Nomination open to M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award 2016
By vigilindia 20:14 award , feature , VIM info , viminmedia
Vigil India Movement a national level Human Rights Organisation, Bangalore invites Nominations to the M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award 2016.
The Award honours individuals/organizations in India who have made significant contributions for the protection and promotion of human rights in India in the preceding years and continues to be working on issues directly relating to human rights. The Award instituted by the Vigil India Movement in 1993, in memory of its Founder President Rev. Dr. M.A. Thomas, carries a cash prize of Rupees One lakh and a citation.
The nominations are placed before a three-member jury comprising of distinguished personalities. The jury selects the winner and the awardee is announced on June 25, the death anniversary of the Rev. Dr. M. A. Thomas. The award is presented on August 10, the birth anniversary of the Rev. Dr. M. A.Thomas.
Nominations are to be submitted on the prescribed form available at the National Office and can also be downloaded.
Application form for MAT Award 2016
Get e-brochure
The letter of nominations should clearly mention why the individual or the organization has been nominated for the award. The nomination should contain the nominee's contribution towards the protection and promotion of human rights in India, highlighting the activities, achievements and its impact on society and / or the state policy. A brief resume of the nominee should also be included. Wherever possible, supporting materials such as newspaper clippings, photographs, etc. may be submitted.
Nomination form must be sent in a sealed envelope inscribed with the words Nomination for M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award 2016 to Vigil India Movement, 61, Charles Campbell Road, Cox Town, Bangalore- 560 005, so as to reach us on or before April 30, 2016.
For further details contact
vigilindiamovement@gmail.com or visit www.vigilindia.info
John VM Juliana
Programme Manager
Vigil India Movement,
61, Charles Campbell Road,
Cox Town,
Bangalore- 560 005
India
Phone: +91-80-25486831, 25487114
The nominations are placed before a three-member jury comprising of distinguished personalities. The jury selects the winner and the awardee is announced on June 25, the death anniversary of the Rev. Dr. M. A. Thomas. The award is presented on August 10, the birth anniversary of the Rev. Dr. M. A.Thomas.
Nominations are to be submitted on the prescribed form available at the National Office and can also be downloaded.
Application form for MAT Award 2016
Get e-brochure
The letter of nominations should clearly mention why the individual or the organization has been nominated for the award. The nomination should contain the nominee's contribution towards the protection and promotion of human rights in India, highlighting the activities, achievements and its impact on society and / or the state policy. A brief resume of the nominee should also be included. Wherever possible, supporting materials such as newspaper clippings, photographs, etc. may be submitted.
Nomination form must be sent in a sealed envelope inscribed with the words Nomination for M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award 2016 to Vigil India Movement, 61, Charles Campbell Road, Cox Town, Bangalore- 560 005, so as to reach us on or before April 30, 2016.
For further details contact
vigilindiamovement@gmail.com or visit www.vigilindia.info
John VM Juliana
Programme Manager
Vigil India Movement,
61, Charles Campbell Road,
Cox Town,
Bangalore- 560 005
India
Phone: +91-80-25486831, 25487114
Consultation on Interstate Migration and Migrant Workers Situation in India
By vigilindia 02:02 feature , reports
Migration is part and parcel of life for every living being. There are several reasons for migration and the most prominent one is for survival and livelihood. Increasing poverty, disparity and growing industrialization and urbanization forces people to move from place to place. Migrants are inherently vulnerable and often loss their identity, statesmanship and loss their privileges and provisions of the government schemes and benefits. It is in this circumstances, Vigil India Movement (VIM) organized a Consultation on “Interstate Migration and Migrant Workers Situation in India” on Saturday the 30th January 2016 between 9.00AM and 4.00PM at the KROSS (Karnataka Regional Organization for Social Service), 58/6 second cross, De’casta Layout, Wheeler Road extension, Bangalore to address the issues concern to migrant workers in India. 27 participants consist of Social Activist, Human Rights Defenders and individuals from different sectors attended the consultation.
