Google, whose unofficial motto is 'Don't be evil', is at the receiving end today.
Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo, who is serving an 11-year jail term for demanding more fundemental rights in the communist nation, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia in Oslo, Norway on Friday afternoon, local time.
Three years after Google stepped into China, it is on the verge of closing operations.
Google on Wednesday threatened to shut down its operations in China after uncovering hacking attempts into email accounts of Chinese human rights activists, terming it as "highly sophisticated".
Clude Arpi salutes the Nobel prize committee for giving the peace prize to jailed Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo.
Retired bureaucrat S R Sankaran, who had played a crucial role in bringing the Maoists and Andhra Pradesh government together for the first ever direct peace talks six years ago, passed away on Thursday after a brief illness.
"The Centre will not invite Maoists to talk till they abjure violence," said G K.Pillai, the Home Secretary. Pillai was speaking at a seminar organised by South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA). The other participants were Maoist sympathizer and PUCL, Hyderabad, chairman and eminent human rights lawyer, K.B.Kannabirn, and human rights activists Gautam Navlakha and Shabnam Hashmi.
An Indian national imprisoned in a jail in Lahore has died of tuberculosis, Pakistan authorities said on Thursday, after leading human rights activist Ansar Burney claimed that the death had occurred in 'suspicious' circumstances. Mushtaq Awan, the Superintendent of Kot Lakhpat jail, said Indian national Suraj Singh was mentally deranged and had died on Wednesday of tuberculosis. Singh, a resident of Jaipur, was arrested a year ago.
A Pune-based engineer and activist has been arrested by the city police in connection with a Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) theft case. Mukund Lagoo, a civil engineer and a human rights activist was arrested on Tuesday after two days of questioning.
The report said that collaborative efforts should be taken to renovate Terri Mandir (Karak), Katas Raj Temples (Chakwal), Prahlad Mandir (Multan) and Hinglaj Mandir (Lasbela).
Dr Shiv Chopra, the 75-year-old, Canada-based microbiologist and well known human rights activist, was in India recently in connection with the release of his latest book, Corrupt To The Core - Memoirs Of A Health Canada Whistleblower, which is about how corruption in government endangers public food supply.
An Indian spy, who spent 12 years in a Pakistan jail and was released recently, has decided to move the court seeking compensation from the central government. Buttesingh Dharamsingh alias Darshanlal, a native of Jammu, was arrested in Pakistan in March 1997 and awarded a 25-year jail term on espionage charges. The spy claims to have visited Pakistan nearly 14 times before being apprehended. Since his arrest, Buttesingh's family members were not given a single penny.
Trade unions, human rights activists and workers have called upon the Indian and Canadian governments to halt the trade in white asbestos. The protestors gathered under the aegis of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) urged the governments to address the safety concerns of workers using asbestos.
In a major snub to China, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has announced that she would attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, as part of the official delegation on behalf of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia.
The party, however, did not say exactly when the Congress general secretary received the message.
Activist Gopal Krishna makes a case that the Unique Identification Number project is a gross violation of fundamental human rights and points out that a similar project/law in Britain is going to be repealed.
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen activist shot in the head last year by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, has received the highest honour conferred by rights group Amnesty International.
An Indian journalist, who testified before a United States committee discussing human rights situation in Kashmir, said Pakistan-sponsored terrorism has been completely overlooked by the world press for the past 30 years, evoking a sharp reaction from a US Congresswoman who questioned her objectivity while reporting.
Convinced that death row convict Sarabjeet Singh is "innocent" and deserved to be released, former Pakistani Minister and noted human rights activist Ansar Burney on Friday demanded that India also consider release of all Pakistanis who had completed their jail terms as a reciprocative gesture.
Noted Indian filmmaker and human rights activist Tapan Bose believes the only way there can be some progress towards a resolution of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan is through third party intervention.
A peace delegation from Pakistan on Thursday suggested the military regime in that country might not yet be over yet and singled it out for maintaining close ties with terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. Attending a round table conference in New Delhi, the delegates referring to terrorism pointed out that the "monster that was created has outgrown its inventors".
