Uttarakhand Governor Dr KK Paul has said that the quality of governance determines the realisation of the human rights of the people. As corruption negates good governance, the right to corruption-free governance, particularly in developing nations, must be a basic human right upon which the other rights depend, he said while speaking as the chief guest at a programme organised on the occasion of International Human Rights Day jointly by the State Human Rights Commission and the Uttarakhand Government at the ONGC auditorium in Dehradun on Thursday. The Governor highlighted the need to create a human rights culture. Awareness towards human rights could be enhanced greatly by including it as a subject in school curricula, he added.
He said, “It gives me immense pleasure today to participate in the inaugural Human Rights Day function, organised by the Uttarakhand Human Rights Commission. It certainly feels good to have a State Human Rights Commission, as it epitomizes hopes of the common people of Uttarakhand, for protection and preservation of their rights as human beings, and as individuals. As such, the occasion of Human Rights Day assumes all the more importance as it provides us an opportunity to take stock of our progress and reflect on the journey that we have travelled so far, and what do we need to do further, to uphold the trust and faith, posed by the common man to make human rights and dignified existence, a reality, for the people of our State.”
He stressed the need to take stock of the progress made so far in the journey of achieving human rights for one and all. “On this occasion, we must understand what we need to do further to uphold the trust and faith that the common man places in us to make a dignified and respectable life a reality,” he said.
“We have to keep working with a sense of compassion for each other in our hearts, with a sense of justice and fair play, banishing all prejudices of caste, creed and gender,” he said.
He said the government, the judiciary, statutory bodies like the human rights commission and civil society should do their utmost for the promotion and protection of human rights.
Referring to the horror of two World Wars, he said that it had been realised that peace and freedom in the true sense could be achieved only if we respect the inherent dignity of every individual.