Government is preparing the National Population Register incorporating all genuine Indian citizens and will give them national identity cards in a time bound manner.
The Supreme Court of India resumed hearing petitions challenging the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, addressing the use of Aadhaar and concerns about voter deletions.
'40 percent of voters in Bihar will be excluded.'
'The Election Commission is conducting the National Register of Citizens in Bihar through the backdoor.'
Here is all you need to know about the National Population Register and worries over its links with NRC.
'If this is true, the Election Commission should come forward with data and officially confirm it.'
'The EC should not have let the initiative go into the hands of the political leadership. By allowing this to happen, they have opened a Pandora's box.'
For the purpose of NPR, a usual resident is defined as a person who has resided in a local area for past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.
The Centre has said that on-site registration for COVID-19 inoculation for healthcare and frontline workers aged 18 to 44 years will now only be available at government COVID vaccination centres.
Applicants for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) can submit any of nine documents, including valid or expired passport, ID cards and land tenancy records, to prove he or she is a national of Afghanistan or Bangladesh or Pakistan.
A form carrying questions as part of the NPR exercise will be finalised soon, ministry officials said. The information available on the website of the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, however, says the NPR database would contain demographic as well as biometric details.
Seeking to allay citizenship concerns of a large number of people, government sources said on Thursday that one can prove Indian nationality by submitting any document related to his date of birth and its place, and there will be "absolutely no compulsion" to submit any document by his parents during any such exercise. An explainer shared by official sources said no document will be required for anybody's pre-1971 genealogy as such a condition was specific to the NRC exercise in Assam and asserted that it will be sufficient to provide one's details of birth like date and place in any future nationwide NRC.
Tthe government has decided to update the National Population Register under the Citizenship Act, 1955, along with the first phase of Census 2021.
Declaring a man Indian citizen, the tribunal in Karimganj district held that though National Identity Cards are yet to be issued, 'but there is no doubt that this NRC Assam published in 2019 is nothing but Final NRC'.
Discussions are going on at the highest level of the government and in all probability, the NPR and house listing phase of the Census work will be deferred till the threat of the Coronavirus is over, a home ministry official said.
'This updated NPR database along with Aadhaar Number would become the mother database and can be used by various government departments...' the home ministry declared in July 2015. 'UID/Aadhaar has been used as a fish bait to ensnare and entrap present and future generations of citizens,' warns Gopal Krishna.
Amidst strong opposition by some non-BJP ruled states, the Centre on Tuesday made it clear that the disclosure of information in the National Population Register (NPR) exercise is not mandatory but voluntary.
In a notification, the Registrar General of India said the decision has been taken as the exercise to enumerate citizens in the NRC, a list of Assam's residents, could not be completed within the specified date of June 30.
The Centre on Tuesday said it was discussing with state governments the preparations for updating the National Population Register from April 1 to September 30. Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said in the Lok Sabha that no document will be collected during the exercise, which will be carried out along with the house-listing phase of Census 2021.
The final list of the NRC will be published on August 31.
'The COVID-19 threat is still looming large. The census and NPR are not in the priority list of the government as of now'
As India gears up to vaccinate people above 60 years of age and those over 45 years with comorbidities against COVID-19 from March 1, the Union health ministry on Friday said the facility of on-site registrations will be available so that eligible beneficiaries can walk into identified vaccination centres, get themselves registered and get inoculated.
The draft NRC was published on July 30 and included the names of 2.9 crore people out of the total 3.29 crore applications. There has been a huge controversy over the exclusion of 40 lakh people from the draft NRC.
Rajasthan Chief Secretary D B Gupta said he and the representatives of a few other states raised objections to a few questions to be asked by enumerators during the NPR exercise. He said the central government officials told them that answers to all such questions are not mandatory.
The final NRC, unique to Assam, will be published on August 31.
In the 'supplementary list' of the NRC, over 10,000 names were either wrongly included or excluded and necessary orders have been issued to delete nearly 4,800 'ineligible persons' from the document, state coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma said in an affidavit to the high court.
The MHA put out a set of FAQs on the Act, seeking to counter a 'misinformation campaign'. It said the Act doesn't have anything to do with the deportation of any foreigner in India.
'At a time when the economic situation in the country warrants the closest attention of the government, India can ill afford a situation where the citizenry and the government enter into confrontation on the roads'
Twenty-four pages of a 39-page dossier prepared by India are devoted to the photographs and Google Maps locations of Naved's residence.
The linking of biometric UID/Aadhaar number to all public services makes "We, the People of India" worse than slaves, says Gopal Krishna.
The officials said Pakistani intelligence operatives have adopted the modus operandi of investing in illegal call exchanges that switch Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls to normal Indian mobile calls.
The man's Indian citizenship was denied on the ground of discrepancy in the name of his grandfather.
Admittedly, EVMs too have a UID number and any convergence of data can make the secret ballot system a party of history, warns Dr Gopal Krishna in the 5th part of his series against Aadhaar.
The HMO said it will amend the rules to increase the time limit of filing of appeals in foreigners tribunals from 60 to 120 days for those who would be excluded from the final NRC.
On compilation of six crucial documents, it was found that around two lakh of them from one crore were forged.
The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach the marginalised sections of the society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from personal but also from community point of view.
'Biometric Aadhaar-based surveillance is not only about violation of privacy, but also about the treasure hunt for unprecedented financial surveillance and economic intelligence in the economic history of mankind,' asks Gopal Krishna.
'The attempt to make Aadhaar mandatory has now emerged as an act of bullying by government agencies, turning citizens into subjects by making fundamental rights conditional on biometric identification,' says Gopal Krishna.
'All these people want is a secure home where they can live and earn in peace.'
'Alas, in this scheme there is nothing to stop the black money flows of the future.' 'On the contrary Modi has sown the seeds of more, through the issue of Rs 2,000 notes.' 'But have you heard one politician decrying this aspect of the scheme?' 'They must be secretly rejoicing that while Modi is taking away their past, he has not shut the door on their future,' says banker S Muralidharan.
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