Episode 956
Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019
Mon, 2019-Dec-16 14:02 UTC
Length - 3:22
Direct Link
Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a popular Wikipedia page every day.
With 288,265 views on Saturday, 14 December 2019 our article of the day is Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 of the Parliament of India amended the Citizenship Act of 1955 providing a path to Indian citizenship for religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The intended religious minorities were explicitly listed as
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, raising concerns that Muslims were being marginalised. The beneficiaries had to have entered India on or before 31 December 2014, and should have faced "religious persecution or fear of religious persecution" in their countries of origin. The Act also relaxed residence requirement for naturalization from 11 years to 5 years for these migrants. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party promised in its 2014 election manifesto to provide a natural home for persecuted Hindu refugees. The travails of such refugees have since been reported in the news media. In 2015, the government passed orders legalising such refugees irrespective of their travel documents and granting them long-term visas. Over 30,000 migrants have availed of these facilites according to the Intelligence Bureau, who are now expected to be the immediate beneficiaries of the amended Citizenship Act. The Amendment Act faced widespread criticism in India and abroad for being violative of the secular Constitution of India and its promise of equality under Article 14.
A petition opposing the bill was signed by over 1,000 Indian scientists and scholars. The Act was also criticized by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Some critics of the Act believe it legalizes religious discrimination. The passage of the Act caused protests in India. Muslim groups and secular groups have protested alleging religious discrimination. The people of Assam and other northeastern states continue to protest fearing that the non-Muslim illegal immigrants in their regions would be allowed to stay. There has also been concern raised at the lack of inclusion of several Non-Muslim countries around India, such as Sri Lanka, over whom Shiv Sena and several religious figures have raised concern over the citizenship status of Tamil-speaking Hindus who were allowed to legally settle in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu due to previous discrimination on the island, and Nepal and Bhutan, the latter of which is accused of discriminating against Hindus through a Buddhist-only society. Tibetans refugees from China are also excluded from the bill despite being an ongoing concern.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 14:02 UTC on Monday, 16 December 2019.
For the full current version of the article, see Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 on Wikipedia.
This podcast is produced by Abulsme Productions based on Wikipedia content and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Visit wikioftheday.com for our archives, sister podcasts, and swag. Please subscribe to never miss an episode. You can also follow @WotDpod on Twitter.
Abulsme Productions produces the current events podcast Curmudgeon's Corner as well. Check it out in your podcast player of choice.
This has been Joanna. Thank you for listening to popular Wiki of the Day.
|
|
Buy WotD Stuff!!
