ADVERTISING & WOMEN - INDIA

The portrayal of women in advertising has received a great deal of attention through the years. Gender stereotyping has varied little over time. Advertising has been criticized for stereotyping women and failing to recognize the changing role of women in our society.

Different forms of media e.g. Television, film, music, etc, communicate strong gender stereotypes. e.g. blonde women are commonly stereotyped as being beautiful and fun loving but dumb. Women are shown as lacking intelligence and credibility.

Advertisements also portray idealized, sexist and racist images of women - women are mostly depicted as sex objects. The behavior of women in advertising makes them appear subordinate and available for men. Even in advertisements aimed at children, one can see gender stereotypes. Boys are shown as being more knowledgeable, active, aggressive than girls. Dominance and control are strongly associated with boys than girls.

Television which is the most pervasive and persuasive medium still continues to show women in stereotypical roles. Research shows that the more television children watch, the more likely they are to hold sexist notions about traditional male and female roles and these images shape the notions children have about male and female roles in real life.

Popular culture - greeting cards, books, songs, films, etc, communicate images representing the cultural ideals of womanhood and manhood.

While sexism and stereotyping still exist, advertising's portrayal of women is improving in many areas. Many advertisers have begun to recognize the importance of portraying women realistically. The increase in the number of working women has resulted not only in women having more influence at family decision making but also in more single-female households, which means more independent purchasers.

Women have now crossed the boundary from the domestic sphere to the professional arena, expectations and representations of women have changed as well. Many advertisements are now depicting women in a diverse set of roles that reflect their changing place in society. In many advertisements, the stereotypical traits attributed to women have shifted from weak and dependent to strong and independent.

INDIA - NEW ECONOMIC POLICIES

The new economic policies were on two levels

 1  Liberalization measures which is further divided into

a. New Industrial Policy
b. New Trade Policy

2. Macroeconomic reforms and structural adjustments

I   LIBERALIZATION MEASURES

1. New Industrial Policy (NIP) - Under the New Industrial Policy there was:
       a.  Liberalization of industrial licensing which resulted in
            -licensing
            -decontrol
            -deregulation
            -broad banding
            -abolition of registration

       b.  FERA liberalization. The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act liberalized foreign                    
            investments and technology imports
      
       c.   MRTP liberalization  The Monopolies Restrictive Trade Practices was removed and                           threshold asset limit was abolished and clearance for expansions, mergers were not needed                                                                                                
       d.  Curtailment of public sector.
            Several industries previously reserved for public sector opened up to the private sector. Only               eight core industries remain reserved for the public sector

2.    New Trade Policy (NTP)
       Under this policy there were seven reforms as follows:

       a. Lowering of import tariffs
       b. Import licences were abolished
       c. The exim regime was more open
       d. The rupee was made convertible
       e.  Exports were encouraged
       f.   India’s economy was to be integrated with global economy


II      MACROECONOMIC REFORMS AND STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENTS

1    Macroeconomic reforms: There were three types of reforms:

      a.   fiscal and monetary reforms which included
            -reduction of fiscal deficits
            -reform of tax systems
            -interest rate reforms
            -inflation control

      b.   banking sector reforms included the following
            -banks to operate as commercial institutions
            -priority sector lending to be phased out
            -deposit interest rates deregulation
            -operational freedom in lending rates
            -norms on capital adequacy to be kept up
            -disinvestment in public sector banks
            -permission for new private sector banks

       c.   capital market reforms were;
            -abolition of CCI (Controller of Capital Issues)
            -strengthening of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India)
            -opening of Indian capital markets of FII (Foreign Institutional Investors)
            -allowing foreign brokers in Indian capital markets
            -private sectors allowed into mutual funds
            -allowing Indian firms to raise capital abroad

2.    Structural adjustments were

       a.   market driven price and dismantling of price controls
             -phasing out of subsidies
             -dismantling price controls
             -abolishing fertilizer, sugar, export and petro-product subsidy
             -partial decontrol & parallel marketing of kerosene and LPG
             - steel price decontrol

        b   public sector restructuring and disinvestment  
             -no new public sector units or expansion with government equity
             -budgetary support for PSU to be phased out
             -disinvestment of government equity in PSUs

        c.   exit policy
             -support to VRS
             -creation of NRF(National Retail Federation)  

ADVERTISING AND POPULAR CULTURE

Popular culture refers to beliefs and practices and the objects through which they are organised that are widely shared amongst a population. It is the ideas, perspectives, attitudes and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of any given culture. Heavily influenced by mass media, popular culture permeates the everyday lives of the society. It includes everything from ‘common culture’ to ‘folk culture’ to ‘mass culture’.