Mr. John VM Juliana, welcomed the participants and resource team. Dr. Mathews George Chunakara, Hon. Director, VIM delivered a opening remarks for the consultation and briefed why VIM took initiatives in inviting people from various sector and whose interest are common in protecting and promoting the Rights of Migrants in India.
Fr. Martin Puthussery from Indian Social Institute, Bangalore took a session on ‘Socio, Economic, Political and Cultural Challenges faced by Migrant Workers in India’. Fr. Martin highlighted that a decreasing percentage in agricultural farming, extreme poverty is root cause for distress migration and migrant workers are paid less wages in several cases the owners withheld wages through which they are forcing migrants to work in their firm for long run and force them to work more than 14 to 18 hours a day. There is no proper shelter and protection for migrant workers as specified by Migrant Workers amendment in India. Accidents and deaths are very common in workplace and none of the companies generously provide compensation to family members until and unless the incident is brought to public. Migrants are losing their identity, voting rights and government provisions. Fr. Martin, who has extensively travelled from West Bengal to Kerala and done research on Migrant workers situation, gave a statistics on reported incidents of exploitation to migrant workers throughout the country. At the end of his session, Fr. Martin raised a doubt, whether Article 15 and 19 of Indian Constitution is properly understood or reached to the concerns employing Migrants in India.
Mr. N.P. Samy and Mr. Walim Khan from Karnataka State Construction Workers Union, explained about the pathetic situation of Metro Rail Construction Workers in Bangalore. Metro Rail Corporation is one of the divisions of Indian government, which has all the regulation and guidelines to employ migrant workers and ensure to provide proper shelter, sanitation, security and proper compensation in case of accidents least bothered to follow the regulations. Most of the migrants are from UP, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa and their literacy level is below 8th standard. Average age group of workers are between 17 and 35 in which 46% of the workers are getting less than Rs. 8000/- per month and 30% of the workers are getting 8000 to 9000 per month as salary. Mr. N.P. Samy further added that the appointed officers concerned to migrant workers welfare were not monitoring the standards prescribed by the government rather they are only interested only in receiving commissions from the contractors.
Ms. Kathayini Chamaraj from CIVIC Bangalore took a session on Rights of Migrants Workers: UN Mechanisms and India’s Legal Provisions. She has very briefly outlined the International amendments to protect the Rights of Migrant Workers and Interstate Migrant workman Act.
During the sharing session, Ms. Geeta Menan, Ms. Vinitha, Ms. Savitha and Mr. Hemant Kumar shared their NGO experience working with Migrants and their children in Bangalore. Dr. Madhumathi and Mr. Bhaskar moderated pre and post lunch sessions while sharing their experiences.
At the concluding it was suggested to have a national level consultation by inviting several activists and NGO representatives to bring out a solid statement to appeal the government to monitor the migrant workers situation and help the migrants to strive for their rights. Mr. John VM Juliana coordinated the programme.
Homage to Justice V R Krishna Iyer
By vigilindia 21:46 Articles , feature , gallery
Justice V R Krishna Iyer, former judge Supreme Court of India and a prominent human rights activist, a long time associate of Vigil India Movement passes away at the age of 100 on 4 December 2014.
Justice V R Krishna Iyer was a close associate of Rev. Dr. M.A. Thomas, the founder of Vigil India Movement. He has been a guidance force to the VIM team to strive for the protection and promotion of human rights at different capacities in the 70s to 90s and a recipient of the prestigious M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award in 1998.
VIM expresses the heartfelt condolence to the demised soul and recalls the great memory in association with Justice V R Krishna Iyer by republishing his acceptance speech for M.A. Thomas National Human Rights award 1998.
