India has not done enough to improve its human rights record. A submission by the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN (WGHR), a national coalition of human rights organisations and independent experts says the records continue to be 'disturbing'.

Released this month, the report presents a bleak scenario of the actual state of human rights across India. The report talked about 789 extra-judicial executions in Manipur between 2007 and 2010, and the discovery of 2,700 unmarked graves in Kashmir this year.

The report showed government’s inability to implement developmental programmes. “Lack of implementation…due to bureaucratic inertia, lack of adequate allocation of resources, contradiction between economic policies, ‘development priorities’ and national and international human rights commitments act as obstacles in realising human rights for the country's vulnerable people,” the report said.

The report also mentioned absence of a law or a scheme protection of a witness. “Human rights defenders and their families often become targets of threats, persecution, arbitrary arrest and detention, false charges, raids, torture and at times murder,” the report added.

Every four years, the UN human rights council examines the human rights records of all UN member states. “Reports sent by civil society, human rights institutions, UN agencies and the country under review are the key documents used during the universal periodic review (UPR). India’s first review was done in 2008 and the next one will be in May 2012,” the report said.

Eighty-six organisations and individuals across India endorsed the report through a consultative process, involving five regional and one national consultation.

Read the report