Popular culture is the expressive content that is produced and consumed. It is light entertainment that is delivered through the channels of mass media and finally absorbed voluntarily, to be interpreted by the individual who receives it. Information then goes back in the form of ratings or sales figure that will influence the subsequent round of offerings.

Popular culture consists of symbols, for e.g., television serials, films, comic books, music etc. Popular culture gives pleasure upon reception and this pleasure giving feature is a central aspect of the popular culture experience.

Advertising on the other hand refers to the paid-for messages that attempts to transfer symbols into commodities to increase the possibilities of its purchase. For this reason advertising may be looked at warily. Although advertising comes in many forms, the main mediums focused on are television, radio and magazines.

Advertising is seen as a means of communication and aims at changing behaviour (forces individuals to purchase advertised goods). Popular culture  however aims to give pleasure and not to change viewers behaviour.

Advertising is almost always briefer than instances of popular culture (30 sec of a commercial against 30 minutes of popular culture) Media and space is expensive and advertisers have to work within budgets.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ADVERTISING AND POPULAR CULTURE

Both are products of culture industries and are to be understood as artistic products.
Both pay great attention to style.
Both share the use of same mass media method.
Both are approached as economic entities as well as symbolic entities

Advertising and popular culture have come to occupy central positions with a global economic growth.

Popular culture is more welcome than advertising.

Thus advertisers use Popular culture to create attractive messages for consumers. Advertisers appropriate popular culture material such as celebrities, music, comedy styles and anything else that can be used as accepted and as enhanced symbols for their products
.
To communicate with consumers, advertisers comedies, music and celebrities, all part of popular culture. Music has the ability to stimulate extraordinary emotional feelings. Adult consumers derive emotional benefit from popular music. It is this appeal that advertisers try to exploit to stimulate consumer’s interest in their products.

Advertisers choose leading entertainers as spokespeople, as opposed to lesser known individuals, as it helps build audiences attention and the brand ambassador helps increase the brand status and ensures product success.

The utility of music is acknowledged within the advertising industry. Background music can set up a mood with targeted consumers and lend an emotional dimension to a brand. Although much of the music in advertising is original an increasing proportion of it consists of reused popular cultural hits.

Advertising does not deplete or obliterate popular culture. The interpenetration of advertising and popular culture is recognized and highlights from one adds luster to the other. The target audience are always on the lookout for symbols and meanings which reverberate back and forth between the two domains. Popular culture can even aid in the creation of new norms.

To communicate with consumers, advertisers have an ample stock of purchasable symbolic material to draw upon. Advertisers turn to popular culture that is pleasurable, emotional and non-coercive. Popular culture is the seat belt of the stars who can command general recognition from a diverse population. The stars are likely to deliver the emotional material the spectator is looking for. For e.g. the popular song ‘Dhoom Machale’ became a part of the day to day lingo of  youngsters. Advertisers who used ‘Dhoom Macha Diya’ below their visual reported increase in sales.
                         
Cultures are dynamic and change occurs when resistance slowly yields to acceptance. Gradually there comes an awareness of the need for change. Once the need is recognized, acceptance cannot be prevented. .

WEB PAGES

We live in an information age where the most important means of communication and mass media are web pages. Web Pages are an innovative way to get in touch with people around the world thus playing an important role in globalization. It helps bring the world together thus promoting global unity.

When we travel to a foreign country or remote town, we find some information about the place, but through a web page all information can be found sitting at one's desk.

Web pages are not only available to those involved in mass media but are available to all without having to go through the extended traditional method of print publishers.

Finding information about almost anything has been made easy through web pages. One can research, exchange ideas, discover friends world wide, communicate with like minded people, etc., through the web.

Most pages on the web are either self published or published by small/large businesses in order to promote a point of view or for goods and services marketing.

Typical web pages provide hypertext that include a navigation bar or a sidebar menu which helps link you to other web pages via hyperlinks.

TYPES OF WEB PAGES
1. Informative
2. Personal
3. Interest Groups or Political
4. Marketing Oriented
5. Entertainment Oriented

All types of web pages cater to different audiences and different audience needs. They have something to offer to everyone.

