Tamil Nadu Governor, CM Pledge to Uphold Human Rights

Chennai: Governor R N Ravi and Chief Minister M K Stalin gave a call to all for reaffirming their commitment to Human Rights in their separate greetings on the occasion of International Human Rights Day falling on Sunday.

‘Respect for human rights is at the root of a just society,’ said Ravi in his message on Saturday while Stalin said that his government would rush to the rescue of anyone whose rights were violated, citing, as example, the incident related to the eviction of a Narikorava woman from the free lunch served at a temple near Mahabalipuram.

When the government heard about a temple staff preventing the woman from partaking of the lunch, the HR & CE Minister P K Sekar Babu met her and ensured that she was brought back to the temple and served lunch first.

That was followed by the Chief Minister visiting her home at Poonjeri and also issuing land pattas to 282 poor people in the locality, the message said.

It was the DMK government that set up the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission, the first State level organization to defend human rights   after the introduction of Human Rights Protection Law at the national level in 1993, he said.

The State commission since its inception on April 17, 1997, had disposed of 2,17,918 complaints and passed orders out of the total 2,60,055 applications filed before it till September, Stalin said.

Freedom, Equality and Justice for all was the theme of Human Rights Day on December 10 and the State government would strive to uphold human rights in all ways, he said and referred to the ‘rights payment’ of Rs 1000 being made to women by his government as an example for its commitment.