logo
design and Slogan/Tagline writing
Competitions. These were organized
online through the "MyGov" portal in
order to seek people's involvement
and participation in the promotion and
protection of human rights in the run
up to the Silver Jubilee Celebrations
of the Commission in 2018. A total
of 893 entries were received for Logo
Design and 4237 entries for Slogan/
Tagline from the people of varied age
groups in different parts of the
country.
The Commission has also agreed and
accepted the recommendations of the
Committee to slightly modified the
winning logo design and one of the
slogans/ tagline, within the scope of
the term and conditions of the
competitions, to make a composite
Silver Jubilee Year Logo of the
NHRC, which will be officially
released soon.
Advertise with
us for
Strengthening
our Hands in
Promoting
and
Protecting
Human
Rights
 International Human Rights Update
France Approves Flawed Asylum
and Immigration Law
In France, asylum seekers are
sleeping rough, and flawed
procedures often leave
unaccompanied migrant children
adrift, homeless, and excluded from
the care they need.
But instead of addressing these
challenges or correcting flaws in
existing laws, legislators have decided
to push through a problematic new
asylum and migration law that could
make it harder for people to get
needed protection.
The main aim of the law, passed
August 1, seems to be to make it
harder to obtain asylum. Applications
now need to be made within 90 days
upon entering French territory or face
a fast-track process with fewer
safeguards.
Appeal rights have been curbed. Some
asylum seekers who are rejected,
including those from countries
deemed “safe,” may be deported even
before the asylum court rules on their
appeal. While safe removal of rejected
asylum seekers is a valid policy, the
new rules substantially increase the
risk that people who need protection
could be wrongly removed to face
death, torture, or other irreparable
harm.
The European Court of Human Rights
has criticized France in the past for a
system that allows fast-tracked
asylum seekers to be removed before
appeals are heard. The new law is
likely to face similar scrutiny in the
courts.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
There are some positives in the new
law. It extends residence permits
from one to four years for persons
given ‘subsidiary’ protection, but not
full refugee status, and removes from
the list of safe countries of origin
those whose governments persecute
LGBT people.
The law also creates an exception to
the crime of helping undocumented
migrants when done for “a strictly
humanitarian objective.” But
lawmakers had little choice given the
recent Constitutional Court ruling that
solidarity should not be criminalized,
and some groups are worried that
judges could narrowly interpret the
humanitarian exception in a way that
permits prosecutions.
The National Assembly missed the
opportunity to ban family detention,
even though the Senate had proposed
to limit that form of detention to five
days. The final law doubles
maximum detention pending
deportation from 45 to 90 days,
including for accompanied children,
although they have pledged to propose
separate legislation to curb detention
of children in the coming months.
It is shameful that rather than
addressing dire situations faced by
many asylum seekers and migrants,
France’s lawmakers decided to
weaken safeguards for asylum.
Surge in Militant Attacks on
Schools in Pakistan
Alleged militants attacked and burned
down at least 12 schools in Diamer
25
district of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan
region early on August 3, 2018,
Human Rights Watch said today. At
least half were girls’ schools. No
group has claimed responsibility for
the attacks.
The Pakistani government should take
urgent measures to make schools
safer, and fairly prosecute those
responsible for attacks against
students, teachers, and schools.
“The devastating attacks on schools
in Diamer highlight the dangers that
many students and teachers in
Pakistan face on a regular basis,” said
Bede Sheppard, deputy children’s
rights director at Human Rights
Watch. “The government should
promptly investigate and prosecute
these attacks and ensure that
children have a safe place to attend
school.”
Pakistan faces significant education
challenges, with an estimated 25
million children out of school. Militant
violence has disrupted the education
of hundreds of thousands of
children, particularly girls. Militant
Islamist groups, including the Taliban,
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and their
affiliates, attack schools and
universities to foster intolerance and
exclusion, target symbols of the
government, and particularly to drive
girls out of school.
Militants have previously targeted
girls’ schools in Diamer district. In
February 2004, attackers destroyed
nine schools, eight of them for girls.
Explosives hit two girls’ schools in
December 2011.
The nongovernmental awareness
campaign Alif Ailaan reported that
Diamer is the lowest-ranked district
in terms of quality of education in the
Gilgit-Baltistan region, and is among
the 10 lowest ranked in the country.
