Colin Gonsalves is the Founder of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), India\u2019s leading public interest law group, providing pro bono legal aid to the marginalised. Mr. Gonsalves was designated as a Senior Advocate by the Bombay High Court in 2000.\u00a0 He was presented with the \u201cInternational Human Rights Award\u201d by the American Bar Association in 2005, awarded the \u201cMother Teresa Memorial Award\u201d for Social Justice \u201cin recognition of remarkable contribution in legal services addressing human rights\u201d in 2010, conferred an Award of the Centre for Reproductive Rights, New York, 2015 \u2013 for Pioneering and Exemplary Leadership in Advancing Women\u2019s Reproductive Rights and Social Justice in India and he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award 2017.<\/p>\n
He has led several cases, including the \u201cRight to Food\u201d case in the Supreme Court, which ordered subsidized grain for 700 million poor persons, the recent Manipur ethnic violence case, the Chardham climate change case in the Himalayas, a series of cases on abortion rights, farmers rights, social activists wrongly incarcerated, demolition of houses of the poor, cases during the pandemic of migrant workers who were forced to walk hundreds of kms to their villages, social boycott of dalits in Haryana, and so on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7636,"menu_order":2,"template":"","team_designation":[],"team_department":[58],"class_list":["post-7632","team","type-team","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","team_department-speakers"],"yoast_head":"\n