The Former President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind to be the Chief Guest on the 32nd Foundation Day of the National Human Rights Commission, India
The Former President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind to be the Chief Guest on the 32nd Foundation Day of the National Human Rights Commission, India
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), India is organising a function to celebrate its 32nd Foundation Day at Vigyan Bhawan on 16th October, 2025. On the occasion, the Chief Guest, the Former President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind will be the Chief Guest and deliver the inaugural address in the presence of NHRC, India Chairperson, Justice Shri V. Ramasubramanian, Members, Justice (Dr) Bidyut Ranjan Sarangi, Smt Vijaya Bharathi Sayani and Shri Priyank Kanoongo, Secretary General, Shri Bharat Lal and other senior officers of the Commission. The Foundation Day celebration provides an opportunity to reflect upon the Commission’s journey and renew its commitment to protect and promote human rights.
The Commission will be also organising a day-long National Conference on the ‘Human Rights of Prison Inmates.’ Various issues related to human rights and well-being of prison inmates will be deliberated in different sessions. A range of stakeholders including representatives from the relevant Union ministries, state governments, diplomats, academicians, researchers, legal luminaries, distinguished experts and members of civil society and human rights defenders will participate in these sessions.
During the 32-year journey since its inception on 12th October, 1993, the NHRC has been advocating for necessary policy reforms, people-centric governance and implementation and regular monitoring on the ground to ensure fairness, transparency and accountability in law enforcement, investigations and welfare schemes/ programmes. It promotes police accountability, prison reforms and protection of the rights of the accused and victims through research, policy advocacy and public awareness. It continues to collaborate with central and state governments, parastatal organisations, academic institutions, NGOs and human rights defenders to protect and promote human rights of all segments of society, particularly the most vulnerable.
The Commission has issued 31 Advisories, so far. These inter alia include Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), Rights of the Widows, people involved in begging, the Right to Food, Right to Health and Mental Health, Rights of the Informal Workers, Upholding the Dignity of the Dead, Rights of Truck Drivers, Environmental Pollution and Degradation, Advisory for ensuring the welfare of Transgender Persons, Advisory to mitigate Deliberate Self Harm and suicide attempts by prisoners and Advisory to Prevent, Minimise and Mitigate Ocular Trauma. Some of the other important interventions of the Commission include recommending amendments to 97 laws that discriminate against persons with Hansen’s disease.
In the last 32 years, the Commission has handled 23,79,043 (23 lakh 79 thousand and 43) cases including 2,981 cases of suo motu cognizance. It has recommended monetary relief of more than Rs 263 crore in 8,924 cases to the victims of human rights violations. These cases include 73,849 complaints and 108 suo motu registered during the last one year w.e.f. 1st October, 2024 to 30th September, 2025. During this period, the Commission conducted 63 spot enquiries; disposed of 38,063 cases and recommended more than Rs 9 crore as monetary relief in 210 cases to the victims of human rights violations. These include cases disposed of and relief recommended on the spot in its two ‘Open Hearings and Camp Sittings’ organised in Odisha and Telangana respectively. The Camp Sittings served as a platform to sensitise senior state government officials on the importance of timely submission of reports to the Commission for ensuring expeditious relief to victims. They also facilitated interaction with local NGOs, human rights defenders and media personnel.
The Special Rapporteurs and Special Monitors mechanism of the Commission helps it assess human rights conditions across various regions of the country. They conduct visits to shelter homes, prisons, observation homes and similar institutions, compiling reports for the Commission that detail their observations and suggestions for future action.
As part of its continued effort to strengthen the human rights mechanism in the country through collaborative efforts, the Commission organised a Statutory Full Commission Meeting of 07 deemed members of the NHRC including six National Commissions and the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities. It also organised a Conference of State Human Rights Commissions along with Special Rapporteurs and Special Monitors last year.
In the last one year, the Commission organised four National Conferences including ‘Rights of Older Persons’, ‘Combating Human Trafficking in the Digital Era’, ‘Mental Wellbeing: Navigating Stress from Classroom to Workplace’ and ‘Rights of Transgender Persons: Revamping Spaces, Reclaiming Voices.’
