New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), in collaboration with National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), has launched a five day online programme in Human Rights for police personnel. Professor V N Rajashekharan Pillai, Vice-Chancellor, IGNOU said that an outcome of IGNOU's collaboration with NHRC, the five-day programme aims at sensitizing and spreading awareness about human rights among lower-level police personnel in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
As per an NHRC official, nearly 80000 complaints are received by the commission every year, out of which, 30000 are against police personnel. Further, Professor Pillai said that with such a programme, IGNOU aims to bring down the rate of conflicts and crime in the society by extending hands to create awareness among police personnel and equipping them to apply it in their day to day interaction with public.
As per sources, the programme will be conducted at IGNOU Convention centre in Maidan Garhi. Currently, the programme will be taught in the Hindi language, sources added. In addition, sources informed that K G Balakrishnan, NHRC Chairperson and Former Chief Justice of India, launched the programme. He told that the training programme will soon be translated into regional languages.
An IGNOU official told the sources that the programme has been designed keeping in consideration the tight schedule of the police personnel. Further, the official said that it can be assessed as and when required which would also be stored in the archive section. The units are interactive and follow a multimedia approach with animation and flash programmes used in their designing to make them interactive and simple which are then followed by case studies and discussions, official added.
Moreover, the official spoke about the contents of the programme and said that there are six modules which will be taught to the learners on the first three days through interactive lectures by counselors in E-Gyankosh, students interacting with them back. The last two days will have interactive counseling sessions comprising of a web conference, official added. On the completion of fifth day, the students would be awarded with a certificate duly signed by the IGNOU VC and the NHRC.
P C Sharma, an NHRC Member said that many of the complaints they receive are true. This compels them to think about the needful steps to be taken to train them, to make them realize their responsibility towards prevention and detection of crime.
