New Delhi 31 August 2006
In continuation with the Annual interaction with the State Human Rights Commissions (SHRC's), the 3rd such meeting has been fixed by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the 1st September-2006. NHRC has extended invitations to all the sixteen SHRC's that exist till date.

The Commission has developed a comprehensive Complaint Management System, which has been adopted by Maharashtra, Tamilnadu and Punjab. Besides the National Human Rights Institutions of Nepal and Jordan have also adopted a comprehensive complaint management system. Karnataka has issued notification to setup the State Human Rights Commission but the Chairperson and Members are yet to be appointed. The States of Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Haryana, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkam, Tripura and Uttarakhand have not setup SHRC's so far.

On 15thJuly, 2006 the M.P. State Human Rights Commission held a workshop with all State Human Rights Commissions on the subject of "Working of Protection of Human Rights Act".

At the First session of the U.N.Human Rights Council held in Geneva in June this year, Chairperson NHRC, Dr.Justice A.S.Anand added on, the issue of Right to Development as a basic human right. Addressing the meeting, he said universality of human rights demand eradication of global inequalities and to achieve this the importance of right to development has to be emphasized. He also called for a paradigm shift from human development, as seen in-terms of economic development, to human development as a basic human right.

In its earlier meeting on 13th April, 2005 NHRC had extended its offer to assist the SHRC's to translate Know Your Rights series in regional languages. As of now NHRC has been able to get the translation done in Assames, Marathi and Manipuri, while the process for translating in Oriya, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati and Nepali is on.

In tomorrow's meeting among other things complaint and information management system, system of comparing tally sheets, more frequent interactions between NHRC and SHRC's and the status of translation of Know Your Right series will be discussed.
*****