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A SOULFUL RESPONSE TO VIGIL INDIA’S GENEROUS GESTURE
I am grateful to the “VIGIL INDIA MOVEMENT’ and the distinguished Judging Committee for linking my name with a great India, a noble human and global gentleman, Rev. M.A. Thomas, whose life, simple, selfless and sacrificing was a cast in the mould of Jesus and shaped by the Gandhian ethos. The passion of Christ on the Cross has been an inspiration for generous of humankind, a symbol of spiritual protest against imperial injustices and intolerant fanaticism. His implacable opposition to the suppression of human personality and gender justice was also a divine summons to human compassion in the place of than-attic theology and mono-manic marketisation! Rev. Thomas strode the world in the hallowed lift of Christ and every cell of his body and soul struggled for human rights and justice, geared to higher values and resistance to corruption and exploitation.
His vision was cosmic, mission humanitarian and passion value-based liberation. Vigil India was his torch motivated for social transformation where sharing and caring and dynamic fraternity is the rule of law and life.
I am too humble to deserve the distinction now conferred but so too am I too small to challenge the unanimous choice of the panel since I have profound respect for each member and his integrity, mellowed experience in society and wider perception of human rights culture. So I submit myself to his ceremonial function. I hate to be honoured for an awards and rewards, citation and cash appetizers. What special contribution to society have I made to deserve this magnificent need? My conviction, I confess, is compassion for all living creatures best expressed by Blake when he poetized:
“ A dog starve’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state
A horse misus’d upon the road
Calls to Heaven for human blood”.
And did not burns weep in verse: “Man’s inhumanity to man make countless thousands mourns”. Universality of creation and unity of humanity keeps my being vibrant. Why? Because Donne’s diction dwells in me:
“We man is an Island, entire of it self:
Every man is a piece of the Continent,
A part of the main, if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less; as well as if a promontory were,
As well as if amanor of they friends or of thine
Own were, any man’s death diminished me, because
I am involved in Manking;
And therefore never send to know for whome the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee”.
My fundamental philosophy and basic value set are derived from a strange confluence of Swami Vivekananda, Karl Marx and Comrade Jesus with a sprinkling of the finer humanism of Prophet Mohammed. In sum, I am at simplicity in life, search for happiness in a universal just order, detest servility to gain glory, doubt, with honest skepticism, every proposition but date to accept facts even if allergic to elite opinion and anathematic to bightrow bosses and above all I held, deep in my soul, that I am human and so anything that distress any living creature deeply disturbs me and commands me into curative action, even if in vain. I am aware of my weakness and feel painfully ineffectual when injustice is inflicted on fellow creatures. I am a home of lost causes, martyr of pursuits of noble futility, victims of unwitting misunderstandings and nidus of unpopular, maverick noises. Still I must and hopefully will battle for human justice in all its dimensions, even if denounced and defeated by more powerful authoritarians to dissent against evil is a duty.
Permit me friends to do first things first. So, I bow, in profound reverence, before the cherished memory of that incomparable humanist Rev. M.A. Thomas. We need him every hour, every moment in our asuric system, to defend the moral order, spiritual culture and probity in public life. His diamond hard integrity, his rare commitment to truth, liberty and submission to the supremacy of eclectic values, sans which life losses its sublimity and the universe its divinity, made me gravitate towards him. Rev. Thomas was a one-man campaigner against the decline and all of Bharat’s rich heritage, happily composite, and morally Gandhian. What a piece of work was Thomas, gentle and compassionate, noble in bearing, a holy human in luminous locomotion, deep in concern for justice, truth, amity among communities and a heart tuned to the travails of the lowliest and the lost. He wrote to me few days before his death about his illness and possible terrestrial exit. His premonition proved true and plunged me and that large fraternity which looked to him for a lead like a lodestar in grief. Today, his magic memory still belights this dark world and gives us a heritage of hope. Dear brother Thomas, salutations to your radiant, tho’ invisible, presence on Indian earth where a pestilent congregation of foul vapours pollutes our biosphere and glorifies hedonist greed and chauvinist bombs while millions starve or suicide in this Barabbaque order devoid of purity and probity in private and public life! What a pity the nation is riddled with rouges, rascals and free booters a s well as criminalized politicians and political criminals.
