MediaVigil, Journal of Global Communications and Justice

Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) To Chairman National Human Rights Commission New Delhi Date: May 31, 2012 Subject- Seeking pre-emptive intervention to stop dangerous erosion of privacy by DNA profiling of citizens Sir, This is with reference to the threats to human rights of present and future generation of Indians from Union Ministry of Science and Technology’s 58 page Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012. This Bill is the revised version of the 35 page DNA Profiling Act, 2007. The texts of both the Bills are attached. On behalf of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL), I wish to place on record civil society’s appreciation for NHRC’s intervention in the case where Indian students in USA were made to wear radio collars. NHRC ensured that the government acted to ensure that the human rights of students are protected. I submit that NHRC’s views on National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 helped Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in its recommendation ...

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New Delhi, May 17 (IANS) Home Minister P. Chidambaram, who is known to be fluent in Tamil and English, stunned the Lok Sabha Thursday when he addressed the house in Bhojpuri, receiving praise from Speaker Meira Kumar, who comes from Bihar, for his effort. Chidambaram was replying to a calling attention motion on the need to include Bhojpuri, the native tongue of Bihar, in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution to accord it the official language status. "Hum sabke bhawna samjhat bani (I understand the sentiments of all of you)," Chidambaram said during his reply to stunned silence from the members. But after a moment for it to sink in, the house erupted into surprised elation and thumping of desks by the members. Chidambaram promised to expedite the process of considering the reports of two committees with regard to Bhojpuri and for a quick decision thereafter. This brought in appreciation from Meira Kumar, who said it is a matter of great joy that Chidambaram, whom sh...

To The Police Commissioner Delhi Police New Delhi 13 May, 2012 Subject: Appeal to stop eviction of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, and allow relief and shelter until their case is heard by UNHCR Sir, We seek your sympathetic intervention in the matter of around 2000 Rohingya Myanmar refugees, who are currently in Delhi. 623 refugee families from the northern Rakhine state in Myanmar have been in India for the past two years, forced to wander from one place to another in search of shelter and survival. They have been in Delhi since 9 April, to take up the matter of their refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Since then, have been living in abominable conditions in refugee camps in Delhi, suffering hunger, and lack of shelter. To begin with, the refugee camp was just behind the UNHCR office in Vasant Vihar, and now this camp has been shifted to other premises in Vasantkunj- Mahipalpur area. The UNHCR, following a dialogue on 10 May, has given a...

By Julio Godoy BERLIN, May 7, 2012 (IPS) - The voting out of conservative governments in France and Greece this weekend heralds the end of harsh European austerity programmes and ushers in an era of new economic, investment, and social policies aimed at restoring growth and employment across the continent. In France, the Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande, a champion of government-led economic growth and employment strategies, accomplished a comfortable victory over the incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy – the man often seen as the poster child of the austerity programmes in practice all over Europe. In Greece, citizens penalised the two strongest, traditional parties, New Democracy and the Pan- Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), for their recent technocratic coalition government that has imposed a severe austerity plan on the country, which deepened the five-year-long recession and ignited a steep increase of unemployment and poverty Instead, Greek citizens cast the...