More than 6,000 people have died in the nearly one-year-old Ukraine conflict; the United Nations human rights office said on Monday and warned that "deliberate targeting" of civilians may constitute a "crime against humanity".
India has for the first time abstained from voting on a resolution on Palestine adopted at the UN rights body that calls for accountability by parties involved in last year's conflict in Gaza.
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday warned Sri Lanka that "true reconciliation" with Tamils will take time, even as he praised the "openness" of the new government in efforts to boost democracy, human rights and reaching out to the minority community.
The expert said the mission "lacked a holistic human rights approach'.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision not to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Colombo has once again put the focus on alleged cases of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
Raising the issue of Balochistan for the first time before the United Nation, India on Wednesday accused Pakistan of widespread human rights violations there as well as in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
It has been said that by 2025, India could become among the top five economies in the world. If India does become a $5 trillion economy but gets all its rivers polluted, food chain poisoned and genetic pool depleted and biometric database of Indians sold or stolen at the behest of commercial czars, will it not be a pyrrhic economic victory, asks Gopal Krishna.
The fact that known terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Syed Salahuddin have been able to hold huge rallies in Pakistan's main cities is a reflection of the state of affairs in Pak, said India.
'It will be foolhardy to overlook that this stunning shift in China's stance comes as the culmination of the severely damaged India-China relationship under the present government,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In the year since Modi cast the spotlight on Pakistan's human rights violations in Balochistan, India has not done much more than raise the issue at the UN a few times.
Bloodbath in Gaza continued unabated today with Israel and Hamas refusing to back down in the conflict that has killed over 660 Palestinians and 31 Israelis, even as US Secretary of State John Kerry said his ceasefire negotiations in Jerusalem were making progress.
One shocking finding of the investigation was the extent to which sexual violence was committed against detainees, often extremely brutally, by the Sri Lankan security forces, with men as likely to be victims as women.
'Secretiveness and the element of surprise in announcing decisions marks the Modi style of diplomacy. From being a voluble politician, he became a reticent statesman... But the diplomatic dance is performed on thin ice and his adroitness is still to be proved,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'The path to a resolution of the ethnic conflict is likely to be complicated and controversial with the majority Sinhalese community, and will become less likely if delayed.' 'It will certainly give Rajapaksa fresh political oxygen with which to revive himself and rally the opposition.'
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