K.R. Venugopal on India's Security - An interview by HMTV CEO Ramachandra Murthy

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Homage to Dr.Balagopal

Homage to Balagopal – K R Venugopal

To: Sri S. Jeevan Kumar, HRF

Dear Jeevan Kumar Garu,

I am writing to convey my shock and sorrow on the departure from our midst of our close common friend and great human rights activist Dr. K. Balagopal. His death is a great set back for poor people every where and their cause, especially for the marginalized in Andhra Pradesh. While admittedly it is a near impossible task to repair this loss it is the duty of all of us who believe in the rights of the poor to face this situation with courage and renewed determination to take forward his work, which he carried out at multiple levels, – from public hearings to court battles. I recall our last visit together to Nellore where he had organized a public hearing, and the work we did there, and the illuminating analysis he gave us both on the Human Rights situation existing in our State while travelling back to Hyderabad. There was never a better advocate or teacher of human rights than Prof. Balagopal.

Permit me on this occasion to pledge my full support to your continuing efforts as President of the Human Rights Forum, a task so deservingly and with much expectation entrusted to you by Prof. Balagopal.

With Warm Personal Regards,

Yours Sincrerely,

K. R. Venugopal IAS(RETD)

Former Secretary to the Prime Minister and

Former Special Rapporteur, NHRC

Compromising....with Corruption?!!

This blog is dedicated to the great spiritual teacher Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) whose "heart beat for all human beings" and to my wife Lakshmi Venugopal, my daughter Anupama and her children Zain, Tara and Diya and her husband Satya.

The main objective in my setting up this blog is to share some of the insights I gained during my years in the Government and with India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Human rights are not some thing esoteric or mysterious. For the ordinary citizens, especially the poor among them, those rights actually represent their essential and fundamental needs. These rights are our birth rights, confirmed and guaranteed to us by the Constitution of India and other International Covenants and Conventions. The Indian Society violates these rights of those who are not born equal to the rest of the society in the eyes of the artificial social hierarchy set up in the distant past and in current economic terms. The State watches these violations often doing nothing and often violates the rights of the people by its own acts of omission and commission. When these continue with out redress, a stage is reached when by sheer habit, people come to accept absence of these rights as an informal reality of life. Those who can make a difference are too busy attending to their own problems to attempt to set things right. An environment of this kind is presently ruling India depriving the poor of their rights, even as the acclamation of the progress of an “incredible India” for certain levels of Indian society is drowning such voices of the poor as are raised at all. Our sensitivities have died and there is no outrage at what is happening around us. That is something we should not allow to continue to happen.

It is important, therefore, that citizens have information about the way Governments, public institutions and public authorities function in relation to issues that intimately affect the lives of the people on a daily basis. Such information may help conscientious citizens to question Governments on the way they function and such questioning in turn may bring about changes for the better in the lives of the ordinary citizens, particularly of the marginalized. It is with this view that I am placing on this site some of the reports written by me while I was Special Rapporteur to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), New Delhi. I am grateful to the National Human Rights Commission for it is the NHRC which gave me the opportunity to investigate into these issues and find out authoritatively the facts involved which I am placing on this site for public information. The reports posted here cover diverse issues such as Bonded Labour, most of whom are Dalits; Child Labour; Farmers’ Suicides; violation of rights of the most vulnerable sections of our society such as the children, the differently-abled, the scheduled tribes and the working class in the context of their right to food, work and health and therefore to life, with women bearing the brunt of the burden. These reports in their very nature touch upon the utter disregard shown by the State towards the marginalized and their rights. In placing these Reports of mine to the NHRC on this site I have stuck to the need to reproduce them verbatim, except to omit a few small details totally unnecessary for the current understanding of the matter investigated.

I am also placing at this site some of my other writings touching upon human and social development issues, which I hope provide information on issues of public importance to the readers such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 and Food and Nutrition Security. I shall be happy to clarify and provide further information on all that is placed at this site to the extent I have such information to readers who may want to write to me.