write a news report on citizenship amendments bill in 200 words
Answers
Answer:
Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) has turned into Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA)
Explanation:
This article is about a law in India. For the article covering protests, see Citizenship Amendment Act protests.
Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019
Emblem of India.svg
Parliament of India
Long title[show]
Citation Act No. 47 of 2019
Enacted by Lok Sabha
Passed 10 December 2019
Enacted by Rajya Sabha
Passed 11 December 2019
Assented to 12 December 2019
Signed 12 December 2019
Signed by Ram Nath Kovind
President of India
Effective Not yet; to be notified by the government on a date chosen by it.[1]
Legislative history
Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019
Bill citation Bill No. 370 of 2019
Bill published on 9 December 2019; 13 days ago
Introduced by Amit Shah
Minister of Home Affairs
First reading 9 December 2019
Second reading 10 December 2019
Third reading 11 December 2019
Amends
Citizenship Act, 1955
Status: In force
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act of 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities fleeing persecution from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.[2] Muslims were not given such eligibility.[3][4] The act was the first time religion had been used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law.[5]
The religious persecution of minorities such as Hindus, Sikhs and Christians has been a serious and widespread problem in Pakistan.[6][7][8] The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the Indian government, had promised in previous election manifestos to offer Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from neighboring countries.[9][10] Under the 2019 amendment, migrants who had entered India by 31 December 2014, and had suffered "religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" in their country of origin were made eligible for citizenship.[2] The amendment also relaxed the residence requirement for naturalization of these migrants from eleven years to five.[11] According to the Indian Intelligence Bureau, the act will add about 31,300 new citizens to India's 1.3 billion population. About 25,400 Hindus and 5,800 Sikhs, along with about 60 Christians and other religious minorities, are expected to be immediately eligible for citizenship under the amended Citizenship Act.[12][13]
The amendment has been widely criticised as discriminating on the basis of religion, in particular for excluding Muslims.[14][15] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called it "fundamentally discriminatory", adding that while India's "goal of protecting persecuted groups is welcome", this should be accomplished through a non-discriminatory "robust national asylum system".[16] Critics express concerns that the bill would be used, along with the National Register of Citizens, to render 200 million Muslim immigrants stateless, whose documents got destroyed during the partition of India according to the Washington Post. Commentators also question the exclusion of persecuted religious minorities from other regions such as Tibet, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.[17][18] The Indian government says that Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are "Muslim-majority countries" where Islam has been declared as the official state religion through constitutional amendments in recent decades, and therefore Muslims in these Islamic countries are "unlikely to face religious persecution" and cannot be "treated as persecuted minorities".[10][19] Critics state that Muslim minorities in these countries, such Hazaras and Ahmadis also face persecution.[20][21][22]
The passage of the legislation caused large scale protests in India.[23] Assam and other northeastern states have seen violent demonstrations against the bill over fears that the grant of Indian citizenship to refugees and immigrants will cause a loss of their "political rights, culture and land rights" and motivate further migration from Bangladesh.[24][25][26] In other parts of India, people protested saying it discriminated against Muslims and demanded that Indian citizenship should be granted to Muslim refugees and immigrants.[27] Major protests against the Act were held at universities in India. Students at Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia alleged "brutal" suppression by the police.[28] The protests have led to death and injuries to protestors and police personnel, damage to public and private property, the detention of over a thousand people, and some suspensions of local internet and communication infrastructure.[29][30] Some of the states have announced they will not implement the Act, however the Union Home Ministry clarified that states lack the legal power to stop the implementation of CAA.
Answer:
The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 seeks to provide Indian citizenship to illegal refugees from 6 communities coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. These 6 communities include; Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian, Jain, and Parsi.
Worth to mention that Illegal migrants can be imprisoned or deported under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920. These two Acts empower the central government to check the entry, exit and residence of foreigners within India.
The cut-off date for citizenship is December 31, 2014, which means the applicant should have intruded into India on or before this date.
The intruders or illegal immigrants are those who were “forced or compelled to take shelter in India due to persecution on the ground of their religion” in their native country. Hence the bill seek to remove the words "illegal immigrants".
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 1955 describes 5 conditions for obtaining citizenship of India, such as
1. Citizenship by Birth
2. Citizenship by Descent
3. Citizenship by Registration
4. Citizenship by Naturalization
5. Citizenship by incorporation of territory
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 1955 made it mandatory for a person to stay in India for at least 11 years to acquire citizenship naturally, which was later reduced to 6 years, but in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, this period reduced to 5 years.
Therefore the CAB will make all illegal immigrants easier to become citizens of India which will be detrimental to the genuine citizens. The Act will enable illegal immigrants to occupy land, take over commercial businesses, and cause more unemployment to the original citizens and indigenous people of the country. The Act will cause serious problems in border states like the North Eastern states where there is a large number of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This Act shows the weakness of the government to control illegal immigrants which is a major problem of many states of the country. The central government has not come up with a solution but adding more to the critical problem.