Date:01/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/01/stories/2007060104250500.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

`Language key to make people understand rights'

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Chairman of the National Human Resources Commission, S. Rajendra Babu on Thursday said that if the human rights movement were to be taken to the grassroots level, it had to be done by spreading awareness, using Indian languages only as the mode of communication.

Mr. Justice Babu was speaking after inaugurating a two-day seminar on `Role of Hindi & South Indian languages in protection and promotion of human rights' organised together by the NHRC and Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha.

Definition change

Some 70 per cent of the population lived in rural and semi-urban areas and hence their rights as human beings needed to be explained to them in a language they understood, Mr. Babu said.

Justice B. Subhashan Reddy, Chairman, AP State Human Rights Commission said the definition of human rights had undergone many changes and what it meant in India now was not what it originally meant when the Constitution was framed.