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Disabled/'differently abled' persons by virtue of being human have the right to enjoy human rights to life, liberty, equality, security, and dignity. However, due to social indifference, psychological barriers, a limited definition of 'disability' entitling protection of law, and a lack of proper data, disabled persons in India remain an invisible category. Although several laws exit to ensure their full and effective participation in society, they remain insufficient as they are primarily based on the government's discretion. At the same time, whenever the judiciary finds an opportunity, it acts as a real protector of disabled persons, but it is not feasible to knock on the door of the judiciary for every request. Interestingly, various civil societies and human rights activists have occasionally asserted the rights of the disabled. However, unless the foundation stones of law are fortified, disabled persons cannot fully realize their rights. It is high time to enact effective laws, with timely implementation, to protect their interests and empower their capabilities that are based on a 'rights-based approach' rather than on the charity, medical, or social approaches. Thus, the horizons of law must be expanded to provide a 'human friendly environment' for all of the disabled to overcome the barriers that impair their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue on the human rights and environmental rights in India associated to its remarkable paradoxes. It stresses the paradox of a "Shining India," making it an economic superpower in terms of information technology and financial services. It cites its adoptation of the World Bank-IMF model of "Structural Adjustment" or the LPG program as well as the explanation of Utsa Patnaik, one of the leading economists in the country, on the development at the expense of the poor and marginalized sections of society. It mentions one of the cases that illustrates the increasingly illiberal attitude of the Supreme Court towards civil liberties which is also apparent in its decision to implement the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunals Act.

Through a comparative analysis of crimes of ‘honour’ in India and Pakistan and an examination of appellate judgments from the two countries, we reflect upon how a rights-based discourse of modern nation-states forms a complex terrain where citizenship of the state and membership of communities are negotiated and contested through the unfolding of complex legal rituals in both sites. We identify two axes to explore the complex nature of the interaction between modernity and tradition. The first is that of governance of polities (state statutory governance bodies) and the second is the governance of communities (caste panchayats and jirgahs). We conclude that the diverse legacies of common law in India and Pakistan frame an anxious relationship with the categories of tradition and modernity, which inhabit spaces in between the governance of polities and the governance of communities, and constantly reconstitute the relationship between the local, national and the global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]