The Bihar directorate of economics and statistics (DES), a subsidiary wing of the state's planning and development department (PDD), is mulling over using the 'kinnar' community (eunuchs) as informants for timely feedback on birth of new children in families of any locality, so that their registration could be done within the stipulated time. The efficacy of eunuchs as effective informants was discussed at a state-level workshop on "Civil registration system" held...

Six months before India's human Rights gets reviewed at the United Nations, the Working Group on Human Rights (WGHR) in India released a report painting a dismal picture of its Rights record. The U.N. Human Rights Council examines the Rights record of its members on a rotational basis every four years through a peer review process, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Reports by the civil society, U.N. agencies and the country...

—PTI For the first time in the two-decade long turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir, a Valley-based human Rights group has admitted that militants were responsible for more enforced disappearances than security forces. Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), an organisation seeking the whereabouts of missing persons in the State, said of the 132 cases it has documented, militant groups were responsible for 24 cases of enforced disappearances compared to 22 by...

The Kandhamal violence of 2008 “meets all the elements of crimes against humanity,” said the report of the Justice-A.P. Shah-headed National People's Tribunal on Kandhamal, which was released here on Saturday. The report recommends the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to re-examine the First Information Reports already registered, to file fresh FIRs where necessary and to recommend remedial measures where trials had been vitiated because of intimidation of witnesses...

-IANS Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Orkut are emerging as an important tool to drive movement against corruption and bring positive change in the society, a survey has revealed. In a nationwide survey conducted amongst the youth of India, nearly 76 percent of youth believe that social media empowers them to bring change to the world we live in. They are convinced that causes for women and movements against corruption can...