NIPSA MEETING

What is NIPSA?

“ The Network for Improved Policing in South Asia” or simply “NIPSA” is a regional civil society driven initiative to bring to the fore the need for better policing in South Asia in the commonwealth countries of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. NIPSA is a joint initiative between the CHRI, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) and over 20 other partner organisations working on the issue of improved policing all over South Asia.

Police across South Asia are often viewed as corrupt, inefficient and untrustworthy. They are seen as a law unto themselves. While not every police officer in South Asia behaves in this manner, there are a number of problems that generally plague policing across the region. Some of these problems include: lack of accountability, political interference, inadequate resources, and poor training.

But if there are problems, there are also cures. Solutions are not impossible. Over the years, practical suggestions have been made on how to improve policing in South Asia yet time and again those remedies have been ignored because political considerations have intervened to serve as an obstacle to reform. To devise a cure, one must begin with the question – what kind of a police is needed for a democracy and how do we achieve that ?

NIPSA is an attempt to do this. It is an attempt to build a network of likeminded groups and individuals across the region to work together on issues of policing. It is an attempt to share experiences (both successes and failures) and develop a common understanding on what is wrong and devise specific ways forward. It will focus on issues relevant to policing and will reach out to civil society, individuals, activists and anyone interested in the issue across the region. It will provide information on the organisation, role and functioning of the police. It will highlight good practices in democratic policing, reveal instances of bad behaviour and indicate changing laws and trends in policing.

This website is meant as a resource for anyone interested on the issue of better policing in South Asia. It provides links to organisations in the region that are actively working on professionalizing the police and it will seek to capture the most recent police-related developments in South Asia. As its Secretariat, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) will seek to constantly update this website with the latest information available. In South Asia, CHRI has been actively engaged on the issue of better policing for over 14 years and recently published a comprehensive report on the status of police reforms in the region entitled, Feudal Forces: Reform Delayed – Moving from Force to Service in South Asia Policing.

NIPSA has produced a monthly E-newsletter uninterrupted since February 2010 and is now circulated to over 300 individuals across the region.

NIPSA is managed and edited by Devyani Srivastava and Aditi Diya Nag

Technical direction by Mr. Santosh Kumar