Only 3,479 girls are among the
16,800 students enrolled in
government schools in the district,
which has 88 government schools for
girls and 156 for boys.
After the Taliban took over large parts
of the Swat Valley in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province in 2007, it
began a violent campaign against
education for girls. Over 900 girls’
schools were forced to close and
over 120,000 girls stopped attending
school. About 8,000 female teachers
were driven out of work. For many
girls, the loss was permanent, and
they were not able to return to school
even after the army displaced the
Taliban.
The Pakistani government says it
does not collect specific data on
attacks on schools and universities,
or on deaths and injuries from such
attacks. However, according to the
Global Terrorism Database, there
were 867 attacks on educational
institutions in Pakistan from 2007 to
2015, resulting in 392 fatalities and
724 injuries. The Global Coalition to
Protect Education from Attack
recorded at least 203 attacks on
schools in Pakistan between 2013
and 2017.
The government’s failure to keep
consistent and transparent national
data about such attacks raises serious
concerns about its ability to track
repairs of damaged schools, identify
trends that could help create
measures to protect schools, or
investigate and prosecute the people
responsible, Human Rights Watch
said.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
The attacks on Malala Yousafzai, who
later became a Nobel peace Prize
laureate, on October 9, 2012, and on
the Army Public School in Peshawar
on December 16, 2014, which killed
at least 145 people, mostly students,
directed international spotlight on the
threat to education in Pakistan.
In some areas, government forces
have used educational institutions,
including both schools and college
housing, as temporary or permanent
barracks or military bases. When
educational facilities are used for
military purposes, it places them at
increased risk of attack. The
government should issue clear and
public orders to Pakistan security
forces to curtail the military use of
schools.
Pakistan should develop a
comprehensive policy for protecting
students – especially girls – as well
as teachers, schools, and universities
from attack and military use, and
involve all concerned ministry staff
at central and local levels in carrying
out this strategy, Human Rights Watch
said.
Securing schools has been largely left
to the provincial governments,
whose efforts have been sporadic,
varying across provinces with little
attention to protecting girls’
education. In most cases,
responsibility for enhancing and
maintaining security has fallen to
hard-pressed school authorities.
Pakistan’s federal government should
cooperate with provincial and regional
authorities to create a rapid response
system for attacks on schools.
Schools should quickly be repaired
or rebuilt, with destroyed educational
material replaced, so that children can
return to school as soon as possible.
Schools should operate in alternate
26
sites during reconstruction, and
students should have mental health
support as needed.
Pakistan should join the 80 countries
that have endorsed the Safe Schools
Declaration, a non-binding political
agreement opened for state support
at an international conference in Oslo,
Norway, in May 2015. Countries that
endorse the Safe Schools Declaration
pledge to restore access to education
when schools are attacked and
undertake measures to make it less
likely that students, teachers, and
schools will be attacked. They agree
to deter such attacks by promising
to investigate and prosecute crimes
involving schools, and to minimize the
use of schools for military purposes
so they do not become targets for
attack.
“The Pakistani government should do
all it can to deter future attacks on
education, beginning with improving
school security and providing the
public with reliable information on
threats,” Sheppard said. “Attacks on
education not only harm the students
and families directly affected, but also
have an incalculable long-term
negative effect on Pakistani society.”
Venezuela’s Left-Behind
Generation
I met Fernando Arvelo (pseudonym),
a 74-year-old Venezuelan, at a soup
kitchen in Cúcuta, the main Colombian
city across the border from Táchira
state in Venezuela. Fernando moved to
Táchira from his home state – a 20-
hour drive – soon after his wife,
children, and grandchildren went
abroad fleeing the crisis. He did not
want to be a burden for his family, and
felt he could not start over elsewhere
at this point in his life.
Fernando crosses the border every
day, walking in stifling heat of up to
40 degrees Celsius, to eat at the soup
kitchen. “How much time will I be
able to stand this?” he told me in a
broken voice as he stared into the
plastic plate with rice, potato, and
meat.
