South Asia: Biraj Patnaik joins Amnesty International as new Regional Director

Amnesty International is pleased to announce that Biraj Patnaik joins the organization as its new Regional Director for South Asia.

The appointment deepens Amnesty International’s commitment to the world’s most populous region, moving closer to the ground where human rights abuses are taking place in order to challenge them more effectively.

“As people across South Asia face assaults on their rights, Amnesty International is mounting a robust response to drive change on the ground,” said Minar Pimple, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Global Operations.

As people across South Asia face assaults on their rights, Amnesty International is mounting a robust response to drive change on the ground

Minar Pimple, Senior Director, Global Operations

“Biraj Patnaik is a prominent campaigner with more than two decades experience in the region, and we are delighted that he will be deepening our commitment to the region and leading our human rights work there.”

Patnaik joins Amnesty International from the Office of the Supreme Court Commissioners on the right to food in India, where he served as the Principal Advisor. Over the past ten years, he has played a leading role in campaigning and advocacy efforts for the landmark National Food Security Act in India.

Instead of replicating each other’s failures on human rights, we want the region’s countries to focus their rivalries instead on who can provide a better future for their people

Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director

A management graduate from the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), he is an Honourary Research Fellow at Coventry University, and serves on the international editorial board of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch. Patnaik served on the Advisory Board of Amnesty International India.

“Joining Amnesty International is both a pleasure and a challenge. Across South Asia, there are depressingly similar trends when it comes to human rights, making the work of the organization in the region more important than ever,” said Biraj Patnaik.

“South Asia is where hundreds of millions of people suffer injustice each day, denied their rights to food, housing, clean water, sanitation and education. Civil society organisations are being harassed and shut down, journalists are being targeted, crude colonial-era laws are being unleashed against government critics, new laws are being invoked against critics online, and brutal practices endure in places afflicted by conflict.

“Instead of replicating each other’s failures on human rights, we want the region’s countries to focus their rivalries instead on who can provide a better future for their people.”