Human rights is the big story as we stumble hopefully into the 21st century. Serious newspapers everywhere are full of stories about rights abuse. Some of the best television and radio work consists of detailed investigations of the ways officialdom tramples all over the rights of the weaker parts of society. Launch an Internet search for "human rights", and your computer will throw up in seconds literally thousands of websites devoted to rights in general or to some specific corner of this massive subject.

As I sit at my computer in Wales, writing this piece, I have the day's issue of The Guardian - that most liberal and erudite of British papers - on my desk. Its front-page lead is the release on licence of two 18-year-old youths convicted at the age of 10 of the murder of a two-year-old boy, a story that occupies two further full pages inside the paper. It's a major rights story - the rights of these young men, convicted and confined as children, to grow safely and privately into normal adulthood; the right to justice of the victim's family; the need to combine confinement of criminals - particularly very young criminals - with effective rehabilitation methods; the necessity to balance protection of the two youths against press freedom (a high court injunction has banned publication of the new identities provided for them, or any details on their whereabouts).

Elsewhere in this one issue, the paper carries several other human rights-based stories. It reports on moves to extradite former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic for trial on war crimes; a high court challenge by the newspaper attempting to overturn a 153-year-old law banning advocacy in print of the overthrow of the monarchy; two cases involving medical malpractice in Britain; the plight of Aids orphans (children whose parents have died of the disease) in South Africa; a court case in Germany over compensation for Second World War victims of Nazi labour camps; an Amnesty International report on countries which criminalise homosexual relations; a story from Nepal on a campaign there against the tradition of the kumari, which sees a succession of young girls turned into a living goddess in conditions which campaigners say are a negation of child rights; maltreatment of democracy campaigners in Malaysia.

It's a fairly typical day for The Guardian, as for many other newspapers around the world.

They cover human rights stories for two main reasons. First, simply because they are such good stories. They're about people, they speak for the little man and attack the powerful. Properly done, they are eminently readable and help build up a reputation for responsible reporting. Great copy!

The second reason is more important, however. The media report human rights abuse because it matters enormously. A very large part of the role of the press is the defence of ordinary people against against abuse, neglect and exploitation from those in authority. Stories of human rights abuse, which shame us as a nation, emerge because dedicated reporters seek them out. Courageous activists bring them into the light, too, but they depend on us for the publicity which might just persuade errant authority to mend its ways.

India already has a lot of good human rights reporters, and newspapers which are prepared to carry their stories. But in a country of a billion people living with extremes of poverty and wealth, power and helplessness, more needs to be done. That is why the British Council, the Press Institute of India and The Thomson Foundation have joined forces to produce this manual.

The manual has two purposes.

First, it is intended as a resource book on human rights reporting in India. Section one of the book consists of discussion notes on a range of human rights issues, with references and a list of useful contacts.

The notes - written mainly by journalists working in the human rights field, but with support from other experts - are by no means a complete review of any given area of concern. They are offered as one writer's interpretation of the way the citizens of India, and the non-citizens who live here, are protected by human rights conventions and laws, or suffer from abuse of those same conventions and laws.

There are two more comprehensive chapters, one looking at the law relating to human rights in India, and the other providing a broad overview of the way Indian society is touched by human rights concerns.

The notes are written for journalists, not for activists, lawyers or legislators. They are illustrated by stories from the Indian press, not in any critical sense but simply to demonstrate how human rights abuse is covered and to suggest areas other reporters might usefully explore.

The contact lists are not exhaustive either. In a country the size of India, there are many more organisations and activists interested in human rights than we could possibly list here, not to mention their international counterparts and those in other countries. The contacts lists are a starting point, to suggest where help and information might be available.

Where possible, we have given national contacts for Indian resources, but there are frequently counterparts at state level which may be more immediately helpful. We have named contact persons as often as possible, with phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Where we have not done so, we hope we have given enough information to enable the enterprising reporter to make progress alone.

The second purpose of the manual is to be a resource book for journalism training. The skills section of the book looks at reporting skills, with a continuing emphasis on human rights. It was developed by Patralekha Chatterjee, herself a distinguished reporter on human rights abuse, from a manual created for UNICEF by The Thomson Foundation in Britain.

Again, the skills section of the manual uses examples of reporting from the Indian press, but this time in a more critical spirit. We are grateful to those reporters and newspapers featured for their (usually) unwitting co-operation. Their stories are included to inspire, but occasionally also to warn when things are not perhaps as they might be.

We think it's in a good cause.

We hope the manual will be used by teachers in India's journalism schools and their students, but it should also prove helpful to more experienced reporters. We hope it will encourage colleagues in the Indian press to explore the opportunities offered by human rights reporting. Opportunities for them to produce memorable and significant stories which will play a part in the improvement of the human condition in India. Stories about people, and about their suffering at the hands of others.

Stories worth telling.