The Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, founded by a group of Indian human rights defenders, including journalists and social activists. The Centre is based in New Delhi .

One of the major challenges before the human rights movement in India today is a lack of awareness of rights and available mechanisms for redressal of rights violations among various marginalized communities, such as Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis. Keeping this in mind, the CHRD's mandate is to increase the effectiveness and accessibility of human rights protection mechanisms by strengthening the human rights movement in India , ensuring compliance with existing norms and making the system widely accessible to victims of human rights violations and other actors of civil society. The CHRD's particular focus is on communities in India that are marginalized in terms of asset ownership and various social, economic and educational indices and are victims of majoritarian religious chauvinism that has caused the deaths of thousands of people in India in recent years.

The CHRD's principal objective is to achieve the realization and full implementation of international human rights norms, civil, political and economic, in India , with a particular focus on marginalized communities. The CHRD's mandate is to work in three programme areas: legal defence, training and dissemination, and the campaign to strengthen the human rights movement.

The CHRD functions not only as an awareness enhancer with regard to human rights but also works on assisting, linking, and monitoring processes towards achievement of development goals in India through different activities: participation in projects, networking, project follow-up and regular publicity campaigns pertaining to human rights and development and publications.

If you or your organization is involved in areas that we are engaged in, and if you have suggestions or recommendations that may help us in our efforts please contact us. Together we can work in solidarity towards making this world a better place!