Indian receives German award for aid to untouchables

WEIMAR - Lenin Raghuvanshi, an Indian human-rights activist, is in Germany to receive an award in the city of Weimar for his long fight on behalf of the dalits, or untouchables.

Raghuvanshi, founder of the People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) in Uttar Pradesh state, also campaigns on behalf of women, children and indigenous peoples and counsels victims of injustice.

Weimar’s city council picked him in June as winner of the eastern city’s annual human rights prize, worth 2,500 euros ($3,300) and invited him to Germany to receive it in person on International Human Rights Day.

The citation said Raghuvanshi, a 40-year-old doctor, documented dalits, or members of India’s lowest caste, who died of hunger or had been victims of police torture.