-The United Nations   Young men in Central and South America and Southern and Central Africa are most at risk of being killed in cases of homicide, while women face an increased likelihood of being murdered in domestic violence, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report unveiled today.   Evidence points to rising homicide rates in Central America and the Caribbean, which are “near crisis point,” according to...

While Indian psychiatrists have rejected a World Health Organisation (WHO) study portraying India as the depression capital of the world, they say it has indirectly drawn attention to an acute shortage of trained personnel and facilities to deal with mental illness. "Declaring India as having the highest rate of major depression in the world is an aberration in interpretation," Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, secretary-general of the World Association of Social Psychiatry,...

-IANS   Atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes have come down in a span of nine years (2001-2009) according to statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the Rajya Sabha was informed Thursday. 'The cases reported in 2009 were 38,849, while there were 39,017 cases reported in 2001. During the nine years, the total number of cases reported were 318,661,' Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment D. Napoleon said...

-The Hindu   Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it simply: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The death penalty is the ultimate cruel punishment. Abolitionists tend to advance two main reasons why it must go: it does not deter crime; and, as justice systems around the world are flawed, there is more than a possibility that someone...

A report by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) reveals that there is a strong link between farmers’ suicides and denial of social and gender justice. It says that farmers’ suicides, which are a grim marker of India’s agrarian crisis, will become more severe in times to come due to the existing gender and caste-based discrimination. Issued by CHRGJ and the International Human Rights Clinic (at New York...