Observing that the "mishandling" of the issue of Ajmal Iman's nationality by the government had brought bad name to Pakistan, leading human rights activist Ansar Burney has demanded the immediate resignation of Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik.
On her very first day in office as additional solicitor general, Indira Jaising pens a column exclusively for rediff.com on what her new assignment, new responsibility and new challenge mean to her
"The police not only arrested us, but also beat up some of our members mercilessly. We have not come here to break the law. Why is the police stopping us from moving freely in an independent democratic country," Patkar sought to know.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com meets the families of those killed in the police firing on Sterlite protestors in Thoothukudi, and finds a similar tale running through their lives.
While an operation is on to destroy the infrastructure of Maoists in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa, a move is also being initiated for a dialogue.From Saturday, a two-day session will be held at Delhi with some human rights activists to chalk out the talking points before the Naxalites are approached formally. Though the meeting is being held under the aegis of a newly formed Delhi Policy Study Group, it appears to have the Union home ministry's blessings.
'I don't think any other human rights person had so much of people's support,' says Mrs Ilina Sen.
A central leader of radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, Rehmat Salam Khattak, is among 30 arrested in raids following the attack on the temple in Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Karak district on Wednesday, Station House Officer Rehmatullah Khan told PTI.
The Malegaon blasts case has opened the proverbial can of worms. After the alleged involvement of right wing Hindu fundamentalists, the arrest of Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Purohit on Wednesday has managed to rattle the top brass of the government and the Indian Army.Several residents of this textile town in Maharashtra are now demanding another investigation in the 2006 serial blasts, which claimed 37 lives.
'If you accept that situation you don't require the judiciary, the criminal procedure law, the Indian Penal Code or even the Constitution because there is somebody who decides who gets to live and who gets to die.'
Pakistan's incoming government should convert the death sentence of Indian national Sarabjit Singh into life imprisonment on "humanitarian grounds" and ensure his early release, caretaker Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney said on Monday. President Pervez Musharraf had on March 19 deferred the hanging of Sarabjit, scheduled for April 1, by 30 days after receiving an appeal for clemency from the Indian government and the condemned man's family.
'Sincere request to the Nobel winner, to spend some time speaking with the minorities of Pakistan'
'It's a rare privilege, within a matter of months, I have changed my residence, my profession, my daily thrust of work, and it's in some ways quite invigorating,' Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs, tells Aziz Haniffa in an exclusive interview.
The idea, suggested by 64-year-old Jawaharlal Sharma, is how to share the cost of making the loaf and thereby reducing its prices.
Surangi told rediff.com the Sri Lankan police hated Sugath as he was constantly opposed the alleged human rights violations by the Sri Lankan police throughout the Island nation under the guise of hunting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and other Tamil militant organizations.
The search engine giant Google, which has threatened to wind up operations in China, saw its share in the search engine market in that country rise significantly in the last six months.
An Indian fisherman died of an electric shock in a jail in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Monday prompting a leading human rights activist to demand an inquiry into his death. Fisherman Bhagwan Das, who was being held in Landhi Jail in Karachi, died of an electric shock he suffered while switching on a washing machine, officials said.
Hanging Sarabjit Singh would be tantamount to murder of humanity as the Indian national had been convicted without any substantial evidence, Pakistan's leading human rights activist Ansar Burney has said. "I cannot allow the government to hang Sarabjit Singh on the basis that he is a non-Muslim and non-Pakistani, and because of pressure from extremist fundamentalist groups," he said. Pakistani authorities have apparently put off Sarabjit's hanging.
Fearing violent anti-China protests from Tibetans and human rights activists and possible skirmishes between anti- and pro- Beijing demonstrators, authorities here changed and truncated the route of the Olympic torch at the last moment. They also cancelled the closing ceremony planned at the end of relay which will now be held at an undisclosed venue for security reasons.
Jahangir, chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, is preparing a report for the United Nations on violence relating to religion for which she is meeting various persons.
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