Human rights have been the focus of study since ancient times as we find mentions of human rights in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, the juridical rulings of Isracli Sanhedrin, the Islamic legislation and our own Vedic tradition of seeing the opponent’s logic before our own. The English Magna Carta, which stated the political and legal rights of the English people, is referred to as the basis for modern English law. With the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), after World War II, human rights issues began to take a more formal shape as the provisions laid down in UDHR became binding on the nations signatories to it. Various international treaties have been signed between different groups of countries on issues like human rights, immigrants’ rights, extradition, etc. Intense political discussion is still continuing over the scope and content of economic, social and cultural rights within the ambit of international relations, development and globalization. This book is an edited volume of articles which critically discusses a wide range of topics like history of human rights, gender rights, rights of the indigenous people, dalit rights, civil rights, rights of the refugees, child rights, philosophical foundations of human rights, right to information and the rights of the third gender. Besides, the papers in this collection also give insights into some empirical issues like the declining sex ratio and other less emphasised aspects of human rights such as environment and human rights, right to live, etc. Moreover, it highlights the role of scientists in upholding human rights, particularly during the war. The book will help in disseminating knowledge of human rights and create an awareness in society. It will be highly useful to the students, teachers and researchers in the field of human rights.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements; Preface; 1. Expanding Horizons of Human Rights–Subrata Sankar Bagchi; 2. Human Security, Indigenous People and Development–Buddhadeb Chaudhuri; 3. Some Thoughts on Human Rights–Suranjan Das; 4. The Rights of the Other: Some Questions–Ishita Mukhopadhyay; 5. Dalits and Human Rights–Debi Chatterjee; 6. Civil Rights in India: Towards Framing a Contemporary History–Siddhartha Guha Ray; 7. Environment and Human Rights–A.K. Ghosh; 8. Refugees and Human Rights: Towards Refugee Protection Regime–Sumita Sen; 9. Problems of Human Rights as Reflected in Folk Literature of Bengal: Focus on Folk Songs in Particular–Tathagata Chakraborty; 10. Science, War and Human Rights–Syamal Chakrabarti; 11. The Ways of Dying in Retrospect: A Study on Care for and Rights to Live–Suman Nath, Gopalkrishna Chakraborti and Priyadarsini Sengupta; 12. The Question of Right to Born and to Live: A Study among Rajbansis of a Village in Darjeeling District, West Bengal–Subir Biswas and Ganesh Chandra Mallick; 13. Protection of Child Rights: Concern, Issues and Reality–Arpita Ghosh and Ahana Datta Mukherjee; 14. Right to Information: An Instrument for Effective Participatory Development of the Indian Economy–Ankita Ghosh; 15. Rights and Privileges in India: An Overview–Shyamal K. Nandy and Dipak K. Adak; 16. Human Rights: The Indian Experience–Prasenjit Sarkar; 17. International Human Rights Law–T.R. Maruthi; 18. Adam, Eve and “Others”—Analyzing the Right to Survive with Dignity of the Third Sex in India–Lopamudra Sengupta; Contributors