Fernando is one of many older people
left behind as a growing number of
Venezuelans flee the country. While
most coverage of Venezuela’s
worsening humanitarian crisis has
focused on children, with growing
levels of child malnutrition, the elderly
are also very vulnerable. Several
studies by the United Nations and
nongovernmental organizations have
shown that older people are
disproportionately impacted by
humanitarian crises, and Venezuela is
no exception.
CONVITE, a human rights
organization that monitors the
situation of older people in Venezuela,
conducted a study weighing 267
older people in Miranda state between
December 2016 and November 2017.
It found they lost an average of 1.3
kilograms per month.
Fernando told me he used to weigh
85 kilograms, and now weighs less
than 50. He struggles to find
medicines for heart and respiratory
problems, glaucoma, and cataracts.
At times, he’s had to purchase and
take expired medication, which was
all he could find.
Without family support, faced with
vulnerabilities because of their
advanced age, many older people in
Venezuela endure extremely harsh
conditions. Venezuelan media outlets
have published images and accounts
of older people queuing for hours to
buy food or basic supplies and collect
their pensions, or protesting for the
retirement benefits and pension plans
they are entitled to. There have been
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
some reports of older people who
died while queuing for their social Contribute
security payments.
Articles and
In the Americas, the Inter-American
Convention on Protecting the Human
Support Our
Rights of Older Persons, which Cause in Creating
entered into force in 2017, provides
that states “shall adopt all necessary a Just and
measures to ensure the safety and
rights of older persons in situations
Equitable Society.
of risk, including humanitarian
emergencies.” They should also adopt
assistance measures specific to the
needs of older people associated with
emergencies. Please subscribe to
Human Touch
The Inter-American Court of Human
Rights recently ruled, for the first
and support us for
time, that older people have a “right creation of a just and
to increased protection” through equitable society and
“differentiated measures.” The court
highlighted “the importance of
Contribute Articles and
increasing the visibility of older Support Our Cause in
persons as subjects of rights who Creating a Just and
enjoy special protection” for, among
other things, “comprehensive care.”
Equitable Society
If the Venezuelan government
continues to show it is unwilling or
unable to ensure older people have
priority access to food and medicine,
Latin American leaders who have
expressed concern about Venezuela’s
crisis should invoke regional
standards that highlight the
importance of caring for older people
to press Venezuelan authorities to do
so and offer humanitarian aid directed
specifically at older people. They
should let all the Fernandos out there
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27

Need to Strengthen the Constitutional Safeguards for its Protection
F
or full development as human
beings, exercise and enjoyment
of Human Rights by all the
people is necessary. Human rights
and fundamental freedom help us to
develop our intrinsic qualities,
intelligence, talents and conscience
to meet our material and spiritual
needs.
In the long evolution of human race
on this planet, a stage has been
reached when, through the rapid
acceleration of science and
technology, we have acquired the
power to transform our environment
in countless ways and unprecedented
scale. If this power is used wisely
and with respect to the ways of
nature, can bring to all communities
the opportunity to enhance the quality
of life or, if applied wrongly or in an
iniquitous ways, can bring
incalculable harm to human beings
and the environment. Some of the
evidences of human caused harm in
many regions of the earth are as
follows:
1. Dangerous level of pollution in
water, air, earth and living
beings.
2. Destruction and depletion of
irreplaceable life forms and
natural resources.
3. Major and undesirable
disturbances in the earths’
climate and protective layers
4. Gross deficiencies, harmful to
physical, mental and social
health, in the living and
working environments of
humans, especially in cities
and industrial complexes
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
Environment:
It is important that, we realize our
dependence on earths’ natural
resources because natural resources
like air, water, land are fundamental
to all life forms, which is much more
valuable than money and economic
infrastructure for the base of our
survival.
For the communities that have been
termed ‘ecosystem people’ (people
depending on the natural
environments of their locality to meet
most of their material needs), natural
resources are the base of their
survival and livelihood. In India 70%
of the population depends on land
based occupations, forests, wetlands
and marine habitats, for basic
subsistence requirements with regard
to water, food, fuel, housing as also
for ecological livelihood and cultural
sustenance. This close
interdependence of humans and their
environment largely signifies the
influence of environment in the
culture of societies. They seek
inspiration, knowledge, spirituality
and aesthetics within their natural
surroundings.
