On the last day of last month August, a very controversial document, the final register of citizens, was released in Guwahati, Assam. It is important to have basic knowledge and background of NRC before proceeding further. NRC is The National Register Of Citizens maintained by the Government of India containing names and relevant information of all genuine Indian citizens. The register was first prepared in 1951 after the first Census of independent India and since then it has not been updated till recently.
The North-East Indian state of Assam becomes the first state in India where the tedious task of updating of the NRC was carried out. This move was very much awaited as the issue of identity has been a heated and central one in Assam. Assam had had a long-standing problem of illegal foreigners.
The Assamese had a coveted dream of living in an illegal foreigner free land. Natives have been strongly demanding ouster of outsiders since long. Assam has witnessed peaceful processions as well as terrible violence over this issue. Before the release of final register of citizens, there has never been a satisfactory answer to the problem of massive number of illegal immigrants residing in Assam. The state has suffered economically, culturally and politically due to the presence of massive number of illegal migrants. Assam has been a land of shifting borders. Even after independence states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland were carved out of greater Assam. Major trouble started after creation of Bangladesh in 1971 when a massive number of refugees entered Assam illegally, straining the natural resources, creating law and order problem and attacking the indigenous culture of Assam.
The final register of citizens published on August 31 is technically an updation of 1951 Assam NRC which was prepared on census of that year. Every person included in that census was also included in NRC. Since then demand for its updation was on rises. The current updation takes the cut off date to determine citizenship as March 24 (Midnight) 1971 (The start of Bangladesh war) set by Assam Accord of 1985. This is the cut off date agreed upon by centre, state and All Assam students' union after end of six-year movement against migration from Bangladesh. Those who came to Assam before this date, they are recognised as citizens.
A person residing in the present state of Assam is also eligible to get his or her name entered the register, if he submits to the registering authority any of the documents issued up to midnight on 24 March 1971 against his name or for his ancestor. In case of descendants, they further have to submit to the registering authority another document proving his blood relationship with a person whose name did appear in NRC, 1951 or in any of the Electoral Rolls.
The decision to fulfil the long awaited demand of updating of Assam NRC was taken at a tripartite meeting between the Centre, Assam government and AASU (All Assam state union) in May 2005. The Supreme Court got involved in 2009 after an NGO, Assam Public Works, filed a writ petition for the deletion of illegal migrants' names from voter lists. In June 2010, a pilot project was started in two blocks in Barpeta and Kamrup districts to fulfil the purpose but had to be abandoned due to large scale violence, law and order problem and political reasons.
Finally, the process of updating of NRC in the Assam started in full swing the year 2013, when the Supreme Court of India passed an order for its updation. Since then, the Supreme Court (bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Rohintan Fali Nariman) has been monitoring it continuously. Supreme Court of India has been holding time to time hearing on representations made to it by various interested parties & stakeholders.
The purpose of NRC update in Assam is to identify the illegal migrants residing in the state, who entered into it after midnight on 24 March 1971. A total of 3,30,27,661 (Around 33 million) people had applied to be included in NRC and out of this 19,06,657 people have been excluded. So around 2 million people are currently living in a state of fear because of lack of documents. Many of them have homes there in Assam, but they don't find their names on NRC as they couldn't submit relevant documents, proving their citizenship.
These 1.906 million people have been given 120 days to challenge the exclusion and to submit the documentary proof to foreign tribunals. If the person loses his case before foreign tribunal, they can appeal in the High Court and then supreme court. Someone who loses the case faces the possible arrest and prospect of being sent to detention centre. The Assam movement was for deportation of illegal migrants but Bangladesh never acknowledged officially that any of their citizens moved illegally to Assam. Assam currently has six detention camps for illegal migrants within existing jails. These however cannot accommodate all those excluded.
Even if not deported or detained in a camp, life won't be the same for the finally excluded individuals. They would officially be non-citizens, but India has no fixed policy for “stateless” persons. The only aspect that is clear is that a “stateless” person will not have voting rights. Nothing is clear about their rights to work, housing and government healthcare and education.
