India celebrated 60th Republic Day on 26th January 2009. On the eve of the republic day  President Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil addressed the nation, here are the highlights.

For six decades we have been a democratic republic and have been guided by the principles of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. The 60th milestone is marked with the many successes that we have achieved in different fields, and a host of issues that need our attention. We can look at our achievements with justifiable pride and focus on our shortcomings with a spirit of resolve. It is the manner in which we address the challenges we face that will determine the destiny towards which our nation is steered.

We have witnessed, in the last one year, major events in the financial and security scenario both at the global and the national level – terrorism and violence, natural disasters, volatility in oil and food prices, and a global economic slowdown. These tested the inherent structures and systems for dealing with emergent situations, throwing up challenges of addressing inadequacies and highlighting the need to reinforce monitoring and response mechanisms. Full Text

A year-long campaign to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in India commenced with the unveiling of the special logo for 60th Anniversary of UDHR by the President of India and reading out the message of UN Secretary General in the Human Rights Day function organised by the National Human Rights Commission on 10 December 2007.

During the year, the National Human Rights Commission took various initiatives and organized special events to commemorate the anniversary. Details of these are enclosed. On 10th December 2008, NHRC organized a function in New Delhi to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the UDHR. Hon’ble Speaker, Lok Sabha, was the Chief Guest. The message of the President and that of the UN Secretary-General was read out.  A copy of the Speaker’s speech is also annexed with this message. The function also included the following special activities:
The Speaker, Lok Sabha released a stamp which was brought out by the Department of Posts to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of UDHR The Speaker, Lok Sabha launched the NHRC’s online complaint registration mechanism.

A wall calendar and a desk calendar for 2009 on the theme of Mahatma Gandhi’s approach and vision on human rights were released. Annual Journal of NHRC, both in Hindi and English, booklet of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in eight different languages - Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and English, a book on proceedings of NHRC workshop on Detention, three bilingual pamphlets in Hindi and English on NHRC's recommendations on right to education, manual scavenging and sanitation and detention were also released. In addition, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the two largest public sector telecom service providers sent short message service (SMS) on human rights to 1,00,00,000 subscribers all over the country. Further, with the support of MEA, NHRC is organizing a “Regional Conference of South Asian Countries on human rights awareness and institutional capacity building” in New Delhi on 24-27 January, 2009.

Keynote Address by Shri Somnath Chatterjee, Speaker, Lok Sabha

Here are the excerpts of the key note address delivered by Sri Somnath Chatterjee during the event. It is indeed a matter of honour and a privilege for me to have the opportunity to associate myself with the Human Rights Day Function organized by the National Human Rights Commission, specially when we are observing the completion of sixty years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that seeks to extend ‘dignity and justice’ to every citizen all over the world. This provides us all an occasion to ponder the course of action to be adopted when the right to life of millions of people is under threat because of the growing incidents of terrorism taking place in different parts of the world. Full Text

The 7th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) Convention was held at the Chennai Trade Centre, Chennai from 07-09 January 2009. It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on 8th January. The President Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil delivered the valedictory address on the 9th. She also conferred Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards for 2009. The Convention was organised by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs in partnership with the Government of Tamil Nadu. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) would be the institutional partner. This was the first time, Chennai hosted the Convention. Full Text