Every year on december 10th the National Human Rights Day is observed. The United Nations General Assembly adopted this in 1948, by declaring Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights proclaim that every human being irrespective of caste, race, religion, sex, colour, social status, or the language, have equal rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is available in more than 400 languages. It holds the record of most translated documents in the world.

The drafting committee of Universal Declaration of Human Rights was led by Eleanor Roosevelt. Hansa Jivraj Mehta  and Lakshmi Menon were the members from India in the drafting committee. The committee consisted of members from USSR, Dominican Republican, Pakistan, Denmark, France, and many more. Today is the day we remember the members of the drafting committee and especially two of our Indian delegates. Hansa Jivraj Mehta, one of the members from India insisted on rephrasing the line “all men are born free and equal” to “all human beings are born free and equal” in the first article of declaration which led to justice in upbringing of gender equality. While the other Indian delegate, Lakshmi Menon fought for incorporating “non-discrimination based on sex”. She also argued for inclusion of line “equal rights of men and women” in the preamble of the declaration.