You, Dr. Thomas, were the founding father of ‘Vigil India’. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and my homage to you is blended with a tryst to battle against corruption, gender outrages, glitterati immorality and violation of human rights of vulnerable humans by those dressed in ‘a little brief authority’ but ‘strut and fret the hour’ robbing the resources of the nation and inviting MNCs to colonise our national economic space, even sensitive areas. Colonialism is the opium of the creamy layer who are mindless in signing away our Swaraj. We miss you Rev. M A Thomas but your spirit will stll lead kindly light amidst the encircling gloom.
I am in a demoralized mood, a spirit of unworthiness, a feeling of aloofness to cash wards and flattery thro citations. My mind is elsewhere, my search is in a different sphere, my sunset age is shell-shocked by the scenario of megalomanic vanity, worldly adventurous and ambitious gold rush. They are ‘the hollow men’, …… the stuffed man……….. headpiece filled with straw’! Alas, how free I feel, having jettisoned these money-making, tuft-hunting crazes for continuance in power as different incarnations!
Currently, gross materialism, hostile ethnos and communal ethos, by a python-like process, crushed the humanist code of ethics. Therefore, a transformation, at once material, moral and spiritual, without inhibiting the infinite creative potential within everyone, the last pariah included – is the only answer to the challenges of violence, greet, sex and other bestial vices. Vigil India’s tasks are hard and heavy in the battle for human rights and against inhuman wrongs.
Be that as it may, I plead my inability to be happy in the company of the cash and carry glitterati. While it is the wisdom of the ‘Vigil India Movement’ to present a hundred thousand rupees to me, but once presented, it becomes my option to use that sacred sum for human rights cause. Not a single rupee out of this noble amount will belong to me and the entire sum, I publicly declare, will go to the study of public law in the human rights domain. May be, an authentic institution capable of energizing human rights education and activities like the National Law School of India University, may accept the trust.
I seek to place before you a mental page from my life autobiographical but authentic before I close.
My holistic tryst with destiny is humbly to strive for a New World Order which makes the biosphere a hallowed home for all humans and other ecological species in an environment of harmony and compassion, thro a lovely synthesis of value, material and spiritual. Such a cosmic symbiosis where the distant stars and leaves of grass have a underlying unity is the lesion of Sri Satya Sai Baba, Sri Narayana Guru, Sri Aurobino, a host of leaders of sublime thought and a sages of the Upanishads. This dynamic transcendentalism, with its paradigm shift, replaces the currently fashionable but fragmented materialst ethics with a new noetic ethic, ecological vision and self-realisation process. Who am I? is a perennial interrogation which baffles my consciousness, with the iron curtain (or translucent veil) dividing life from Death. In flashes I perceive that God (or the Supreme Intelligence of Creative Power) ‘sleeps in the mineral, awakens in the vegetable, walks in the animal and thins in man’. If supra-mental faculties a re kindled, divinity meets and mates with humanity where consciousness becomes the blissful resource of the universe. This integral yoga, intuitive, subjective, yet scientific and spiritual is the profound idiom the deep fulfillment of TAT TVAM ASI (Thou art That).
The kingdom of God is within you, said Christ. In the seashore of world children play, says Gitanjali. These are the matrices and glimpses of my philosophy of life, shared in the long-ago days when my wife and I sat near the sea in my Tellicherry home and the very process was joy. Life is a verb, not a noun, a perennial process, not a final product.
I am four score and three; but in the end is the beginning, a discovery of the manifesto of humanity an antyodaya sarvodayas project too deep for words. This vistarami vision in my dream, where secularism and socialism, diginity and fraternity are invested with a celestial significance. A micro-beginning of an sdyssey towards the infine! It is but a reverie, distant from the reality. And the recurrent lines of Tennyson haunt me, day after day:
“ So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant vrying in the night:
An infant crying for the light
And with no language but a cry”.
Finally, I express my profound feelings to “Vigil India” for conferring a distinction I hardly deserve, except as a Camp follower of the Rev. Dr. M.A. Thomas Brigade.