There is a difference between “stateless” and "refugee." India has been hosting refugees from Tibet, Sri Lanka (Tamils) and West Pakistan. Refugees from west Pakistan even have the right to vote -in Lok Sabha elections but not in Assembly polls. For Tibetans there are certain benefits under government schemes for labour, rations, housing and loans. But the stateless people have a totally uncertain future. However, On 3rd September 2019, a major opposition party in Bangladesh namely Bangladesh Nationalist Party expressed its view that the people excluded from the National Register of Citizens in Assam might be sent back to Bangladesh.
Also, it is important to know that as long as a person's claim is pending at a foreign tribunal, he won't be treated as a foreign illegal immigrant. Government has promised all help, including legal help as we cannot take a chance to exclude the genuine citizens of our nation.
However, the final register of citizens includes just half of the number of people who have been excluded from the final draft of NRC that was released last year. The draft rolls of NRC released in 2018 had excluded around 4 million people while the final register excludes just 1.9 million people. This number is not acceptable to many parties, though the reasons are different for each party. There are apprehensions that this NRC data is not genuine and accurate. According to various estimates a total of 5 million illegal immigrants are residing in Assam. In 1991, former Assam Chief Minister Hiteshwar Saikia had said that there are around 5 million illegal Bangladeshis residing in Assam.
Although NRC Assam has been meticulously planned but since it is an extremely sensitive, time-consuming, expensive and humongous complex task, certain loopholes cannot be denied in it. Strange instances have been reported in the media such that one sibling appears on NRC while other is missing. Name of soldiers serving out of Assam is missing. State machinery needs to fix it as soon as possible. Only a valid and accurate NRC will serve the purpose else it would be a harsh brutality towards sons of soil.
For this, purpose the porous border of Assam with neighbouring countries needs to be sealed. Borders are difficult to be sealed in Assam. One of the reasons is people lining in makeshift homes. Riveraine islands of Assam's Brahmaputra valley are inhabited by these people. After few years, when they are washed away by the river, they move to newer place. These people have been living like this for decades but it is difficult for them to produce documents.
NRC has a Hindu-Muslim angle too. Muslims of Bengali origin can be visibly identified from their looks. They are bearded and lungi clad. They are commonly known as Bangladeshis. There are migrants from Nepal too. But they don't have any visible identity markers. So they aren't perceived as forefingers by natives, but they too don't hail from the state of Assam. So NRC updation is a complex task and performing it in an objective and transparent manner is the need of the hour.
There is a set of people making a hue and cry over NRC, labelling it as a product of Xenophobia. They are trying to misguide people. Truth is that the exclusion rate in Muslim dominated areas is lessees. The demographic or district wise breakup of NRC Assam data shows that in districts close to the Bangladesh border, where share of Muslims in the population is high, the exclusion percentage was lower while in other areas it was comparatively higher. More exclusions have been reported from districts not on border but in Hojai and Darrang in central Assam. These areas are dominated by indigenous tribes and Bengali-speaking Hindus. So the allegations of "NRC out of Xenophobia" are baseless.
Updation of Assam NRC which forms a part of national NRC is a great move. It will form the basis for the detection of illegal immigrants, inclusion will be acted as a shield against harassment and a ticket to enjoying all the constitutional rights and the benefits of government schemes.
After release of Assam NRC, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh governments too, have pitched for implementation of National register of citizens in a phased manner. It would prove as a great move to secure the rights of natives and will reduce the unnecessary burden on our natural resources. It should be carried out in an objective and transparent manner.
Prashant Umrao
Prashant Umrao is an advocate practising at Supreme Court and Delhi High Court. He is a public speaker, writer and a Social Activist. He has been fighting against corruption and is instrumental in raising various social issues that have an impact on society through legal ways.
Petition against 21 AAP* MLA’s* holding an 'Office of Profit':
Prashant had filed a petition to President of India, requesting him to disqualify 21 Aam Aadmi Party MLA’s as they were appointed Parliamentary Secretaries. After this Delhi Government had passed a bill in assembly to keep away Parliamentary Secretary post from Office of Profit, but Lt. Governor refused to sign the bill as it was unconstitutional. Election Commission of India had issued a notice to the accused MLA’s on 16th March 2016 for holding OoP. After three long years of hearing at Election Commission where Prashant Patel argued against these MLAs, and rejoinders were filed. After the completion of the entire procedure, a recommendation to disqualify these AAP MLAs was sent to the President on 19th January 2018. The President accepted the recommendation & ordered to invalidate all these 20 MLAs on 21st January 2018. It got published in the Gazette of India.
