The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
The United Nations Development Programme and the African Development Bank have launched a US $24 million programme to help the Government of Cameroon combat poverty and improve opportunities for women and unemployed youth living in northern parts of the country. The project will provide credit and training for women's groups …
international human rights watchdog group, Amnesty International, on September 23 warned that the increasing globalisation of capital is leading to "development being pursued at the expense of human rights' and cited a number of examples from India to underline its point. Amnesty's statement was put out on Tuesday to coincide …
the Hirakud dam in Orissa is yet another "temple of modern India' (as Jawaharlal Nehru called dams), that has left behind unfinished business. "More than 6,000 families have not received any compensation so far, after having been displaced by a dam built during 1948-1957,' points out Gopinath Majhi of the …
more than 16,000 Japanese handicapped women were sterilised forcefully between 1949 and 1995. A health and welfare official admitted that these sterilisations had the approval of the Japanese government. These admissions came after 17 citizens' groups that represent women or the handicapped demanded that the ministry investigate cases of involuntary …
the London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International has charged the Indian government with suppressing protests against the us $1.2-billion Enron power project in Dabhol, Maharashtra. In recent months, villagers and activists protesting against the project - on grounds of corruption, displacement and environmental damage - have been subjected to "harassment, …
In an unprecedented lawsuit filed against the government of Sri Lanka by five infants aged between two-and-a-half months and two years, the Supreme Court recently ordered the operators of a private power plant to close down its generators from 10 pm to six am. The petition filed by the infants' …
MORE than 2,000 people belonging to the ethnic Karen community have been massacred in Burma since February by the Burmese army to clear their land for the Myinmoletkat Nature Reserve. Over 30,000 have been forced to work unpaid and unfed or to flee across the border to Thailand. Isolated by …
scavengery is a sardonic remnant of the days of Raj. May be it was the only alternative then to observe hygiene but its presence in today's context is highly uncalled for. The existence of this age-old inhumane practice is not only a stigma on scientific advancement but also on humanity. …
THE struggle for people's right to all information relevant to their lives is intensifying worldwide. While some countries have accepted it as fundamental to the human rights issue, most - even those who have partially accepted this - have restricted the right to a greater or a lesser degree. No …
Uttar Pradesh has become the first state to set up human rights courts in all its districts. The Governor of the state recently constituted human rights courts in as many as 63 districts of the state, giving power to the District and Sessions Judges or the First Additional District and …
More blood is likely to flow in Nigeria. Come 1996, and 19 more comrades of the executed Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa will go through the same mockery of justice, and probably end up in the gallows. The tyrannic General Sani Abacha, in a rare speech, has regretted the international storm …
The military ambury regime in Nigeria contin m orpressive tread. It has charged Sao" members of the Ogoni ethnic amunitv of complicity in the ode. of four Ogoni chiefs for which a S4ro-%%'iwa and eight others were be.-A To death (See Down to Earth, Vol 14, No 14). Tlist s@:cusecl, …
NEW measures resisting women from selling human ova has been urged by the architect of Britain's human fertility, Baroness Warnock. Revelations about agencies paying upto us $1,500 for a single batch necessitated a legislation to put an end to this inhuman trade. The administrative body responsible for licensing and regulating …
The recently concluded Fourth UN world conference on women (FWCW) in Beijing, scored important gains for the fair sex while avoiding the setbacks which been apprehended. Women the right to sexual self-determination and equal inheritance in the face of well organised event backlash. Beijing M also set a new world …
WITH the Bejing World Conference of Women, 1995, taking off on September 4, different parts of India saw a flood of meetings, conferences and seminars. The Adivasi women's conference in Rourkela, Orissa was held from June 18- 20, 1995. The conference was mainly organised by groups working in the Adivasi …
Tilomajhi and Andharmajhi from Kalahandi, Orissa, were appointed as special police by the government of Orissa, entrusted with the power to break any country liquor pot they come across. Both have been consistently waging a crusade against daru (liquor) for many years. Says Andharmajhi, "I have been fighting against liquor …
The Platform for Action is an agenda for women’s empowerment. It aims at accelerating the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and at removing all the obstacles to women’s active participation in all spheres of public and private life through a full and equal share …
AS the date for the United Nations (un) conference on women -- in Beijing in September -- approaches, the Vatican is chafing for a repeat showdown. It has released a statement spitting fire and brimstone at the "sinful" positions taken by the us and other Western countries over abortion, contraception, …
A recent Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) report on female circumcision in state hospitals has incensed Egyptian human rights groups, who have launched a vociferous "No!" campaign. Egypt's NGOs have called upon health minister Ali Abdel-Fattah to revoke his decision to allow hospitals to perform female circumcisions. The EOHR …
IQBAL Masih's assassination cannot be condoned. His crime: he dared to speak out against child labour. The 12-year-old boy was riddled with bullets on April 16, Easter Sunday, while cycling through his village near Lahore in Pakistan. Born into the fate of millions of children around the world, especially South …