The NHRC, India has constituted 12 core groups of experts, NGOs and senior government functionaries on various thematic issues related to human rights to help formulate mechanisms to evaluate the schemes initiated by the Government and make recommendations for improvements. Three core group meetings have been organised over the past year. These were on ‘Climate Change and Human Rights’, ‘Human Rights of Children in Conflict with the Law’ and ‘Empowering ASHAs: Securing the Right to Work With Dignity.’
Further, four ‘Open House Discussions’ were held on ‘Re-examining Ragging in Higher Educational Institutions: Creating Safer Campuses through Awareness, Accountability and Action’, ‘Ensuring Privacy and Human Rights in the Digital Era: A Focus on Corporate Digital Responsibility’, ‘Rights of Gig Workers’ and ‘Rights of Children of Sex Workers and Children from the Marginalised Communities.’
The Commission is actively promoting research on diverse aspects of human rights. In the last one year, ten research studies were approved as completed. These studies covered a range of topics including bonded labour, Panchayati Raj Institutions, the rights of SC/ ST communities, promotion of human rights in rural local self-governance, functioning of Ashram Schools particularly in tribal areas along the interstate borders of Central India and the rights of domestic workers, among others.
As part of the capacity building efforts, the Commission is partnering with various national academies of All India Services (AIS) in developing customised training modules. Through such initiatives, the Commission sensitises the young officers at a cutting-edge level about human rights and its various dimensions. Thus, the NHRC is strengthening human rights awareness and sensitivity among the officers in their initial phase of service for a lasting impact.
The NHRC has also collaborated with various institutions to conduct human rights awareness programmes. During the last one year, it organised 33 collaborative workshops and 04 moot court competitions with financial support of over Rs 66 lakh to various institutions. Additionally, the Commission also organised its on-site winter and summer internships and 06 Online Short Term Internships (OSTIs).
The OSTIs have trained hundreds of university-level students from far-flung areas remotely to become human rights ambassadors. The Commission also encourages exposure visits by college students and faculty to its premises, providing them with firsthand insight into its role in promoting and protecting human rights. Last year, 55 institutions participated in such visits. Besides, the Commission, as part of its annual calendar of activities for human rights sensitisation of security personnel, organised annual debate competitions for Central Armed Police Forces and State Police organisations. The NHRC, India has also been playing an active role at international human rights forums including the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) and UN Human Rights Council, among others, through the participation of its Chairperson, Members and senior officers.
The Commission is working tirelessly to build human rights capacities internationally. It has received an overwhelming positive response to its ITEC capacity building and experience-sharing programmes to strengthen National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) of the Global South in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs.
So far, the Commission has organised four capacity building programmes including two during the last one year with the participation of 78 senior functionaries of the NHRIs of 23 countries across Africa, East Asia, Central Asia, South America and the Pacific. The programme underscores NHRC, India’s commitment to fostering global dialogue on human rights, advancing South-South cooperation and promoting rights-based governance. The success of the programme reflected in the participants mooting the idea of forming an alliance of the Global South Human Rights Institutions, as ‘one size fits all’ approach cannot be the solution for all the countries to address human rights issues, given their different socio-economic, cultural and political realities.
The Commission’s effort to directly engage with civil society in promoting and protecting human rights, through its events like human rights photography and short film competitions, has also been receiving a tremendous response. Its short film competition on human rights received a record 303 entries from across the country last year in various Indian languages with subtitles in English on different aspects of human rights.
The Commission has also been expanding human rights awareness through its various publications apart from the monthly Newsletters. Last year, it released four new publications including collections of research-based articles on various thematic issues in its annual ‘Journal’ in English and ‘Manav Adhikar: Nai Dishayein’ in Hindi and ‘Advisories issued by NHRC to Protect Human Rights.’ It also published a report titled ‘Transgender Persons: Revamping Spaces, Reclaiming Voices – Insights from Garima Greh Shelters and Beyond.’
Several initiatives have been taken to expand its outreach including linking its HRCNet Portal with all the State authorities and the majority of State Human Rights Commissions. Any person can file online complaints directly and can track the real-time status of their complaint on the Commission’s portal.
The live YouTube and Webcast link of the Foundation Day and the National Conference may be accessed at: YouTube and Webcast