Justice V R Krishna Iyer
10-8-1998
Combating Human Trafficking and Protecting Human Dignity: Role of People’s Movements
By vigilindia 01:54 feature , reports , resources
The Vigil India Movement organized a National Seminar on “Combating Human Trafficking and Protecting Human Dignity: Role of People’s Movements” on Saturday the 20th September 2014 at the Osmania University Center for the International Programme, Hyderabad. The Seminar was organized in conjunction with the M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award – 2014. The concept of the programme was to critically analyze human trafficking in India and its impact in human society. Around 72 participants from various backgrounds attended the programme in which 20 of them were victims of human trafficking.
Adv. K. Pratap Reddy, President, VIM delivered a presidential remarks at the beginning of the consultation. In his address, Adv. Pratap Reddy briefed about the Vigil India Movement and its role in protecting and promoting human rights at the grassroots level in India and also explained why the seminar was organized at Hyderabad. Dr. Malthews George Chunakara, Hon. Director, VIM took a session comprising of two topics i.e. Human Rights and Human Dignity-Contemporary Challenges and Human Trafficking: A Modern Slavery and Threat to Human Security. Dr. Mathews briefed that the Dignity of Human being is an essential concept in the society. Human beings should be able to lead a life in a society without any discrimination. The purpose of pursuing and establishing civil, political, economic and social rights is to preserve and promote human dignity, in all its aspects and dimensions. In the second part of his presentation, Dr. Mathews elaborated the Modern Slavery of Human Trafficking at the international level and how the migrants are forced and victimised to various forms of abuse, torture, exploitation and trafficking. As though the UN mechanism is working out to curb the situation, trafficking is yet to be vanished.
Mr. Jayasingh Thomas, Manager, Chaithanya Mahila Mandali explained about the Human Trafficking and Sexual exploitation in India particularly in Hyderabad. He also briefed how his NGO is working with the victims to promote human dignity among the commercial sex workers and also rehabilitating the victims. Mt. Umapathi, former IPS officer took a session on Combating Human Trafficking: Role of People’s Movements. He has explained various models working with NGOs to control human trafficking in Andhra Pradesh and also explained the government role in promoting human rights particularly taking stringent action against traffickers in Telengana and Andhra Pradesh. Further Justice Mr. B. Prakash Rao, Former acting Justice, High Court of India briefed about the Judicial Role in combating human trafficking.
Mrs. Bandari Jayamma and her collegues, who were victims of human trafficking, shared their stories how they were trapped to commercial sex work and how they were relieved and rehabilitated by the Chaithanya Mahila Mandali. While describing their stories, they most of them were very emotional and narrated the amount of torture and pain they have experienced in their life as commercial sex workers.
At the conclusion, the participants resolved to create awareness among the society about trafficking and urged all the NGOs at national level and at grassroots level to support the victims of trafficking as human being and strive to promote and protect the rights of the every human being irrespective of caste, color, race and profession.
Dr. J.A. Oliver, Chancellor, SHIATS University played a significant role in organising the seminar at Hyderabad. With his assistance the Vigil India staff, Mr. John VM Juliana coordinated the programme at Hyderabad.
Smt. Bandari Jayamma received M A Thomas National Human Rights Award 2014
By vigilindia 01:42 award , awardees , feature
The M A Thomas National Human Rights Award 2014, was given away to Smt. Bandari Jayamma, at the function held on 20 September 2014 at the Osmania University Center for International Programme, Hyderabad.
Dr. J.A. Oliver welcomed the Hon’ble Gusts and the delegates for the Award Function. Adv. Pratap Reddy, in his presidential remarks briefly explained about the genesis of the M A Thomas National Human Rights Award, the founder Dr. M.A. Thomas and his contribution to the society through Vigil India Movement and Dr. Mathews George Chunakara, Hon. Director, VIM explained about the selection process, jury’s recommendation and also read the citation that honours Bandari Jayamma.
Dr. A. Chakrapani, Hon’ble Chariman, Andhra Pradesh State Legislative Council, then presented the prestigious M A Thomas National Human Rights Award 2014. Dr. Chakrapani extended his greetings to Jayamma for her effortless service in protecting human trafficking and promoting the human dignity among the victims of trafficking and also called upon the people’s movement to join with Jayamma to uphold the dignity of the vulnerable community.
