Last Updated on December 26, 2019, 1:11 PM AST by Anthony Morris
The federal Govt of the Republic of India approved the funds for the population register. The fund will be utilized for the population survey to be conducted next year. This is to be noted that thousands of Indians are protesting on streets against the new amendment to a Citizenship law enacted by Modi Govt.
The new amendment is termed discriminatory by the protestors as it provides for citizenship based on fulfilling some conditions only to non-Muslims, who have moved to the country before 2015. Many are of the opinion that religion cannot be made as a criterion to acquire citizenship in a secular country like India and by doing so they are acting in the contravention of the Indian constitution. These protests have claimed the lives of at least 25 people.
Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar told reporters that “The government approved 87.54 billion rupees ($1.2bn) for conducting the census and 39.41 billion rupees ($553m) for updating the National Population Register”.
The NPR aims to create a comprehensive database based on identity for every resident of India and is expected to start from April Next year. Javadekar said that “the census exercise had no relation to the national register of citizens”.
Peaceful protests even continued on Wednesday across the country irrespective of the fact that the police has not granted any permission to do the protests.
“Indian police, in many areas, have been cracking down on anti-citizenship law protests with force, including unnecessary deadly force,” Meenakshi Ganguly, the rights organisation’s South Asia director, said in a statement.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