(AAP*- Aam Aadmi Party. The ruling party of the Delhi State Government, 2015-20) (MLA*- Member of Legislative Assembly)
AMU* Food Matter For Non-Muslim Students:
There was 96 year old tradition in Aligarh Muslim University of not serving breakfast and lunch to non-muslims during Ramadan. Prashant Patel raised his voice against this tradition through social media and media, after this AMU was forced to stop this tradition, and now, food is served to non-Muslim students.
Prashant is accorded with National Changemakers Award 2018, ‘The Hero’s Award’ and ‘Swarajya Rakshak Samman’ for his exemplary services to the society and nation.
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He has been a radio producer (Earthstar Radio, San Francisco), organized and worked with the homeless, and is an advocate/activist in the nonviolent protest movement for safe energy, human rights, and peaceful solutions.
He is USA Vice President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association whose mission is to build a parallel world body to the United Nations, an emerging Earth Federation with a Provisional World Parliament under the Earth Constitution.
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First published at:
">Roger Kotila PhD Dr Gary G Kohls MD[/caption]
is a retired physician who practiced holistic, non-drug, mental health care for the last decade of his forty year family practice career. He is a contributor to and an endorser of the efforts of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and was a member of MindFreedom International, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
While running his independent clinic, he published over 400 issues of his Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter, which was emailed to a variety of subscribers. (They have not been archived at any website.) In the early 2000s, Dr Kohls taught a graduate level psychology course at the University of Minnesota Duluth. It was titled “The Science and Psychology of the Mind-Body Connection”.
Since his retirement, Dr Kohls has been writing a weekly column (titled “Duty to Warn”) for the Duluth Reader, an alternative newsweekly published in Duluth, Minnesota. He offers teaching seminars to the public and to healthcare professionals.
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">Gary G Kohls George Monbiot[/caption]
Studied in Oxford University, columnist with The Guardian newspaper, also the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed, No Man’s Land, How Did We Get into This Mess? Politics, Equality, Nature and other.
Prof Johan Galtung was born in Oslo. He earned the PhD degree in mathematics at the University of Oslo in 1956, and in 1957 a year later completed the PhD degree in sociology at the same university.
Prof Johan Galtung received nine honorary doctorates in the fields of Peace studies, Future studies, Social sciences, Buddhism, Sociology of law, Philosophy, Sociology and Law.
State Councilor of St. Petersburg, Russia. Founding President, Global Harmony Association (GHA) since 2005. Honorary President, GHA since 2016. Director: Tetrasociology Public Institute, Russia. Philosopher, Sociologist and Peacemaker from Harmony. Author of more than 400 scientific publications, including 18 books in 1-12 languages. Author of Tetrism as the unity of Tetraphilosophy and Tetrasociology – science of social harmony, global peace and harmonious civilisation. Director, GHA Web portal “Peace from Harmony”. Initiator, Manager, Coauthor and Editor in Chief of the book project “Global Peace Science” (GPS).
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First published at :
">Leo M SemashkoRobert C Koehler[/caption]
writes for the Huffington Post, Common Dreams, OpEd News and TruthOut. He considers himself a “peace journalist.” He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, Chicago. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Robert Koehler has received numerous writing and journalism awards over a 30-year career in USA. He writes about values and meaning with reverence for life. He is praised as “blatantly relevant” and “a hero of democracy”.
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First published at :
">Robert C KoehlerRobert J Burrowes PhD[/caption]
has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘
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">Robert J BurrowesProf Richard Falk[/caption]
an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author, co-author or editor of 40 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.
Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies, and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009).
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First published at :
">Richard FalkDr Gray Corseri, PhD[/caption]
is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. He has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including, TMS, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and Counterpunch.
He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.
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First published at :
">Gary CorseriAntonio Carlos Silva Rosa, Editor, TMS[/caption]
born 1946, is the editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, and Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
He completed the required coursework for a Ph.D. in Political Science-Peace Studies (1994), has a Masters in Political Science-International Relations (1990), and a B.A. in Communication (1988) from the University of Hawai’i.