Life, livelihoods, culture and society,
are fundamental aspect of human
existence- hence their maintenance
and enhancement is a fundamental
human right. Environmental rights are
human rights, as people’s livelihoods,
their health, and sometimes their very
existence depend upon the quality of
and their access to the surrounding
28
- Darshana Das
environment as well as the
recognition of their rights to
information, participation, security
and redress. Destruction of
environment and thereby of the
natural resources, leads to the
violation of human rights directly by
undermining the above aspects of
human existence or indirectly, by
leading to other violations of human
rights, for example, through social
disruption, conflicts and even war
which may conversely lead to
environmental destruction, for
instance, displacement by war can
cause environmental damage in areas
of relocation; or breakdown in
sustainable common property
management.
If we look at society from a historical
perspective, we realize that protection
and preservation of the environment
has been integral to the cultural and
religious ethos of most human
communities. Nature has been
venerated by ancient Hindus, Greeks,
Native Americans and other religions
around the world. They worshipped
all forms of nature believing that it
emanated the spirit of God. Hinduism
declared in its dictum that “the Earth
is our mother and we are all her
children.” The ancient Greeks
worshipped Gaea or the Earth
Goddess. Islamic law regards man
as having inherited “all the resources
of life and nature” and having certain
religious duties to God in using them.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God
gave the earth to his people and their
offspring as an everlasting
possession, to be cared for and
passed on to each generation.

Several hundred million people have
been increasingly forced to live far
below the minimum levels required
for a decent human existence,
deprived of water, food, clothing,
shelter and education, health and
nutrition. Development activities
which were taken to alleviate these
problems, has often increased them.
Many communities, which were once
self-sufficient, are now in worse
situation as their land, forests have
been taken away for ‘economic
progresses’. It is clear that, poverty
situations and human rights abuses
are worsened by environmental
degradation. This is for several
obvious reasons;
- Firstly, the exhaustion of natural
resources leads to unemployment
and emigration to cities.
- Secondly, this affects the
enjoyment and exercise of basic
human rights. Environmental
conditions contribute to a large
extent, to the spread of infectious
diseases.   From the 4,400 million
of people who live in developing
countries, almost 60% lack basic
health care services, almost a third
of these people have no access to
safe water supply.
- Thirdly, degradation poses new
problems such as environmental
refugees. Environmental refugees
suffer from significant economic,
socio-cultural, and political
consequences.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
- And fourthly, environmental
degradation worsens existing
problems suffered by developing
and developed countries. Air
pollution, for example, accounts
for 2.7 million to 3.0 million of
deaths annually and of these, 90%
are from developing countries.
It is not only humans that are
affected, but also other forms of life
too. The concept of environment as
a basic human right must also
encompass a respect for the right of
other species to survive on this
planet. There are in between 5 to 50
million species of plants, animals and
micro-organisms sharing the earth
with us and each has a value of its
own. This range of species, the
habitats they live in, and the internal
genetic diversity they display, is
called biological diversity or
biodiversity. Such diversity is part of
our daily lives and livelihoods,
constituting resources upon which
families, communities, nations and
future generations depend.
Biodiversity has numerous uses in
agriculture, medicine, food and
industry. It helps to maintain
ecological balance and evolutionary
processes. Its loss is, therefore, a part
of the erosion of environmental
human rights.
Amongst all the people, the only
people who are facing serious crisis
29
in their way of survival are the
indigenous and tribal people of the
world. Their identity as independent
communities and peoples is
threatened because the social,
economic, cultural, natural resource
base which enabled them to thrive
as distinct people is being trampled
upon. The present crisis of these
indigenous peoples consists in the
weakening and damaging of the
ultimate base of their sustenance,
namely land. Since the dawn of
independence, the Indian ruling
class, effectively using the
government machinery, has been
alienating adivasi land in the name
of ‘national interests’. The biggest
threat to the adivasi people in the
large scale alienation of their land is
through mega projects such as
mines, industries, wildlife reserves,
townships, highways etc. and other
projects in the name of ‘national
interests’ and ‘national
development’.
