News Article @ Northeast Today
Follow the link to an article of mine published on Jul 5, 2019 @ Northeast Today Magazine A Kargil War Veteran’s Homecoming
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Opinion on the "Anti Assam" Bill
WHAT IS THE CITIZENSHIP BILL? The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, is an attempt to amend India’s citizenship law to ease the process of obtaining Indian citizenship. However, in its present form, the Bill would make undocumented migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians, eligible for citizenship. The Third Schedule of the Citizenship Act provides for conditions to obtain citizenship by naturalisation. Two relevant points in this regard are that it does not apply to illegal immigrants, and to obtain citizenship one has to have resided in India for 12 years consecutively. The proposed amendment would reduce this time to six years. The Bill presumes that all persons who belong to the mentioned religions and come from the specified countries are persecuted minorities. Considering that atheists too have come under attack in the list of countries, one could wonder why atheists are not included. The problem with...