A local court here has allowed Rights activist Binayak Sen to visit South Korea to receive an award later this month. Additional Sessions Judge B P Verma has allowed Mr. Sen to go to Korea between May 15 and 20 and released his passport, sources in the court said. Mr. Sen had sought permission from the court to visit Korea to receive ‘Gwangju Prize for Human Rights', the country's highest civilian award...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation's Gold Medal for "exceptional courage in the pursuit of human Rights".   According to a Foundation statement on Wednesday, veteran Australian broadcaster Mary Kostakidis praised WikLeaks as an "ingenious and heroic website that has shifted the power balance between citizen and the state by exposing what governments really get up to in out name". Acknowledging that "exposing secrets can be dangerous business",...

Within weeks of getting bail from the Supreme Court in connection with charges of sedition, human Rights activist Binayak Sen has been made member of the Planning Commission's Steering Committee on Health, which will advise the panel on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-2017). Binayak Sen, who was released on bail from the Raipur jail last month, will, based on his experience of having worked as a paediatrician in Chhattisgarh's tribal belt,...

CHHATTISGARH, India, 6 May 2011 – When Pausha Madharia, 16, speaks, she gives voice to the hopes, dreams and fears of every child in the Indian State of Chhattisgarh. Standing before the State Assembly recently, she shared her concerns about child labour, discrimination faced by young girls and the troubles that some students encounter when they’re simply trying to attend school. Pausha told legislators that drunken men sprawled on the road...

Endosulfan, the pesticide which is widely believed to be responsible for thousands of deaths, diseases and devastation, was able to save its own life largely because of India’s questionable efforts at global forums. The controversial pesticide has been in news for a long time because of its harmful effects on humans, wild life and the environment. Obviously the $100 million industry is going out of the way to defend the...