Professional Documents
Culture Documents
22
ight to Life is one of the basic human rights, and key to its
realization lies in Right to Health. No doubt, average life
expectancy has increased with improvement in living standards
and healthcare facilities. However, myriad challenges have
cropped up in the health sector of the country due to several
new and lifestyle diseases, including mental illnesses. Naturally,
there is a massive requirement for infrastructure, medical
research, trained medical and para-medical staff as well as costeffective treatment at various levels of healthcare services,
bridging the gap between the rural and urban divide.
In the absence of a credible public healthcare system, no
doubt, expenditure on health is leaving a big hole in the pockets
of many, which should be a serious concern for any
government. The Government has encouraged private
initiatives to share some of its burden, which unfortunately
have tended to highly commercialize the healthcare services so
much so that even the health insurance cover has also not
proved to be useful to its potential in many cases. In this
backdrop, the Governments draft National Health Policy, 2015
gains significance. It is only right that the Government, before
finalizing it, has invited views of different stakeholders. In this
1.
context, the opinion of the NHRCs Core Group on Health should
be viewed seriously that human rights perspective is missing
from this proposed Policy.
Insufficient tertiary, primary and advanced diagnostic and
treatment facilities apart, the non-availability of medicines at
an affordable cost have always been a challenge and so is the
issue of spurious drugs which allegedly have captured a sizeable
market. India is a major manufacturer and one of the leading
suppliers of generic medicines in the world but the prescription
and usage of generic medicines is not very popular in the
country, primarily, perhaps, due to commercial interests.
Generic medicines, which are very cheap compared to branded
medicines, become more useful, especially, for long-term
treatment of diseases. Therefore, recently, when the Union
Government moved to lift the restriction on hiking the prices of
cardio-vascular and anti-diabetes drugs, it was obvious for the
NHRC to know from it the reasons behind taking such a
retrograde step.
Constable is one who has to have the most direct interface
with public in any police force. Therefore, it is imperative that
they are sensitized towards respecting the dignity and other
rights of a person in line of their duty. NHRCs latest initiative to
help RPF train its 16 thousand newly recruited Constables on
human rights is a step in that direction.
NHRC Member, Shri S.C. Sinha (in centre) flanked by sr. officers at the meeting
Important Intervention
Complaints received/processed in
January, 2015
Visit us at : www.nhrc.nic.in
Vandalizing churches
(Case No. 301/30/9/2015)
The media reported that a church in Vikaspuri area
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of Delhi was vandalized on the 14 January, 2015. Prior
to this, reportedly, four other incidents of attacks and
suspected arson at Christian religious institutions had
happened in Dilshad Garden, Rohini and Jasola areas of
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Delhi since the 1 December, 2014.
The Commission has observed that these frequent
attacks on the religious institutions of the minority
community, if true, may violate the fundamental right
Hooch tragedy
(Case No. 1445/24/48/2015)
The media reported that the consumption of hooch
resulted in the death of many people in Malihabad near
Lucknow and its bordering District Unnao in Uttar
Pradesh. The Commission has issued notices to the
Chief Secretary of the State Government, Inspector
General of Police, Lucknow Range and District
Magistrate, Lucknow calling for reports.
Reportedly, till the 13th January, 2015, the death toll
had climbed up to 32 even as 18 more were in a critical
condition in various hospitals. The State Government
had ordered a magisterial enquiry and suspended 20
erring officials during a crackdown. The police had
registered four cases and arrested two of the main
accused responsible for selling the spurious liquor.
ollowing is the list of cases wherein spot enquiries were conducted by the Commissions officers:
Sl. No.
Case Number
Allegations
Date of visit
1.
458/30/9/2014
2.
16713/24/72/2010-ED
3.
13398/24/59/2013-WC
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th
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Important Intervention
NHRC calls for reports on excessive fluoride in drinking
water and remedial steps taken by 27 States
drinking water.
The Commissions directions followed a presentation by the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and
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Sanitation before it on the 20 January, 2015 on the
problem of fluorosis in various States. The presentation
also focused on short-term, medium-term and longterm solutions for mitigating the problem of contamination in drinking water.
According to the presentation, there are more than
1000 habitations affected by fluorosis in Rajasthan,
Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The problem of
fluorosis is also acute in some other States where more
than 100 habitations are affected. These are Bihar,
Karnataka, Odisha, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh,
Kerala, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Gujarat,
Assam, Haryana, Uttaranchal, Tamil Nadu, Himachal
Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Arunachal
Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,
Sikkim and Tripura.
part from the large number of cases taken up daily by individual Members, 100 cases were considered during 5
sittings of the Full Commission and 6 sittings of Divisional Benches in January, 2015.
On 11 cases, listed in the table below, the Commission recommended monetary relief amounting to a total of
`21.5 lakh for the victims or their next of kin, where it found that public servants had either violated human rights or
been negligent in protecting them.
Sl. No. Case Number
Nature of Complaint
Public Authority
1.
513/33/14/2012-JCD
Two lakh
Government of Chhattisgarh
2.
30596/24/3/201-JCD
One lakh
3.
689/6/21/2013-JCD
Three lakh
Government of Gujarat
4.
153/25/7/2014-JCD
Three lakh
5.
752/12/18/2013-JCD
Three lakh
6.
1038/34/4/2012-AD
Two lakh
Government of Jharkhand
7.
3731/4/4/2013
Government of Bihar
8.
35563/24/3/2013
9.
34547/24/8/2013
One lakh
10.
31257/24/3/2013
Three lakh
11.
2469/18/2/2013-WC
Three lakh
Government of Odisha
Nature of Complaint
Public Authority
One lakh
1.
5487/24/56/2010-JCD
2.
Three lakh
3.
620/1/4/2011-JCD
Two lakh
4.
5584/7/3/2012-JCD
One lakh
Government of Haryana
5.
31/25/13/2013-JCD
Three lakh
6.
1523/30/0/2011-JCD
Three lakh
7.
2977/30/7/2013
Ten thousand
8.
106/22/13/2010
Twenty thousand
9.
6508/24/54/2011
Ten thousand
10.
49115/24/33/2011
Five thousand
11.
3063/24/31/2012
One lakh
12.
2032/18/27/2012
Fifty thousand
Government of Odisha
13.
786/24/56/2013-WC
Exploitation of Women
Fifty thousand
NHRC Member, Shri S.C Sinha hearing the cases at the Camp Sitting
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on the 9 January, 2015. It was organised by the Commission in collaboration with the RPF. The Master Trainers
will further impart training to about 16 thousand newly
recruited Constables in the RPF, through their 34
training centers in different parts of the country.
Events
Inauguration of District Conference organized by
Rotary International at Allapey, Kerala on the 23rd
January, 2015
Inauguration of Training-cum-Awareness programme Take action now to prevent and control life style
diseases: Diabetes, Heart disease and cancer at
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Ernakulam, Kerala on the 24 January, 2015
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Printed and Published by Jaimini Kumar Srivastava, I&PRO on behalf of the National Human Rights Commission and Printed at Dolphin
Printo- Graphic, 4E/7, Pabla Building, Jhandewalan Extn., New Delhi-110055 and published at National Human Rights Commission, Manav
Adhikar Bhawan, Block-C, GPO Complex, INA, New Delhi-110023. Editor : Jaimini Kumar Srivastava