The Bharatiya Janata Party president also accused successive Congress government's of having alienated the region from the rest of the country.
'I am aware of the problems and difficulties faced by many during the NRC process but I assure you that no injustice will be done to any genuine Indian citizens'
Gandhi said that the basic idea of these exercises is to ask all poor people whether they are Indian or not. He also said that PM's 15 friends will not have to show any document and the money generated will go into the pockets of those 15 people.
Two people, one legally assisting the affected people because of their exclusion from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and another whose relative has been declared a 'foreigner' by the quasi-judicial Foreigners' Tribunal (FT), talk to Rediff.com about the issues on the ground that people excluded from the NRC are facing and how it can turn into a long-drawn legal process.
In a statement issued on Monday, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom said that it was deeply troubled over the passage of the bill in Lok Sabha.
She also raised the issue of the state's renaming and invited Modi to Bengal.
Misuse of the Article 370 is the root cause of cross-border terrorism, he said.
Filmmakers Farhan Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap and Aditi Rao Hydari were among the prominent faces from the Hindi film industry to join the public protesting against the Citizenship Act at Mumbai's August Kranti Maidan on Thursday. The gathering included workers of political parties, students and also a smattering of Bollywood personalities, who made out a strong case against the Act and the National Register of Citizens.
It is going to be a rough and brutal 2020 for India as its government pushes on with its ideological agenda, and the citizens do whatever they can to protect themselves, notes Aakar Patel.
The MP from Thiruvananthapuram was taking a dig at the BJP president for holding the Congress responsible for India's partition on religious lines. Tharoor said, in fact, it was the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League who were espousing the two-nation theory.
'We want to protect our history, we want to protect our people from getting overwhelmed by the influx from Bangladesh, that is why the people of Assam are out in the streets,' says former Assam chief minister and Asom Gana Parishad leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta.
The BJP which stormed into Mamata Banerjee's fortress earlier this year by bagging 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats faced immense flak when the final NRC in Assam left out Bengali Hindus in large numbers.
All that happened in India in the past week, in photos.
The explosion took place at a construction material dump in the Pan Bazar area when the four passersby, including a woman, were injured around 11.45 am, the sources said.
Over 300 eminent personalities from the creative and scholarly community of India, including actor Naseeruddin Shah, filmmaker Mira Nair, vocalist TM Krishna, author Amitav Ghosh and historian Romila Thapar have expressed solidarity with the students and others protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens. Writers Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, actors Ratna Patak Shah, Jaaved Jafferi, Nandita Das, Lillete Dubey, sociologist Ashis Nandy, activists Sohail Hashmi and Shabnam Hashmi were also among the signatories.
CM Amarinder Singh said the Centre would have to make the necessary amendments to the CAA if it had to be implemented in Punjab and other states opposing it. He also made it clear that the census in Punjab would be conducted on the old parameters and the new factors added by the Centre for the purpose of the NPR would not be included.
Government sources had claimed on Tuesday that four persons have committed suicide in fear of NRC so far, while four others had died while waiting in queues to procure the requisite papers.
It will be presented in the Lok Sabha next week in its original form.
The BJP's remarks came a day after the Congress leaders, led by Sonia Gandhi, met President Ram Nath Kovind and submitted a memorandum demanding resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah for "abdication of duty" during the communal violence in northeast Delhi. She had also reminded the Centre for its 'rajdharma' and protecting the people from all faiths in the country.
Many political experts believe that the extent of protests has put the government on the defensive and highlighted its unpreparedness.
'To treat a Hindu fleeing persecution and certain death in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan on par with a Muslim voluntarily sneaking into India for economic reasons or otherwise is callously cruel, blatantly perverse and grossly unjust.' 'The concept of equality cannot be invoked to perpetuate a historical wrong that needs to be righted,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
The Supreme Court has directed the Centre to complete fencing work along the Indo-Bangla border within three months to check cross-border influx of illegal Bangladesh nationals into Assam and streamline the process to deport them back.
The modern world will not accommodate bigotry of the sort India is showing the world today, argues Aakar Patel.
The foreign minister said he has other engagements in Bangladesh while the home minister cancelled the visit due to ongoing protests against CAB.
Students' organisations and political parties are participating in the bandh to protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill would possibly be the first piece of legislation that is perniciously discriminatory on the basis of religion/faith, says Mohammad Sajjad.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said there is no alternative to the Trinamool Congress, and no other party can take its place in the state.
Replying to the debate in Rajya Sabha on a motion thanking the president for his address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament, he said for the first time in decades, people of Jammu and Kashmir got benefits of reservation.
'Why is the RSS trying to destroy the indigenous culture of Assam and its language?' 'If these migrants settle in Assam, they will overwhelm the 47 per cent of people who speak Assamese.'
'We have done majoritarianism through other means.' 'The Citizenship Amendment Act, read together with the National Register of Citizens, will prove what I mean,' notes Aakar Patel.
Shah said police used force as the protesters indulged in violence, set blaze vehicles. He also said the NRC was not a religion-based exercise.
The bill to restore the original provisions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, acceding to a key demand of Dalit groups ahead of their call for a 'Bharat Bandh' on August 9.
A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said that nearly two years have passed and the possibility of retrieving electronic records is very less in the probe.
'As a nation we are tearing ourselves apart through decisions we have deliberately chosen to take,' argues Aakar Patel.
During the proceedings, counsel for Imam said, "From the impugned speech, there is nothing which per se causes any kind of religious animosity. We cannot lose sight of the context. What Sharjeel Imam says, in relation to CAA-NRC, is that in much as it affects one community directly, what kind of support is to be elicited from the majority community."
The pacts signed after Modi-Hasina talks provided for deeper cooperation between the two countries in areas of water resources, youth affairs, culture, education and coastal surveillance.
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
The bench said it will hear petitions pertaining to Assam and Tripura separately as the problem with CAA in these two states is different from rest of the country.
The plea filed by NGO Association for Protection of Civil Rights and others also sought a direction to the Centre to refrain from preparing the National Register of Citizens.
As we wave goodbye to 2019, we look back at the highlights of the year, in the numbers that made it memorable.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances