Dr. Justice A.S. Anand, Chairperson of the Commission, has termed poverty as the biggest violator of human rights. He added that no country at the beginning of this century could look back at its own human rights record with any sense of pride. In his keynote address on "Human Rights in the 21st Century", read out at a function organized by the Institute of Social Sciences in New Delhi on 4 March 2005 Justice Anand said, "Poverty is a threat to peace because if hunger persists, peace cannot prevail. Poverty destroys human dignity and without that there can be no human rights". "Human rights are a constant challenge to the vested interests of society plagued by enormous disparity of wealth and power with traditions of authoritarianism and helplessness of disadvantaged communities," he said.
According to Justice Anand, in the 20th century, an estimated 100 million people were killed in armed conflicts while 120 million deaths were caused as a result of violence arising out of political developments, the main sufferers of whom were children.
Former Governor of Mizoram and Jharkhand, Shri Ved Marwah and Shri Virendra Dayal, former Member of the NHRC were the other speakers at the panel discussion.