We urgently need legislation that specifically addresses child abuse.  The Indian Penal Code does not spell out the definition of child abuse as a specific offence Even the Juvenile Justice Act does not specifically address the issue of child sexual abuse The government's decision to introduce a set of guidelines for service providers in the tourism sector in a move to prevent a repeat of incidents like the rape of a Russian...

A new online database produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shines a light on how women lag far behind men in their access to land, major stumbling bock to rural development. The Gender and Land Rights Database offers up-to-date information on the legal rights of men and women differ in nearly 80 countries, allowing users to find the total number of women landholders and rural households...

Commission pulls up Puri district Collector  The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the Orissa government to register an FIR and act against persons, who illegally confined 17 persons in Puri district and extracted menial works from them under the pernicious custom of ‘bartan’, a manifestation of the bonded labour system. The Commission, which pulled up the district Collector, told the government to take action against the officials who failed...

A new report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has found that politically and ideologically motivated attacks against teachers, students and schools are on the rise, calling for greater community involvement to reduce such incidents. Since the first-ever study on the issue, entitled “Education under Attack,” was published in 2007, the systematic targeting of students and teachers has been on the upswing, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan,...

Vedanta Resources is under fire from heaven and earth, and even Hollywood has been asked to join in. Tribal rights campaigner Survival International has appealed to Avatar director James Cameron, through an advertisement in US entertainment magazine Variety, to help it stop the company from mining for bauxite in an Orissa forest. The ad drew parallels between the Na’vi tribe in Avatar, who try to stop humans from mining under their sacred...