WEB PAGES AND WEBSITES HELP:
- Fuel the imagination
- Encourage people to interact with information
- Consumers get an opportunity to interact with brands
- One can communicate and have a conversation
- One can even book tickets, purchase and sell goods online.

This has led to opportunities not only for business houses but also for individual entrepreneurs.

Web pages for premium brands help
-Make consumers appreciate the uniqueness of the product
-Keep users up-to-date
-build brand image and ensures price clarity

CHARACTERISTICS OF WEB PAGES
- Only form of media where other media are also available... e.g. All newspapers are available online and are thus easy to access and allows fro a variety of information
- Web pages are revolutionary in the thought process of media, however they are not checked for accuracy. Personal opinions on certain issues need not necessarily be facts. One can find both points of view online.
- Web pages are an interactive source of information and the user can not only question but can also give his/her won inputs if required
- Web pages have a hierarchical structure in the sense that an individual can easily find what he/she is looking for by putting in the right search words.

DRAWBACKS OF WEB PAGES
-It can be difficult to differentiate between advertising information and actual facts
-Illiterate people, or people without access to computers or smart phones may not be able to access information
-the site creator may not be easily identified
- Credibility is not guaranteed
- Research may be difficult as websites may contain loads of information but sometimes the user may not be able to access the same.

CONCLUSION
It must be accepted that the internet and its components form the most interactive medium for those seeking information and has definitely promoted global unity. It is not only a new tool of communication but has also created an impact on the lives of many individuals including professionals and students. 

Vinobha Bhave - Bhudan Movement

Vinobha Bhave – Bhudan Movement

Vinoba Bhave was one of the great spiritual leaders & reformers of modern India, whose work & personal example moved the hearts of countless Indians.

Born in 1895, at the tender age of ten, Vinoba took a vow life-long celibacy & selfless service to others.

Vinoba discovered Gandhi, & joined in Gandhi’s work for the regeneration & freedom of India.

In 1940 Gandhi chose Vinoba to be the first Satyagrahi i.e. non-violent resister, to offer non-violent resistance to the British regime.

Vinoba’s social activism was founded on a lifetime’s study of the other major world religions. Vinoba’s life reveals the harmony of the inner & outer life of a great man, who had an unwavering commitment to the practice of non-violence, to an engaged spirituality, & to the universal power of love.

After India won independence, Vinoba started out on his extraordinary & unprecedented in recorded history, the Bhoodan (Land-Gift) Movement.

Over a period of twenty years, Vinoba walked through the length & breadth of India persuading land-owners & land-lords to give their poor & downtrodden neighbours a total of four million acres of land.

The Bhoodan-Gramdan movement initiated inspired by Vinoba brought Vinoba to the international scene.

For Vinoba the future of India was essentially a contest between the fundamental creeds of Gandhi & Marx. In coming to Hyderabad, Vinoba & other Gandhians were confronting a challenge & testing their faith in non-violence.

Pochampalli gave Vinoba a warm welcome. Vinoba went to visit the Harijan (the Untouchables) colony there. By early afternoon villagers began to gather around Vinoba at Vinoba’s cottage. The Harijans asked for eighty acres of land, forty wet, forty dry for forty families that would be enough. Then Vinoba asked,”If it is not possible to get land from the government, is there not something villagers themselves could do?” To everyone’s surprise, Ram Chandra Reddy, the local landlord, got up & said in a rather excited voice: “I will give you 100 acres for these people.” At his evening prayer meeting, Ram Chandra Reddy got up & repeated his promise to offer 100 acres of land to the Harijans. This incident neither planned nor imagined was the very genesis of the Bhoodan movement & it made Vinoba think that therein lay the potentiality of solving the land problem of India. This movement later on developed into a village gift or Gramdan movement.

The movement passed through several stages in regard to both momentum & allied programmes. In October 1951, Vinoba was led to demand fifty million acres of land for the landless from the whole of India by 1957. Thus a personal initiative assumed the form of a mass movement, reminding the people of Gandhi’s mass movements. This was indeed a very remarkable achievement for a constructive work movement. The enthusiasm for the movement lasted till 1957 & thereafter it began to wane.

Meanwhile the Bhoodan Movement had been transformed from a land-gift movement to a village-gift or Gramdan movement, in which the whole or a major part of a village land was to be donated by not less than 75% of the villagers who were required to relinquish their right of owner-ship over their lands in favour of the entire village, with power to equitably redistribute the total land among village’s families with a proviso for revision after some intervals.