In the presence of Dr. A. Chakrapani, the VIM felicitated Adv. K. Pratap Reddy, National President, VIM for his contribution to the Vigil India Movement since its inception as one of the founding trustees and as a President since 1994. Justice K. Ramaswamy, former Justice, Supreme Court of India delivered a felicitation address.
Bandari Jayamma expressed and extended her gratitude to Vigil India Movement for the prestigious Award in recognition of her service to the community in her acceptance speech. Dr. Cherian Thomas, Secretary and Trustee of VIM thanked the honourable guests and delegates at the function.
M. A THOMAS NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD - 2014
Awarded to
Ms. BANDARI JAYAMMA
Human trafficking is a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights. Every year, thousands of women, men and children become victims of trafficking in persons within a country or beyond the borders of a country. Almost every country in the world is affected by human trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination of victims. An alarming global phenomenon of trafficking in persons by means of coercion and deception for commercial sex exploitation plagues in many parts of India, especially where poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and the suppression of women’s rights are rampant.
It is in this context that the commitment of Ms. Bandari Jayamma, a barefoot soldier, who fights against this evil of human trafficking, is valued. A survivor of sex trafficking herself, Jayamma defends, supports and empowers women trafficked and coerced into commercial sex trade. In a society where sex trade flourishes at every nook and corner and though legally banned, Jayamma fights for the rights and dignity of those involved in the trade for survival. Based in Hyderabad, the city with over 25,000 commercial sex workers of whom 60 percent were forced into this practice, Jayamma initiated the founding of Chaitanya Mahila Mandali, an NGO that empowers sex workers and sex trafficking survivors to lead a dignified life. Jayamma started the organization in 2001 after surviving trafficking and coercion into sexual slavery as a young woman in her own life. Chaitanya Mahila Mandali is the first ever Indian non-profit organization that has been founded by a survivor who has lived the pain and trauma of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Jayamma’s leadership through Chaitainya Mahila Mandali in rescuing victims of human trafficking and those who are forced into sex trade, providing counseling, healthcare, skills training, and legal aid, income-generating activities for commercial sex workers is highly commendable. Chaitainya Mahila Mandali has so far prevented at least 25,000 girls and women from entering into sex work. While spearheading the campaign against human trafficking and sex trade, Jayamma has partnered with regional and national organizations to address this growing menace. Her active participation as a Member of the Core committee planning for National AIDS Control Programme Phase IV (2012-17) has significantly influenced and contributed to making community participation mandatory in the programme. Her tireless effort of lobbying has also helped many victims of sex trafficking to take part in high level policy decisions.
Jayamma’s commitment to be actively involved in rescuing and supporting girl children of sex workers who are at high risk of sexual exploitation, and her concern for the victims motivated her to open the Chaitanya Happy Home. Chaitanya is a halfway home that provides shelter, medical care and education to children of sex workers, who would have been abused and forced into sex trade, had they been left with their mothers. Jayamma provides them love, care, fear-free environment and education to live in dignity. As Akshaya, a sex worker turned a Peer Educator says, “I always looked at myself with self-loathing and helplessness because that is how the society looked at me. But since I met Jayamma, I have learned to look at myself as a human being who has equal rights like others and who can stand up for herself.”
In selecting Jayamma Bandari for the Rev. Dr. M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award 2014, the members of the Jury and the Board of Trustees of Vigil India Movement recognize Jayamma Bandari’s tireless efforts and dedication towards defending the rights and dignity of the most defenseless and vulnerable women and children in society: the trafficked, the abused, the exploited and the abandoned. Her work is a shining example of reclaiming the human dignity, the birthright of every human being, especially the exploited women and children.