The environment conditions have
deteriorated all over the country due
to aggravating factors. The overall
situation is certainly a matter of grave
concern, more specifically because
it is affecting adversely the quality of
life of the people and eroding the very
foundations of the national economy
and national security. As mentioned
earlier, the worst affected are the
poorer sections of society. The
situation is compounded by slack and
inadequate enforcement of laws and
legislation. In this scenario, the
importance of strengthening the
constitutional safeguards for
environment protection and nature
conservation cannot be underscored.
There can be no doubt that it is only
by ensuring ecological security that
the goal of sustainable development
and national well-being will become
feasible.
- HT Bureau
 Corruption in India:
Discretion is the Need of the Hour
I
t is very difficult to pin-point a
few political leaders,
unquestionably, who were
predominantly responsible for
disarray and decay of public order in
this country. Many political parties
with different leaders at the helm of
affairs have ruled the country since
the Independence at different
junctures, some for longer durations
and others, for shorter periods.
Thoughts of political masters are also
influenced and shaped from the
thinking of intellectuals of that era as
well as the contemporary happenings
of their time.
It is easy for the academicians and
other intellectuals to turn the blame
for corruption or any other calamity
of the country, on the political leaders
by calling them names such as
scoundrels or blood-sucking political
vampires or what not but the problem
of corruption is structural in Indian
context. Time and again, intellectuals
point out problems and also suggest
piece-meal solutions but they often
leave gaps in their suggested
solutions, for endless debates to
simmer thereafter. But they seldom
come forward with comprehensive
practical solutions which could be
termed as fool-proof or at least have
in-built trustworthy safety measures
where one could fall-back in time of
crisis and again recoup for further
march towards development.
To my mind, the single biggest
contributor towards corruption in
public life in India can be
identified as discretion, discretion,
and discretion!!! The term
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
“Discretion” is held in high esteem
in this country. In Hindi language
discretion means VIVEK, which
connotes an action undertaken
with utmost sincerity, intelligence
and foresight. In practice, the bigger
the authority, the bigger discretionary
powers are vested in it. For example,
the Prime Minister can announce
grants of several hundred billions of
rupees for appeasing people of a
particular region and simultaneously
can turn a blind eye even towards
genuine problems faced by the people
of another region. Many intellectuals
would call it as a policy decision of
the Government. I would call it as an
exercise of discretion on the part of
the Government, which should not
be carried out for obvious reasons,
if it is not supported by irrefutable
logic. Application of discretion cannot
be justified only because it is
decorated with dignified terms, like,
call of the hour, considered opinion,
historical perspective, etc., because
such hollow justifications can be
debated endlessly and pave the way
for indulgence in more and more ad-
hoc solutions for governance, which
only harm the cause of good
governance.
Generally, most of the discretionary
actions of the political masters are
aimed at only one target, viz., how
to create or consolidate vote bank of
their party so that it could form
Government after the next election?
Sometimes they want to appease one
30
- Dr. Prem Kumar Sinha
section of the society and another
time they try to win over confidence
of the other groups of people. If the
main aim of the political masters
would have been to develop the
country as a whole and they were
wise enough to pursue this
immaculately, they would have started
the process of putting in place clear-
cut guidelines, free from various kinds
of interpretations, for the governance
of the country, thereby preparing the
ground for steadily curtailing
discretionary powers of various
authorities.
The following illustrations may well
explicate my point of view:
1.In the year 2002, there were huge
uproars in both the Houses of
Parliament with regard to some
irregularities in allotment of retail
petrol pump dealerships and LPG
distributorships, by the Petroleum
Ministry, purportedly to some
persons, most of whom were
connected to political bigwigs.
Eventually, the Supreme Court of
India stepped in and ordered
examination of the whole issue by
a two-member committee of
former Supreme Court Judges,
which later found irregularities
and favouritism in award of retail
petrol pump dealerships and LPG
distributorships. The Supreme
Court finally stamped cancellation
of 93 such allotments on the 7th
November, 2008. In India,
dealerships/distributorships of
petroleum products supplied by
the government controlled
companies are highly coveted

because of their huge earning
potential; naturally there are more
aspirants than the availability of
such dealerships. Had the
petroleum ministry auctioned
award of these dealerships in a
transparent manner, the
Government would have
generated a lot more revenue
besides saving it from public
disgrace as a result of the
indictment of the Supreme Court
of India which found fault with
the discretionary actions of the
petroleum ministry. The fall out
of the entire episode was that the
country was deprived of its
legitimate income and culture of
corruption spread further. So the
crux of this example is that in the
absence of clear-cut guidelines
and inherent scope for exercising
discretion by the authorities,
favouritism can be practised,
which is nothing but corruption.
