Protests continue in Assam, particularly the Brahmaputra Valley, and Tripura, where the locals fear the legislation will legalise Bangla-speaking Hindu Bengalis whose rising numbers will threaten the local language and culture.
“The states have no powers to deny implementation of a central law which is in the Union List,” the top official from the home ministry said.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 passed by Lok Sabha on Monday and Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, proposes to accord citizenship to illegal Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jains, Parsis and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The Bill allows individuals to approach the adjudicating officer under the independent regulator (the Data Protection Authority) to restrict or delete personal content that meets certain predefined criteria. The EU, meanwhile, puts the onus on the user to reach out to data controllers of companies such as Google and Facebook to delete such content.
“This symbol is our national flower and is part of the enhanced security features to identify fake passports. Apart from lotus, other national symbols will be used on rotation. Symbols are connected with India,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a weekly briefing.
India, for the first time, ranks among the top 10 in this year’s Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) presented on Tuesday at the COP25 climate summit here.
The Bill seeks to enhance the punishment for existing offences like illegal manufacture, sale, transfer, etc.; illegally acquiring, possessing or carrying prohibited arms or prohibited ammunition; and illegal manufacture, sale, transfer, conversion, import, export, etc., of firearms.
The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday and will now go to the Rashtrapati Bhavan for President Ram Nath Kovind’s assent.
Claimed to be a first-of-its-kind initiative in India, the department will make the information available on its official website. “These state-protected monuments include palaces, forts, heritage buildings, inscriptions, archaeological sites, temples, mosques, and dargahs. Monuments located in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Kalaburagi and Belagavi divisions will be included in this project,” an official said.
Raising slogans like ‘Pakistan is Taliban’, ‘Pakistan a terror state’, and ‘Where was (Osama) Bin Laden’, the protestors demanded Pakistan be declared a state sponsor of terrorism.