The Programme of individual land-gifts was still there, but henceforth became a neglected activity.

The Gramdan idea did not prove popular in the non-tribal areas & this partly accounted for the decline of the movement at the end of the 1950s.

The movement directly influenced the life-style of the co-workers, especially the life-long co-workers & through them many workers & associates or fellow-seekers. By adopting Gandhi’s ideas to the solution of the basic economic problem of land collection & equitable redistribution among the landless, the Movement kept Gandhi’s ideas of socioeconomic reconstruction alive at a period when the tendency of the educated elite was to overlook, if not to reject Gandhi’s ideas as irrelevant. The Movement kindled interest in the individuals to study Gandhi’s ideas & to assess their relevance. Jayaprakash Narayan, a renowned Marxist, and a Socialist, & one of the fore-most leaders in politics, before & after India’s Independence, came to be more & more intimately associated with the movement & realized that it was a superb endeavor to bring about revolution in human relations founded on on the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence. Ultimately Jayaprakash devoted his entire life to the construction of a Sarvodaya society.

Arthur Koestler, in 1959 wrote in London Observer, that the Bhoodan Movement presented an Indian alternative to the Nehruvian model of Western development.

Maharishi D. K. Karve

The nineteenth century was a period when the emancipation of women became a matter of prime concern for socio-religious reformers. Over the years, women were exploited, kept backward and were made victims of many degrading customs like sati, female infanticide, purdah, child marriage, polygamy, etc. The reformers saw these customs to be perverted practices born of ignorance and fear and blind acceptance. Since women were denied education, they also lacked awareness of their rights.
Thus the change is women’s status is the most important symbol of social change.

By the second half of the nineteenth century individual activists as well as reform groups focused on women related issues and their activities provided stimulus and an atmosphere to improve the status of the Indian women. One such champion of the cause of women’s emancipation was Maharishi D. K. Karve  worked relentlessly for the cause of women. He encouraged widow remarriage and founded schools for girls and widow homes in Pune. He also founded the first Indian Women’s University in 1916 which later came to be known as SNDT Women’s Univeristy.

In 1891, he started teaching mathematics in Fergusson College and continued teaching for the next twenty-three years. He established the Vidhawa Vivah Pratibandh Nivarak Mandali, a society to encourage widow remarriage. The interest received on the society’s fund, collected through donations, was used to financially help widows who wished to remarry.

Karve constructed a small house at Hingane village near Pune in 1900 for the school and started his mission for women’s education from this house.

He founded the Mahila Vidyalaya  (Women’s School) in 1907. Here, women were taught such subjects like child development, health, home science etc. Karve later on modified the courses to match changing requirements and times.

Reputed leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Sawarkar and Pandit Nehru visited the institute and praised Karve for his efforts.

After his retirement from Fergusson College in 1914, he devoted all his time in developing the Mahila Vidyalaya.

In 1916 he founded a university for women. This is considered to be the first University for women in India. Karve became the first Principal of a college affiliated to this university. In the next year, a teacher’s training college was added. This college was later named as Shrimati Nathibai Damodar Thackersi College. The medium of instruction in this college was Marathi. However, other specialized courses were also conducted like English, the language of knowledge, nurses training etc.

Deciding to give more attention towards educating women in rural areas, he founded the Maharashtra Gram Prathamik Shikshan Mandal (Society for elementary education in rural Maharashtra).

The Banaras Hindu University felicitated him with an honorary degree in 1942. He was honoured with the title of Padma Vibhushan in 1955 and the Bharat Ratna in 1958 at the age of 100, by the Indian Government.

Maharshi Karve was also known in Maharashtra by the nickname  Anna (Eldest Brother). Anna spent a dedicated lifetime of 105 years in social service.

Baba Amte

Dr Murlidhar Devidas Amte popularly known as Baba Amte, was an Indian social worker and social activist known particularly for his work for the rehabilitation and empowerment of poor people suffering from leprosy.

Baba Amte was born in Maharashtra to a wealthy family.

Trained in law, he developed a successful legal practice at Wardha. He soon got involved in the Indian struggle for freedom from the British Raj, and started acting as a defense lawyer for leaders of the Indian freedom movement whom the British authorities had imprisoned in the 1942 Quit India movement.