Originally from Brazil, he lives presently in Porto, Portugal. Antonio was educated in the USA where he lived for 20 years; in Europe/India since 1994.
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First published at :
">Antonio Carlos Silva Rosa
John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist, Associate Professor Emeritus, at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is noted for his books and research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. His 2003 book Information Theory and Evolution set forth the view that the phenomenon of life, including its origin, evolution, as well as human cultural evolution, has its background situated in the fields of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory.
He is an Indian citizen & permanent resident of Australia and a scholar, an author, a social-policy critic, a frequent social wayfarer, a social entrepreneur and a journalist;He has been exploring, understanding and implementing the ideas of social-economy, participatory local governance, education, citizen-media, ground-journalism, rural-journalism, freedom of expression, bureaucratic accountability, tribal development, village development, reliefs & rehabilitation, village revival and other.
For Ground Report India editions, Vivek had been organising national or semi-national tours for exploring ground realities covering 5000 to 15000 kilometres in one or two months to establish Ground Report India, a constructive ground journalism platform with social accountability.
He has written a book “मानसिक, सामाजिक, आर्थिक स्वराज्य की ओर”on various social issues, development community practices, water, agriculture, his ground works & efforts and conditioning of thoughts & mind. Reviewers say it is a practical book which answers “What” “Why” “How” practically for the development and social solution in India.
worked as a mediator for the church in Belfast; as faculty at The School of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, and as Executive Director, the Right Livelihood Award Foundation. He has founded several Indian NGOs, is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.
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First published at -
">Vithal RajanRene Wadlow[/caption]
is the President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation on and problem-solving in economic and social issues.
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">Rene WadlowBaher Kamal[/caption]
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Baher Kamal
Egyptian-born, Spanish-national secular journalist. He is founder and publisher of Human Wrongs Watch. Kamal is a pro-peace, non-violence, human rights, coexistence defender, with more than 45 years of professional experience. With these issues in sight, he covered practically all professional posts, from correspondent to chief editor of dailies and international news agencies.
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Credits :
">Baher KamalRosa Dalmiglio with Lama Mongolia[/caption]
She is a member of the China Council Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe (special art, culture and humanity), which touches the hearts of all people and portrays the strong willpower so encouraging to 60 million Chinese disabled persons.
Ms. Dalmiglio is Intermediary Agent of CICE, Centre International Cultural Exchange, a direct subsidiary of the Ministry of Culture, People’s Republic of China. CICE is a comprehensive institution engaged in cultural exchange programs, professional publication and presentation of cultural art works such as exhibits, receiving foreign art troupes and artists, holding international cultural research programs, and producing intercultural and interreligious documentary films.
She is a member of China Disabled Person’s Federation, CDPF. She is also a member of the International Women Federation, which is concerned with the financial ethics of women s enterprises in underdeveloped areas.
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credits:
">Rosa Dalmiglio
Director, Guru Arjan Dev Institute of Development Studies.
A recipient of Cultural Doctorate of Philosophy of Economics from USA. He is an active member of various professional bodies, namely -
He participated and presented papers in various International/national/regional seminars, conferences etc.. He remained member of the Academic Council of Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar. An unwearied researcher has about 200 research papers published in various international and national journals of repute and 15 research monographs to his kitty. Besides, he has authored/co-authored /edited 15 books which have been well received and highly acclaimed during his three decades of professional career. He was honoured by various national and international awards, namely, Guru Draunacharya Samman, Vijay Rattan Award and so on.
Dr Ron Paul served in U.S. House of Representatives three different periods: first from 1976 to 1977, after he won a special election, then from 1979 to 1985, and finally from 1997 to 2013.
During his first term as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul founded the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE), a non-profit think tank dedicated to promoting principles of limited government and free-market economics. In 1984, Paul became the first chairman of the Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), a conservative political group founded by Charles Koch and David Koch 'to fight for less government, lower taxes, and less regulation.' CSE started a Tea Party protest against high taxes in 2002. In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy split into two new organizations, with Citizens for a Sound Economy being renamed as FreedomWorks, and Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation becoming Americans for Prosperity. The two organizations would become key players in the Tea Party movement from 2009 onward.
