-The Hindu The exclusion of migrants from the electoral process reveals the caste- and class-driven nature of mainstream politics While political commentators have been busy analysing voter preferences in the general election 2019, one segment, namely migrants, continues to be overlooked. The Election Commission of India (EC), on February 21, clarified that NRI voters cannot cast votes online, and that an NRI who holds an Indian passport can vote in his/her hometown after...

-Frontline.in A large proportion of voters who are left out of the electoral rolls despite having valid voter ID cards are Muslims and Dalits. Abdul Rahmat, 28, from Kolkata was shocked and confused when his application for enrolment in the electoral rolls was rejected with the comment “not an Indian citizen”. Born in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, he had moved to the city a decade ago and held a white-collar job with...

-India Today The ECI plan to link voter IDs to Aadhaar risks a repeat exclusion of voters, and thus falling afoul of the SC order that forbids denial of service. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is reportedly making renewed efforts to link citizen voter IDs to Aadhaar-the UIDAI's contentious biometric ID, whose creeping overreach was halted by the Supreme Court in September this year. A previous linking effort in 2015, under...

-The Indian Express The Assam Accord of 1985 began with the assurance that the “government has all along been most anxious to find a satisfactory resolution to the problem of foreigners in Assam.” In the late 1970s, an extraordinary student movement had taken root in Assamese soil. The Mangaldoi constituency, which was voting in a bypoll after the death of its MP Hiralal Patwari, was under the spotlight. The seat, with a...

-Down to Earth The rate at which informal housing is being destroyed probably far exceeds the rate at which formal housing is being constructed Troubled by the degradation of environment on and around railway tracks, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) recently directed Delhi government to relocate all illegal settlements along tracks in Delhi. The tribunal reasoned that the residents of these settlements practise open defecation and litter on the tracks. Housing of the...