Justice P.P. Bopanna Advocate K. Pratap Reddy Managing Trustee, VIM President, VIM
Smt. Bandari Jayamma gets the M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award – 2014
By vigilindia 20:17 award , feature
A three member Jury - Hon. Justice Shri. R. Jayasimha Babu, (former Senior Judge, Madras High Court) Mr. Akbar Mirza Khaleeli, (former Ambassador of India to different countries and Board of Trustee of VIM) and Dr. Cherian Thomas, (Director of Ecumenical Christian Centre and Secretary & Trustee of VIM)unanimously selected Smt. Bandari Jayamma for the award from among the nominations received from various parts of the Country.
Smt. Bandari Jayamma, has contributed immensely in the field of anti-human trafficking and rescued and rehabilitated thousands of young girls, children and women who were being forced into commercial sex work and she has consistently promoted and protected the rights of commercial sex workers in Hyderabad. Ms. Jayamma herself was a victim of human trafficking and she was first sex worker got rescued and given a dignified job as Coordinator in one of the leading NGOs in Andhra Pradesh. As things progressed, she has rehabilitated number of commercial sex workers and established Chaithanya Mahila Mandali (CMM) in 2001. As a president of CMM, Mrs. Jayamma addresses the issues and concerns of neglected and suffering group of society – sex workers. Today, Mrs. Jayamma is known as Mother Jayamma in Hyderabad.
Vigil India Movement instituted the M. A. Thomas National Human Rights Award in 1994 in memory of its Founder President Late Dr. M.A. Thomas. The Award with One Lakh of Rupees and a Citation will be presented to Mrs. Jayamma at an award ceremony to be held at Hyderabad preferably in August 2014 in line with the birth anniversary of the Founder (10 August).
Human Rights Diary April 2014
By vigilindia 21:06 feature , gallery , Vigil Human Rights Diary
What is the point of laws, and judgments to back these laws, when the ground has not changed?
'We pervert reason when we humiliate life man stopped respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow-creatures." - Jose Saramago
Sewage travels across Delhi's 5,600- kilometer sewer lines at the speed of one meter per second. That is a rather leisurely pace of 3.6 km per hour - the time an obese person may take to complete one round of Lodi Gardens. Along this river of filth - the Ganga is just half this length - there are 1.5 lakh manholes servicing the effluents released by the capital's 15 million people. Much of this 'infrastructure' was designed more than 100 years ago. According to an estimate I made in 2007, at least 22,327 men and women die in India every year doing various kinds of sanitation work. Figures are hard to come by, since these concerns the deaths of a section of population that most of India refuses to see. Santosh Choudhary, then chairperson of the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, had told me in 2007 that at least "two to three workers must be dying every day inside manholes across India."
On the morning of March 27, Bezwada Wilson of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) sent a message to his well-wishers about the impending ruling of the Supreme Court in a Public Interest Litigation that had dragged on for 12 years. All that SKA had been seeking was the enforcement of fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution under Articles 14 (Right to Equality), 17 (Abolition of untouchability ), 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) and 47 (Duty of the State to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to. improve public health).
Judgment with a caveat
Later in the day, the three-judge Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice, P. Sathasivam, issued directions to the state, the railways, and several organizations to implement the provisions of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 - itself a result of SKA's relentless efforts. While everyone congratulated Mr. Wilson and the SKA team, a part of me froze at the sight of a certain clause in the judgment.
After ruling that "entering sewer lines without safety gears should be made a crime even in emergency situations," the Bench added a caveat: "For each such death, compensation of Rs.l0 lakhs should be given to the family of the deceased."
Human Rights Diary March 2014
By vigilindia 21:19 feature , gallery , Vigil Human Rights Diary
NEW YORK, AGENCIES: The recent climate change may be acting to slow down deep ocean currents with potentially serious consequences for the planet's future, a study warns. Deep currents act as conveyer belts, channeling heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients around the globe.
A new study by the University of Pennsylvania's Irina Marinov and Raffaele Bernardello and colleagues from McGill University has found that recent climate change may be acting to slow down one of these conveyer belts - with potentially serious consequences for the future of the planet's climate.