So it can be concluded that
corruption follows discretionary
overtures.
2.In June 2008, passenger vehicles
with engines of more than 1500cc
capacity to 1999cc capacity, were
levied additional central excise
duty of Rs.15,000/- per vehicle,
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
3.Now, I take the example of the
recent loan-waivers of about
Rs.710 billion, announced in the
Union Budget 2008-09, whereby
farmers who had land holding up
to 2 hectares were completely ex-
empted from repayment of loans
and those having land holding
above 2 hectares were granted
minimum benefit of Rs.20,000/-
or up to 25 percent of the bal-
ance amount, due up to 31st De-
cember, 2007 and remained un-
paid until 29th February, 2008.
There was intense debate in print
as well as electronic media of the
country, regarding pros and cons
further additional cost of about
of the loan-waiver. I am not go-
Rs.6000/- came along in the form
ing into the merits and demerits
of subsequent increase in value
of this loan-waiver, because in-
added tax, road tax, and insurance
tellectuals have already expressed
charges. Authorities said that it
their views in this matter in depth
was promulgated to promote
and I have nothing more substan-
smaller cars which are more fuel-
tial to add over it. But my conten-
efficient. Its net result was that
tion is only on one point, viz.,
SX4 model of the Maruti Suzuki
what was thought for those who
company took a financial hit to
took pains to repay their loans?
the tune of Rs.21,000/- (approx.)
Should have they not been re-
because its engine capacity was
warded for being dutiful and law-
1586cc, whereas another car, viz.,
abiding? Many have opined and I
Honda City, which came from the
also do feel that these dutiful
stable of the Honda Siel Company
farmers should have been at least
remained unaffected from the duty
given some monetary discount on
hike because its engine capacity
the quantum of interest paid by
was 1497cc. It is a clear-cut case
them or else they could have been
of exercising discretion for fix-
assured lower interest payment in
ing up a cut-off mark by the
case of future loans. Were we not
whims of the concerned authori-
indifferent towards the non-de-
ties. There should be clear-cut
faulters and showering gratis who
guidelines in advance whereby
defaulted for any reason whatso-
taxes and duties should be gov-
ever? What is the sensible logic
erned and not fixed by some ad-
behind this discretion?
hoc decisions which are taken
overnight, whereby some sections
Authorities may give sensational
are benefitted and some are hit.
speeches to justify their action for
When discretion can be used to
exercising such discretion and
favour one party over the inter-
then calling it as a policy decision
ests of another party, there is al-
of the Government. The
ways a lot of scope to use it for
discretion observed in granting of
monetary gains. Is this not cor-
this loan-waiver might have not
ruption?
given any monetary benefit to
31

those in the Government but it
would have certainly shown the
way to many that defaulting in the
repayment of loans is after all not
a bad thing and should not be
looked down upon. In future,
more and more people will back
out from repayment of loans. Does
it not tantamount to teaching the
lesson for practising corruption
by encouraging wilful default? Is
this not equivalent to sowing the
seed of corruption and cheating
in the lives of henceforth honest
people? Had there been a uniform
policy to provide relief to all the
farmers instead of practising
discretion in form of the ad-hoc
decisions, it could have been
termed as a policy decision of the
Government for the welfare of
the entire farmer community. So
here, I just want to emphasize
that acts of discretion in one way
or the other eventually encourage
corruption. In a recent report
appearing in Business Standard
dated 15th December, 2008, it
was mentioned that the
cooperative banks were
witnessing up to 25 percent
default in repayment of loans
whereas earlier around 10
percent farmers were defaulting.
Reason: Many farmers are
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
expecting another financial bail-
out!!!
4.Now, I describe as to how
corruption starts when discretion
is exercised in classifying people
in three main categories in India,
viz., (i) Antyodaya Families
(poorest of the poor), (ii) Below
Poverty Line (BPL) Families, and
(iii) Above Poverty Line (APL)
Families, because on the basis of
this very categorization,
differential benefits under
Targeted Public Distribution
System of the Government are
granted to the people.
