Orissa High Court Justice Savitri Ratho releases NLUO Journal on Rights of Child

The Centre for Child Rights (CCR) at National Law University Odisha (NLUO) recently released the latest issue of its flagship publication, the Journal on the Rights of the Child on October 15, 2025.

The journal was unveiled by Chairperson of the Juvenile Justice Committee (JJC) of the Orissa High Court, Justice Savitri Ratho.

This is the first ever edition of the journal to be internationally indexed and has been assigned an e-ISSN number 3107-4030.

Delivering the presidential address, Justice Ratho emphasized the integral role of academic contributions in building robust child rights frameworks. She opened with a John F Kennedy quote,

“Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future."

She shed light on the constitutional provisions on child rights, and the series of legislations. She also reminded everyone that child rights, child protection and welfare is not just a law and order or judicial issue, but also a shared responsibility that requires everyone to step up.

She shared the relaunch of the Orissa High Court JJC’s digital newsletter Sishu Suraksha and invited everyone to read it too. She concluded with a quote from Nelson Mandela,

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats it children.”

The unveiling event was attended by NLUO Vice-Chancellor, and Patron-in-Chief of the journal, Prof Ved Kumari; Executive Director, Housing and Land Rights Network, Honorary Professor at NLUO, Prof Enakshi Ganguly: Chief Minister’s Chair Professor, Director, CCR, Prof Biraj Swain: and Co-director, CCR, Centre for Tribal Studies and Pro Bono Club, Assistant Prof M Vijay Bhaskar, along with faculty, staff, and students.

Prof Ganguly highlighted the strategic advantage of CCR being housed within an university. She noted that this setting would provide an ideal environment to generate innovative research outputs, contribute to governmental efforts, influence policy development concerning children, and engage as a knowledge partner with the State and the Orissa High Court's Juvenile Justice Committee (JJC).

Prof Kumari emphasized the need to bridge gaps between research, policy, and practice to build an inclusive framework that understands and addresses the needs and rights of children.

Chief Executive Officer, Child Rights and You (CRY), Pooja Marwaha and her team member Director-Policy, Research, Advocacy and Documentation, Subhendu Bhattacharjee joined digitally alongwith other colleagues.

Marwaha highlighted the need to put child rights at the center of every policy and public conversation. She reiterated that the journal will not only showcase rigorous research but also bring to the forefront lived realities of real children and real people, both of which are essential for driving effective policy, programme and advocacy.

Among other attendees were NLUO Dean of Research and Internationalization Centre, Prof Sheela Rai, and over 150 students studying the Child Rights course or working in the student committee of CCR.

Prof Biraj Swain delivering her opening remarks emphasized on the rigorous academic processes including high-level blind peer review, fact-checking, plagirism checking and AI verification that has been followed to ensure the quality and ethical standards of the journal.

A multi-member team of Associate Editors comprising Dr Swagatika Samal, Dr Pradipta Kumar Sarangi, Ankit Kumar Keshri, Dr Rashmi Rakha Baug, Dr Shubhanginee Singh and student editor Madhulika Tripathy worked to ensure all the checks and compliances before selecting the final list of the submissions for publication.

The journal lists the who’s who of law, justice, and child rights as its editorial advisory board consisting Chairperson, United Nations Internal Justice Council and Former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice Madan B Lokur; Former Chief Justice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court, Justice Gita Mittal; Director, Criminal Justice Institute, University of Hannover, Germany, Prof Bernd-Deiter Meier; Professor of Criminology, Salford University, Manchester, UK Prof Christopher Birbeck; and Director, School of Law, KIIT, Prof Bhabani P Panda.

The Editorial Board is headlined by Prof Ved Kumari. Other members include Editor, Prof Biraj Swain, Professor of Social Policy and Head, Law and Criminology Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, Prof Ravinder Barn; Professor of Educational Science, Faculty of Education Science, Bielefeld University, Germany, Dr Frederick de Moll; Professor and Head, Department of Psychology, Punjabi University Patiala, Dr Damanjit Sandhu; Former Founder Dean and Professor, School of Law, Tata Institute of Social Sciences Dr Asha Bajpai; and Adjunct Faculty, Indian Institute of Psychology and Research Bangalore, Dr Kalpana Purushothaman.

Both the editorial advisory board and editorial board have together ensured that the journal adheres to the highest academic standards and inter-disciplinary lens of child rights.

The journal is committed to expand the remit of child rights beyond juvenile justice and POCSO and welcomes scholars, academics, practitioners, policy makers and members of the judiciary to engage with contemporary issues that impact children's rights and wellbeing.

The core members of CCR include its Co-Director, CCR, Akanksha Yadav, Admin Assistant, CCR, Amulya Kumar Swain and, and research scholar TS Swaraj.

The student committee of the centre comprise Abhinandan, Amit Samal, Sushant, Akshat Prakash, Raginee Panda, Ashwani Rai, Subhadra Satpathy, Tanisha Som, and Prayas Das, headlined by Kashish Rathore and Jyotirmay Choudhary.

The student members of CCR also curate and create a bi-monthly newsletter which is a global and local scan of key developments in child rights. They curate and run the social media handles of CCR as well on LinkedIn and Instagram where they make everyday explainers on UNCRC articles and other rights and provisions of children for everyday people.

The 6th edition of the newsletter for the months of October-November 2025 was also launched at the October 15 event.

The first edition of the newly launched journal has 11 original submissions in the categories of papers, case commentaries, infographics and conference proceedings written by practicing academics, researchers, advocates and students, covering issues of public finance, education, nutrition, consent, role of social work in rehabilitation and reintegration of children in conflict with law, decriminalizing young love, digital safety of children, and advancing child–centred justice.

All the articles can be accessed freely from the university website. The journal welcomes manuscript submissions year-round and can be submitted via email to ccr@nluo.ac.in. This ISSN-indexed edition of the journal is published with generous support from the CRY.

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