- A Delhi court sent former JNU student leader Umar Khalid, arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), to police custody for ten days in a case related to the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February.
- The Upper House of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) passed two contentious farm bills – Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, amid uproar by Opposition members. The bills have triggered protests by farmers at several places.
Click to Read – The Hindustan Times
- During the on-going parliament proceedings, 10 Lok Sabha MPs have posed questions related to the deaths of migrant workers. In response, the minister of state for labour and employment, Santosh Gangwar said that no such data is maintained. Contrary to Gangwar’s claims, documents obtained by The Wire under the Right to Information Act reveal that the government has recorded information about the deaths of migrant workers.
- The French police fired tear gas and arrested more than 250 people in Paris as “yellow vest” protesters returned to the capital’s streets in force for the first time since the coronavirus lockdown.
- More than 30 people have been killed by wildfires that are sweeping through US West Coast states where fires have been raging in Oregon, California and Washington for three weeks, burning millions of acres of land and destroying thousands of homes. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
Click to Read – BBC World News
- UN Women’s latest report From Insights to Action shows that the pandemic will push 96 million people into extreme poverty by 2021, 47 million of whom are women and girls. This will bring the total number of women and girls living on USD 1.90 or less, to 435 million and will also widen the gender poverty gap – meaning, more women will be pushed into extreme poverty than men.
- Per the first report on abuses inside the Latin American nation by UN-appointed rights investigators, there have been grave rights violations against anti-government protesters in Venezuela, “amounted to crimes against humanity”, citing evidence of unlawful executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture in the country since 2014.
- Per an Amnesty International report, since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, authorities in Venezuela, El Salvador and Paraguay have held tens of thousands of people in inadequate state-run quarantine centres without sufficient safeguards against human rights violations, in what could amount to ill-treatment and risk the detentions becoming arbitrary.
Click to Read – Amnesty International
- Afghanistan’s president has signed a new law that will, for the first time, include mothers’ names on their children’s birth certificates and identification cards; the law is a major victory for Afghan women’s rights activists, who for several years have campaigned for both parents to be named under the social media hashtag #WhereIsMyName.
Click to Read – Human Rights Watch
- Around 15 lakh people actively participated through social media in the Hum Agar Utthe Nahin Toh… (If We Do Not Rise) campaign that was launched by various women’s groups, members of the LGBTQIA community and human rights organisation on the third death anniversary of journalist Gauri Lankesh. The event sought to highlight the suffering of the masses during the COVID-19 pandemic and seek greater accountability from the government.
News Collated by: Darshi Shah Darshi is a masters student in international management and sustainability at Sciences PO, Paris and the Communications Lead at Contego Humanitas Foundation.
Contego Humanitas Foundation 