Synopsis The concerns for the protection, promotion and realization of rights due to the human beings stem out of the growing instances of wrongs meted out to people in different parts of the globe. As the civilizations marched ahead, there were many who believed that each coming year would herald- a new dawn for those who so far only discrimination, dispossession and most brutal forms of violence to their persona. While making a narrative survey of the milestones of the like-cycle of the nation as well as the human right movement, this volume is also a gloomy but assertive commentary on the elusiveness of those hopes. Human Rights: Agency and Agenda, traces briefly the historical evolution of human rights in Europe and then juxtaposes the same in the frame of post independent India, reflecting on the debates surrounding the developmental dilemma and choices. The world over there is a growing feeling, arising straight from the conviction of social work professionals, that in a world which is increasingly being dominated by restriction of lack of choices, the profession needs take on the emancipatory posture. The present volume is thus also an endeavor to examine the intimate proximity of Social Work and Human Rights.