Earlier, there was Universal Public
Distribution System which did not
differentiate people on the basis of
their financial status. Later, it was
32
revamped and rechristened as
Targeted Public Distribution System
(TPDS) in the year 1997, whereby
households were classified in two
broad categories, viz., (i) BPL
families and (ii) APL families. Rates
of food-grains and other commodities
were kept substantially lower for BPL
families than those prescribed for the
APL families. Later, in the year 2000,
the Government created another
category of families, viz., Antyodaya
families, with a view to extend
additional benefits to the poorest
among the BPL families. These
Antyodaya families were to be short-
listed amongst the existing BPL
families. Earlier, the total number of
Antyodaya families was limited to
15.33% of the total BPL families, now
this number has been raised to 23%
of the total BPL families. Presently,
15 million families (comprising 75
million people) are eligible for getting
benefits meant for Antyodaya
category.
Though, the GOI has notified
elaborate guidelines for identifying
families belonging to the Antyodaya
category and the BPL category, an
officer attached to a particular village
body (gram sabha) or urban local
body enjoys the final discretion in
certifying whether a family belongs
to the category of Antyodaya family
or BPL family or APL family.
However, the problem is further
compounded by the fact that the
people belonging to weaker sections
do not enjoy financial stability, thus
their financial condition remains in a
fluid state. Moreover, disasters strike
without notice, any calamity in a
family can descend on it any time,
be it on account of death, illness,
accident, flood, drought, fire, loss of
job or any other misfortune. It can
alter all the equations of financial
stability of a marginal household in
no time. So the financial condition of
a family belonging to weaker sections,
which has no source of fixed income,
usually remains prone to extreme
volatility and thus its income level
cannot be certified with surety at all.
So how can a government official
certify with authenticity, even if he
tries for it, as to who belong to APL
or BPL or Antyodaya category? Even
place of residence of people keeps
on changing from rural to urban and
vice-versa, at the same time, poverty
line is different for rural and urban
areas. In rural areas households with
per capita income up to Rs.356/- p.m.
are classified as belonging to the BPL
category, whereas in urban areas this
limit is Rs.538/- p.m.
Even the estimates of the Central Gov-
ernment and those of the State Gov-
ernments do not corroborate. The
Planning Commission of India has
listed 0.75 million households belong-
ing to BPL families for Haryana,
whereas Haryana State Government
has identified 1.1 million BPL fami-
lies in the state (Source: The Hindu
dated 23rd August, 2008). When the
estimates of the Central Government
and its State Governments can be at
such a wide variance then what
would be the level of accuracy in iden-
tifying true status of households by
the government officials attached to
various village and urban local bod-
ies.
Vol. XV No. 8 August 2018
When people are supplied ration at
substantially varying prices for dif-
ferent categories of people, naturally,
many would desire that they be clas-
sified in such a way that they avail of
maximum discount in the purchase
of essential commodities. This desire
of the people to avail of maximum
monetary benefit coupled with the
greed on the part of the government
officials to earn quick money,
prompts the government officials to
use the weapon of discretion which
is vested with them, which eventu-
ally culminates in sowing the seed of
corruption in the entire society.
And enormity of this corruption and
inefficiency can be gauged by a re-
cent survey of the National Council
of Applied Economic Research,
which has reckoned that at least 20
million bogus BPL cards are in cir-
culation while 11 million genuinely
poor families, including the poorest
of the poor who should have been
given Antyodaya category benefits,
do not possess any ration card
(Source: Business Standard dated
15th January, 2008).
33
Thus, it is obvious that the element
of discretion inherent in the process
of certification by an officer attached
to a village local body or an urban
local body, prepares ground for mul-
tiplying corruption level in public life
from the grass-root level. I have dis-
cussed in the following sections as
to how the need for classifying peo-
ple in various categories can itself be
dispensed with by extending compre-
hensive social security to all, thus
paving the way to weed out corrup-
tion completely, at least from this part
of public domain.
- The author is working as the
Assistant Registrar (Academic) at
Dayalbagh Educational Institute,
Agra.
The article is available online at
http://www.curingindia.com/
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