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"Human rights should be at the core of any development programme in order to achieve balanced development," said the former Chief Justice of India, Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah here today. Emphasizing upon the fact that human rights and development go hand in hand Venkatachaliah said, "out of the 48 high income countries in the world, 42 of them are also highest ranked in terms of human development."
Justice Venkatachaliah was delivering a lecture on "Human Rights and Development," to the participants of the 4th Post Graduate Diploma in Human Rights for SAARC countries. This diploma is conducted by Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, a Dehradun based NGO.
Venkatachaliah identified maternal anemia, education for the girl child and poverty as the most critical developmental issues in the Indian context. Speaking about poverty, the former Chairman of the NHRC said, "savings of the poor in poor countries is phenomenal, amounting to 9.3 trillion dollars worldwide." This is equivalent to the entire values of the 20 major stock exchanges in the world and 93 times the foreign assistance received by poor in developing countries in the last 30 years, he added. He therefore asked, ' Is poverty a myth?" He was however much inspired by the development model being followed by the state of Kerala.
Justice Venkatachaliah dismissed the overemphasis being put on fundamental duties. Human rights and fundamental duties are two different and distinct things and a person has human right irrespective of the fact whether he has performed his duty or not.
Attributing human rights violations to an increase in population, the Former Chief Justice said, "History is testimony to the fact that man has not always been good and in the current scenario the respect for human rights assumes greater importance."
Justice S.B. Sinha, Judge Supreme Court paid rich tributes to Late. Justice J.K. Mathur. He said that human rights are viewed differently in different countries, however the basic thread remains the same.
Justice Sinha expressed concern over the fact that some people still see human rights within a narrow compass. "Members of the society view the promotion of human rights of special groups, such as women, ethnic minorities, immigrants, and poor people as a threat to their own values or interests," he said.
"Gap between the developed and developing countries is yawning one and India needs to achieve a growth rate of GDP of about 15% in order to come at par with the developed nations of the world," said Justice Sinha. In his opinion, development of human capital was one of the most important ways to achieve this.
On this occasion Justice Rajesh Tandon, Judge, High Court of Uttaranchal said that the Supreme Court of India was comparable to Lord Krishna and whenever there were human rights violations in the country the Supreme Court has played an important role in delivering justice.
First, second and third Justice J.K. Mathur Memorial was addressed by Justice U.C. Banerjee, then Judge, Supreme Court of India, Justice A. S. Anand, then Chief Justice of India and Justice Mr. Soli J. Sorabjee, Attorney Genral of India. respectively
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