Jailed Indian doc wins Jonathan Mann award

Civil liberties activist and health activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has just completed a year in jail on allegations of assisting Naxals, has been named this year's winner of the prestigious Jonathan Mann award for global health and human rights.

This is the first time since the award was instituted nine years ago that someone in India has got it.

The Global Health Council, a network of several international health outfits which instituted the award, has already sent an appeal to the Government of India requesting it to allow the jailed doctor to go to the US to receive the award in person on May 29.

The announcement said that Sen founded a health and human rights organization that supports community health workers in 20 villages. It added that Sen was a member of the People's Union for Civil Liberties who had been imprisoned in Raipur for nearly a year without trial following allegations that he violated state anti-terrorism laws.

The award has put the government's stance on Sen under the glare of the international community.

A campaign is already on within the country for freeing the doctor who decided to leave the cities and work among the rural communities of Chhattisgarh.

Last month, when the Chhattisgarh authorities put Sen in solitary confinement, an online petition had people signing on it from across the country.