National and State Human Rights Commissions in India agree to work together

In a move that holds promise for embedding a culture of human rights in the country, the National Human Rights Commission and the State Human Rights Commissions from across the country on January 30 have agreed to coordinate their activities and have concurred to explore ways and means to avoid duplication of work. The joint meeting lasting four hours also discussed at length human rights in prisons, training and awareness building, custodial deaths and the need for creating awareness of human rights amongst the public.

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative welcomes this initiative and sees it as a potentially valuable development toward increased effective protection of human rights in India. Hopefully the new initiative to work closely together will lead to a stronger human rights advocacy from commissions about such issues as the ratification of the Convention on Torture and police reform. At present the only concrete decision reached is to be build a database by forging a computer linkage between the different commissions. Hopefully this is only the beginning of a process through which human rights commissions will develop a common agenda. The meeting was attended by the Chairpersons and Secretaries of the State Human Rights Commissions from Assam, Chhatisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.