He spent some time at Sevagram ashram of Mahatma Gandhi, and became a follower of Gandhism for the rest of his life. He followed Gandhism, including yarn spinning using a charkha and wearing khadi.

In those days, leprosy was associated with social stigma and the society disowned people suffering from leprosy. There was also a widespread misbelief that leprosy was contagious. Amte strove to dispel the misbelief and once allowed bacilli from a leprosy patient to be injected into him while participating in an experimental test aimed at proving that leprosy was not contagious.

Amte founded three ashrams for treatment and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, disabled people, and people from marginalized sections of the society in Maharashtra, India.

On 15 August 1949, he started a hospital in Anandwan under a tree. Today,  Anandwan and Hemalkasa village have one hospital, each. Anandwan has a university, an orphanage, and schools for the blind and the deaf. Currently, the self-sufficient Anandwan ashram has over 5,000 residents. The community development project at Anandwan in Maharashtra is recognized around the world.

Amte followed Gandhi's way of living and led a spartan life. He wore khadi clothes made from the looms at Anandwan. He believed in Gandhi's concept of a self-sufficient village industry that empowers seemingly helpless people, and successfully brought his ideas into practice at Anandwan.

Amte also used Gandhian principles to fight against corruption, mismanagement, and poor, shortsighted planning in the government. Thus, he used non-violent means to fight the Indian government in the fight of independence.

Amte devoted his life to many other social causes, the most notable among which were generating public awareness towards importance of ecological balance, wildlife preservation, and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Baba Amte received many awards for his work. Some of them are : Padma Shri, 1971, Ramon Magsaysay Award, 1985, Padma Vibhushan, 1986, Gandhi Peace Prize, 1999 etc.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS – 1949

Human Rights are those minimal rights that individuals need to have against the state or other public authority by virtue of their being members of the human family, irrespective of any other consideration.

The history of mankind is marked by efforts to ensure respect for the dignity of human beings. The concept of human rights was introduced and developed by thinkers from various cultural and religious traditions.

However, it was only in the second half of the twentieth century that a comprehensive international system of human rights promotion and protection was set up.

Foundation of United Nations and Declaration of Human Rights were the two important landmarks / turning points in the human rights movement.

The United Nations (1945) described human rights as: ‘those rights which are inherent in our nature and without which we cannot live as human beings’.

The horrors of the Second World War (1939 – 1945) confirmed and strengthened the belief that ‘the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. This provision was inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which has become the cornerstone of international human rights law emerging in subsequent years.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is the basic international pronouncement of the inalienable and inviolable rights of all members of the human family. This may be the first contemporary landmark in the development of the concept of human rights.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted it on the 10th of December 1948, at its meeting in Paris, as a common goal, realizing them for all people, all nations and every individual and every group in society. This declaration was constantly kept in mind to strive and provide for these rights and freedoms by teaching and education, and by progressive measures, national and international.

At this time the United Nations was dominated by the Western powers, yet even then the absence of consensus on human rights was evident in the abstention of eight countries, including the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. However, forty eight states voted in favor of the declaration and none voted against it. The adoption of the declaration by a big majority without any direct opposition was a remarkable achievement. It was the first occasion on which an organized community of nations had made a declaration of Human rights and Fundamental Freedom.

While this declaration articulated a set of principles and is not a treaty, it has been hailed as embodying the aspirations of a world committed to respecting the rights and dignity of human beings.

The adoption and declaration of Human Rights promoted a respect of human rights and an international concern of primary importance.

According to Buergenthal, “because of its moral status and the legal and political importance it has acquired over the years, the declaration ranks with the Magna Carta, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the American Declaration of Independence, as a milestone is mankind’s struggle for freedom and human dignity."

The Declaration consists of a preamble and 30 articles spelling out the human rights and freedom to which all human beings in the world are entitled.

In its Preamble, the Declaration defines human rights as the ‘rights derived from the inherent dignity of the human person.’

The Preamble refers to the faith in fundamental Human Rights in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women, which the people of the UN have reaffirmed in the UN Charter.

The provisions can be classified into 4 (four) categories:-
1. General (Arts1 and 2)
2. Civil and Political Rights (Art 3 – 21)
3. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Art 22 – 27)
4. Concluding (Arts 28 – 30)

Articles 1 and 2 are general proclaiming that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that everyone is entitle to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind.

