President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday suggested that “human rights” be introduced in the school curriculum.
“We must increase awareness for human rights by including it as a subject in the school curriculum. A human rights culture should permeate our national consciousness,” he said, participating in the “human rights day,” under the auspices of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) here.
The country had an outstanding Constitution and a plethora of sound laws and policies to uphold different dimensions of human rights. However, such an elaborate legal infrastructure would count for nothing if implementation in letter and spirit was missing. The focus should be on efforts to translate laws and Constitutional provisions into a reality for the common man, Mr. Mukherjee said.
“While framing the Constitution of our country, the founding fathers used the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a first draft for formulating the provisions of Part III of the Constitution on Fundamental Rights,” he said.
NHRC Chairperson Justice K.G. Balakrishnan felt that the policies and programmes of governments should have a strong human rights component to provide for a truly beneficial and equitable utilisation of resources for all.
