-The Indian Express The application questions the reasonableness and objectivity of the criterion of extending the benefits of the CAA to Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan alone. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights “intends to file” an Intervention Application in the Supreme Court of India, “seeking to intervene in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1474 of 2019 and praying that she be allowed to...

-The Hindu The Citizenship Act is a mere skeleton, whose flesh and blood was left to be dictated by executive action The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 tells us who, in the eyes of the Indian government, has a right to be considered for citizenship. So far, no illegal migrant could be considered for citizenship. Now, the government can grant citizenship to persons with certain religious identities (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians, Buddhists)...

-United Nations News A new law in India which expedites citizenship for certain religious minorities has been criticized by the UN human rights office for being “fundamentally discriminatory in nature.” The amendment to the Citizenship Act gives priority to Hindus, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians resident in India before 2014, but excludes Muslims, including minority sects. “Although India’s broader naturalization laws remain in place, these amendments will have a...

-The Financial Express The prime minister, in his Independence Day speech, flagged “population explosion” as a problem and talked of the need to counter it. It is surprising that the government has missed the message on the declining trend in fertility in the country and is gearing up to fight yesterday’s problem. The proponents of population regulation raise the bogey of the absolute population level already being too high and the...

-The Indian Express BJP is attempting to use citizenship issue to woo Namasudra community in Bengal. It is generally believed that unlike other states of India, caste and religion don’t play a significant role in West Bengal’s electoral politics. Academic literature often articulates this as West Bengal’s “exceptionalism”. As a result of the electoral decline of the Left Front and some limited attempts by the Trinamool Congress at community-based mobilisation, the...