Tripura constitutes child rights panel

The Tripura government has constituted the Commission for Protection of Child Rights to deal with the related issues in the state, officials said here Wednesday.

"The six-member commission was constituted recently with the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist senior leader and social activist Rupa Ganguly as its chairperson," the state's social welfare department official told IANS.

He said the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has been asking all the state governments for the past many years to set up the state commission.

According to the official, Tripura is the first state in the northeastern region to constitute such a commission on child rights.

The NCPCR was set up in March 2007 under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.

The commission's mandate is to ensure that all laws, policies, programmes and administrative mechanisms are in consonance with the child rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India, and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The child is defined as a person in the 0 to 18 years age group.