"Our observations are showing us that there is less formation of these deep waters near Antarctica," said Marinov, an assistant professor in the department of earth and environmental science.
"This is worrisome because, if this is the case, we're likely going to see less uptake of human produced, or anthropogenic, heat and carbon dioxide by the ocean, making this a positive feedback loop for climate change," she added.
Oceanographers have noticed that Antarctic Bottom Waters, a massive current of cold, salty and dense water that flows 2,000 metre under the ocean's surface from near the Antarctic coast toward the equator has been shrinking in recent decades.
This is cause for concern as the current is believed to "hide" heat and carbon from the atmosphere. The Southern Ocean takes up approximately 60 per cent of the anthropogenic heat produced on earth and 40 to 50 per cent of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
"The Southern Ocean is emerging as being very, very important for regulating climate," Marinov said. Marinov and colleagues used models to discern whether the shrinking of the Antarctic Bottom Waters could be attributed to anthropogenic climate change.
Deccan Herald, March 24, 2014
Human Rights Diary February 2014
By vigilindia 21:28 feature , gallery , Vigil Human Rights Diary
BANGALORE: Traders dealing in food who require obtaining a license by February 4 in order to comply with the provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 are up against the "draconian legislation," said Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the apex body representing the interests of retailers.
Speaking to The Hindu before addressing traders gathered under the auspices of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI), Mr. Khandelwal said: "The deadline for mandatory licenses for those retailing food is likely to be extended by another year, just as it was in the last two years."
Mr. Khandelwal said the CAIT leadership, during its recent meeting with the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad, had been assured them of a "favourable response."
He said Union Minister for Communications and IT Kapil Sibal, whom he met on Friday, had assured them of a "favourable review" of the implementation of the legislation. "The legislation is not merely impractical but also sinister," Mr. Khandelwal said.
He alleged that the provisions are geared to "wipe out" Indian competition to multinationals operating in the food business. "We have urged the government to review the legislation and spend the next year consulting all stakeholders so that we are left with a people friendly legislation."
Even nodal agencies under government control, such as the Food Corporation of India and the Central Warehousing Corporation, are not yet compliant with the legislation, he observed. "At this rate, even the Karnataka Chief Minister's pet scheme, the Anna Bhagya, runs the 'risk of getting derailed," he remarked
Human Rights Diary January 2014
By vigilindia 21:31 feature , gallery , Vigil Human Rights Diary
Supreme Court's guidelines on implementation of the death penalty will go a long way in recognizing the rights of those who are on the death row. While the court's judgment might make executions rarer than in the past, it is high time India enacted a law completely abolishing capital punishment as any civilized society is expected to do. With the landmark judgment of Tuesday, delay in taking a decision on mercy petitions has become a valid ground for commuting death penalty to life imprisonment. Fifteen petitioners have got relief with the ruling but it will also apply to others who are in the same situation, including those who are convicted under the anti-terrorism law. The court has also made it clear that a death sentence cannot be carried out if the convict suffers from mental illness.
The courts have progressively disfavored the death penalty in the last many years. After the law was amended in 1973 mandating that judges should give special reasons for awarding a death sentence, the Supreme Court laid down the 'rarest of rare' doctrine in 1980. It also refused to award the extreme penalty in many recent cases and has now reduced the scope for implementation of the sentence in many cases. Still judicial thinking has not always been consistent. The same court which had last year commuted a death sentence on the ground of delay in disposing of the mercy petition, refused to do so in another petition a few weeks later. The same inconsistency has been seen in the handling of mercy petitions too. Subjective, political or other considerations have influenced such decisions. While former President Pratibha Patil commuted the death sentences of 35 persons in 2012 before demitting office, Pranab Mukherjee rejected the largest number of petitions in a few months after becoming the President.
The court's guidelines will also put an end to solitary confinement and mandate periodical physical and mental health examinations and offer of legal aid to convicts. There should be a minimum 14 days between rejection of the petition and execution, and there should be communication with the family. In most cases, including in Afzal Guru's, many of these fair and just rights had not been respected.
