South Asia Citizens Web

At first it seemed a huge, obscene lie, the news of his death. It did not seem possible - he had been busy as always the weekend before, at a human rights convention in Ananthapur, to mark 10 years of Human Rights Forum the organization he and others started in 1998. That had become a pattern almost, that he would leave for the districts in the weekends, to enquire into rights violations - land grabbing by the state or private agencies for special economic zones; hazardous open cast mining, (…)

9 October 2009
APDR is stunned to learn the sudden and untimely demise of Dr. K. Balagopal at only 52. Dr. Balagopal was one of the few outstanding personalities in post seventy India who shaped and build up a formidable voice and organisation for civil liberties, democratic rights and human rights. His insight in the theory and practice of rights movement and the issues involved was reflected in a large number of incisive and thought provoking articles. These articles contributed (…)

People’s Union for Civil Liberties
9 October 2009
The PUCL is bereaved at the untimely demise of one of our finest civil liberties activists and advocates Shri K Balagopal of Human Rights Forum, AP. For the Human Rights movement the loss of Shri Balagopal at this juncture is very severe, especially when a war is being fought in this country between the Maoists and the various States and the Central Government. His boldness, understanding and interventions were needed most in the present (…)

Large counter-insurgency operations in India have so far been confined to India’s borderlands and directed against secessionist movements: Punjab, Kashmir and the North-Eastern states are cases in point. Operation Green Hunt, on the other hand, is to be staged in central India in a poor, rural, landlocked province surrounded by six other states.

Tens of thousands of Indian women and girls are dying during pregnancy, in childbirth, and in the weeks after giving birth, despite government programs guaranteeing free obstetric health care, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 150-page report "No Tally of the Anguish: Accountability in Maternal Health Care in India" documents repeated failures both in providing health care to pregnant women in Uttar Pradesh state in northern India and in taking steps to identify and address gaps in care. Uttar Pradesh has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in India, but government surveys show it is not alone in struggling with these problems, including a failure even to record how many women are dying.