The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) remained in force in Nagaland, Manipur, Assam and parts of Mizoram, and a version of the law was in force in Jammu and Kashmir. In September, the central government rejected a request to visit Jammu and Kashmir by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for. A separate case filed by Zakia Jafri, one of the survivors of the Gulberg Society, remained pending in the Gujarat High Court.
On July 8, the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission launched an inquiry into the conduct of the Kanyakumari Police. Throughout the year there were reports from media organizations and academic institutions of corporate human rights abuses against tea workers, including violations of the Plantation Labor Act.
Respect for Civil Liberties, Including
The Supreme Court upheld other provisions of the law that authorize the government to block certain online content. Under section 69A of the Act, the government can still order content blocks without court approval. The law allows for freedom of assembly and association, and the government generally respected these rights.
The government generally allowed UNHCR to assist only the asylum seekers and refugees from non-adjacent countries. Foreign Travel: The government can legally deny a passport to any applicant for participating in activities outside the country "prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of the nation". The government generally allowed NGOs, international humanitarian organizations and foreign governments access to Sri Lankan refugee camps and Tibetan settlements, but generally denied access to asylum seekers in Mizoram.
After the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, the government stopped registering Sri Lankans as refugees. Abuse of refugees: The government did not target refugees for harassment, and the police and courts adequately protected refugees. Employment: The government allowed many refugees registered with UNHCR to work, while others found employment in the informal sector.
The government did not fully comply with a 2012 Home Affairs Ministry directive to issue long-term visas to the Rohingya.
Freedom to Participate in the Political Process
While Indian birth certificates alone do not entitle refugees to Indian citizenship, refugees can submit Indian birth certificates to the Sri Lankan High Commission to begin registration as Sri Lankan citizens. UNHCR and refugee advocacy groups have estimated that between 25,000 and 28,000 of the approximately 100,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in Tamil Nadu are "Hill Country" Tamils. While Sri Lankan law allows refugees from the "Hilllands" to submit a written declaration to obtain Sri Lankan citizenship, UNHCR believed that the authorities would be able to treat such refugees as potentially stateless until the Sri Lankan government processed their paperwork.
No restrictions were placed on the formation of political parties or on individuals from any community to participate in the electoral process. The electoral law effectively prohibits the use of government funds for political campaigns and the Election Commission. The commission's guidelines prohibit polling 48 hours prior to an election and cannot release exit poll results until the final stage (in multi-stage elections) has been completed.
Participation of women and minorities: The law reserves one third of the seats in local councils for women. Nevertheless, women have held many high-level political offices, including positions as ministers, members of parliament and state chief ministers. The constitution states that to protect historically marginalized groups and provide for representation in the lower house of parliament, each state must reserve seats for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in proportion to their population in the state.
The prime minister, vice president, cabinet ministers, Supreme Court judges and members of parliament have all been members of minorities.
Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
Some Christians and Muslims were identified as Dalits, but the government limited reservations for Dalits to Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. Media reports, NGOs and activists have reported links between contractors, militant groups and security forces in infrastructure projects, drug trafficking and timber smuggling in the northeastern states. In July 2015, the Supreme Court ordered the CBI to take over a Madhya Pradesh state government probe into cheating within the Professional Examination Board (Vyapam), a state government body that conducts school entrance and civil service exams.
In August, the CBI registered a complaint against 60 people and filed charges against a student candidate and an impersonator. The CBI also investigated the deaths of 48 people over five years. On June 4, Maharashtra's Agriculture and Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse resigned following allegations of corruption in a land deal involving his wife and son-in-law.
Financial Disclosure: The Act mandates asset declarations for all officers in the Indian Administrative Services. Both the Electoral Commission and the Supreme Court upheld the mandatory publication of criminal and financial records for electoral candidates. Citizens can appeal denials of requests to the Central Information Commission and then to the relevant Supreme Court.
In May, the media reported the removal of a chapter from school textbooks for Rajasthan high school students on the right to information across the country.
Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
On 17 August, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein deplored the failure of government authorities to grant UNHCR access to Jammu and Kashmir, given "concerns severe in recent times.Government Human Rights Bodies: The NHRC is an independent and impartial investigative and advisory body established by the central government with a dual mandate to investigate and remedy cases of human rights violations human rights and to promote public awareness of human rights It has a mandate to address official violations of human rights or negligence in preventing violations, to intervene in court proceedings involving allegations of human rights violations and examine any factors (including acts of terrorism) that violate human rights.
Some human rights NGOs have criticized the NHRC's budgetary dependence on the government and its policy of not investigating abuses that are more than one year old. Twenty-three of 29 states have human rights commissions, which function independently under the auspices of the NHRC. Some human rights groups alleged that local politics influenced state committees, which were less likely to render fair judgment than the NHRC.
During its nationwide evaluation of state human rights commissions, the HRLN found that most state commissions had few, if any, minority, civic, or female representatives. The Jammu and Kashmir Commission does not have the authority to investigate alleged human rights violations committed by members of paramilitary security forces. The NHRC has jurisdiction over all human rights violations, except in certain cases involving the military.
The NHRC has the authority to investigate cases of human rights violations committed by the Home Ministry's paramilitary forces operating under the AFSPA in the North Eastern states and in Jammu and Kashmir.
Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons Women
Gender-based violence remains one of the key issues faced by women in Jammu and Kashmir. The e-box is presented on the home page of the National Commission for the Protection of Children's Rights. The law links implementation of programs to the "economic capacity and development" of the government.
According to the director of the National Center for the Promotion of Employment for the Handicapped, the law considers people with disabilities as requiring social protection and medical care, rather than having inherent rights as people with disabilities. University enrollment of students with disabilities remained low for several reasons, including inaccessible infrastructure, limited resources, failure to implement 3 percent job reservation and. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare estimated that 6-7 percent of the population experienced a mental or psychosocial disability.
Of the individuals with mental disabilities, 25 percent were homeless, and many in rural areas lacked access to modern mental health care facilities. There were reports of school officials barring Dalit children from morning prayers, asking Dalit children to sit at the back of class, or forcing them to clean school toilets while denying them access to the same facilities. The Ministry of Human Resource Development constituted a fact-finding committee which recognized “the feeling of deprivation and discrimination among.
Scheduled Tribes” in 2003, but remained one of the poorest, most isolated and economically disadvantaged groups in the country according to NGOs, which note that Siddis continued to face widespread racial discrimination outside their communities. There were more than 700 Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the country and the 2011 census revealed that the population of ST members was 84.3 million, approximately 8 percent of the total population. The Supreme Court ruled that only parliament can amend Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, the law that prohibits consensual same-sex sexual activity.
Worker Rights
The court previously found four guilty of lesser offenses and acquitted three suspects. On August 4, the Gujarat High Court sentenced 11 of the 27 accused of burning to death a father and his daughter in Mehsana in 2002 during the municipal riots to life imprisonment. The convicts' lawyer stated that four of the eleven were still missing when the court ordered them to surrender within ten weeks.
About 80 percent of unionized workers were affiliated with one of the five major union federations. The unions were independent of the government, but four of the five main federations were affiliated with the main political parties. On September 2, more than 100 million workers across the country participated in a one-day strike in support of 12 demands that included an increase in the minimum wage and a reversal of the federal government's decision to privatize the defense and railway sectors.
Estimates of the number of forced laborers varied widely, although some NGOs put the number in the tens of millions. SC and ST members lived and worked under traditional arrangements of service in many parts of the country. However, the laws and regulations do not protect those who work in the informal sector, which was estimated to make up 90 percent of the workforce.
Violations of wage, overtime, and occupational safety and health standards were common in the informal sector (industries and/or institutions not within the scope of the Factory Act), where an estimated 90 percent of the workforce used to be.