Many of the rights proclaimed in the declaration are as below:-
Article 3 - The right to life, liberty and security of person
Article 4 - Freedom from slavery
Article 5 - Freedom from torture
Article 6 - Right to legal recognition
Article 7 - The right to freedom from discrimination and to the equal protection of the law
Article 8 - Right to remedy
Article 9 - Prohibition of arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
Article 10 - Right to fair trial
Article 11 – the presumption of innocence until proved guilty
Article 12 – Right to privacy
Article 13 – Right to freedom of movement
Article 14 – Right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum (refuge/protection) from persecution
Article 15 – Right to a nationality and to change his nationality
Article 16 – Right to marry and found a family
Article 17 – Right to own property
Article 18 – The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion
Article 19 – the right to freedom of opinion and expression
Article 20 – the freedom of peaceful assembly / association
Article 21 – Right to vote, to stand in election and to hold public office

But the UDHR differs from classical catalogues of human rights because it deals not only with the traditional civil and political rights but also with economic, social and cultural rights.

The declaration goes on to provide for the right to social security (Article 22)
Article 23 – the right to work and equal pay for equal work
Article 24 – Right to just conditions of work
Article 25 – the right to an adequate standard of living
Article 26 – the right to education
Article 27 – the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits and the right to protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author
Article 28 – declares that everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedom set forth in this declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29 – presupposes an existence of duties for the existence of these rights.
Article 30 – says that the Declaration in no circumstances should be used as a pretext for violating rights.

In spite of being a remarkable achievement for the UN in the area of Human Rights, the Universal Declaration made some glaring omissions. Nothing was mentioned in regard to protection of minorities, nor the right to petition at the national level. Even so it has become a yardstick or standard of respect for Human Rights.

It may be noted that the declaration is not a treaty. It was adopted by the General Assembly as a resolution having no force of law. Therefore it was not considered a legally binding document. This point was emphasized time and again by States when discussing the Declaration prior to its adoption.
It is appropriate to ask, “What, then, is the significance of the U.D.? How can we estimate its value to us?” Estimating its value is a difficult exercise. But nevertheless, there are a number of categorical statements that can be made about the UD because there are at least three areas in which the effect of the Declaration has been felt and can be measured:
1. Decisions made by the United Nations: Ever since the promulgation of the Declaration, it has been used as a standard of conduct and as a basis for appeals in urging governments to take measures to observe human rights.

2. Treaties: A number of global and regional treaties have been prepared to transform the UD into international conventional law.

3. National Constitutions, legislation, and court decisions: the domestic law of many states has shown the marked influence of the UD.

As a consequence it can justifiably be said that influence of the UD has been profound. Many scholars claim that the principles contained in the Declaration are now part of customary international law, binding upon all states.

Whatever may be the legal status and significance of the declaration, to date it remains the most important document in the field of Human Rights and a perennial source of inspiration to promote and protect fundamental freedom.

Human Rights

Definition: Human Rights are ‘those conditions of social life without which no human being can seek in general to be himself at his best’ – Harold Laski in the Grammar of Politics. Thus, Human Rights are those moral rights which are owed to each man and woman solely by reason of being human.

Human rights are those basic rights enjoyed by every human being, irrespective of caste, creed, sex, nationality and so on. These are privileges, which are inherent in every human being and imply a certain amount of dignity. In this sense, the human being is the central subject of human rights, which are universal and social.

Human rights are individual: Human rights are the rights of individuals to meet the needs and purposes of individuals.

Human rights are paramount: something of which no one can be deprived of without grave affront to justice. They are inalienable – minimum strong moral rights of which no man or woman can be deprived by government or society whether by arbitrary fiat or by law.

Human rights are never absolute and it is essential that every person who enjoys the rights allow others to enjoy them as well. In this sense. Human rights reflect the philosophy of universal love and compassion – ‘Live and let live’.

Human rights are dynamic in nature and keep expanding with socio-economic and cultural developments.

Human rights are a basis of a democratic society: Democracy is impossible without human rights since a democratic society is supposed to be a free society with each person choosing his / her own way of life. In a democracy, State is a welfare state guaranteeing basic rights like equality before the law, right to life and liberty, equality of opportunity and absence of discrimination.

Human rights are enforceable by the International community.

Today, human rights have become a burning topic of the day drawing global attention because of the efforts of NGOs and human rights activists. At the same time, humans, who are rational beings indulge in ruthless and merciless violation of human rights and there is no country, which does not have a record of human rights violation. It is very essential that a general awareness be created about human rights through mass media.