Dr Paul proposed term-limit legislation multiple times, while himself serving a few terms in the House of Representatives. In 1984, he decided to retire from the House in order to run for the U.S. Senate, complaining in his House farewell address that 'Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare.... It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic.'
He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry.
In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and popular pieces.
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Credits:
">Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.Jason Hickel[/caption]
He is international consultant of the UN – FAO and international consultant for sustainable development and sustainable future of humankind of Universal State of the Earth - USE.
On 8th October 2016 he was appointed as The Chairman of the Humanity, Nature, Space and Environment protection Committee of the USE, the Supreme Council of Humanity - SCH from Athens, Greece and London, UK.
He is researcher working on: Nature; the Nature, Space and Environment protection; the Climate change system; System thinking; Globalization and global studies; Networking, Complexity and Swarm research: Sustainable Development and Sustainable Future of Humankind. He was among the pioneers researchers (1986 – 1994) to apply nature, space, and environment protection in a local community by activities we call today Local Agenda 21 Processes – a holistic program for survival of our civilization under new challenges of the third millennium.“Commencing from Local Community Sustainable Future and moving towards Sustainable Future of the Global Community of Humankind”.
He is independent researchers with many domestic and international publications and talks. Together with many researchers in co-operation worldwide within philosophy, operational research, global studies, case studies and complex problem solving research, system thinking, requisitely holism, networking and complexity, swarm research, integration and disintegration of matter and energy and universal upbringing, education and lifelong learning. He is contributing a systemic, requisitely holistic and a better understanding of the present. His latest research within the system theory, system thinking, networking, complexity and swarm research may provide a possible answer enabling people to better understand our world of humans.
During 2014 he completed 50 years of research work (1964 - 2014). This year he completed 50 years of been Dr. Vet. Med. Since 1986 he worked on the protection of Humanity, Nature, Space and Environment and completed 30 years of research.
For research on the climate change system and the book “System Thinking and Climate Change System (Against a big “Tragedy of Commons” of all of us), Ecimovic, Mayur, Mulej and co-authors, 2002, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize 2003. His work on “The Information Theory of Nature” was his second nomination for The Nobel Prize during 2007 in Physics. His third nomination for The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 was for “The Environment Theory of the Nature”, published in the book “Three Applications of the System Thinking”, Ecimovic, 2010. Within last 10 years he has contributed trilogies: “The Nature”, “The Sustainable Future of Mankind” and “The Life 2017” – please see at: www.institut-climatechange.si
I grew up in Chile, got my medical degree there, began an academic career in 1970, and left for the USA due to the military coup in early 1974. My first job in the USA was working as a public nutrition professor in the international programme of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
I started to travel to Africa in 1975, and worked a year in Cameroun in 1980 helping to prepare their five-year nutrition plan. I then moved to New Orleans, to Tulane University’s School of Public Health, and taught in the department of nutrition for ten years, before moving to Nairobi where I was an advisor in the Ministry of Health. Seven years there got me into extensive consulting in Africa, often on nutritional issues. In 1995 moved to Vietnam where I worked for two and a half years in the Ministry of Health as a senior primary health care advisor.
Many years of touching the reality on the ground, in Latin America, then the USA, then Africa and Asia, has made me understand that the real challenge is in the social and political determinants of malnutrition. I have devoted my writings and teaching to that. Over the years, I have found an important shift in my colleagues’ attitude and understanding towards acknowledging the basic causes of malnutrition. But yet I see little happening as a result. I submit that it is our guild’s lack of experience in the political arena that explains this dichotomy. I devote much of my energy to bridge this gap, and am a fervent advocate of empowering claim holders to demand needed changes from duty bearers. Nutrition is a perfect port of entry for that. Equity, social justice and people’s empowerment in a human rights sense is what really will make a difference.
There is no alternative but to deal with nutrition problems as indivisibly linked to social, political and environmental problems. We need to address them as such. The question is: are we all prepared to do that? The answer, in my view, decides whether we are part of the solution or part of the problem. Travelling and living in different parts of the world has reinforced my conviction that we need to get down from our academic ivory towers, and need to change the curricula of our young and upcoming colleagues, to give them the tools to act in such a context. To me, public health nutrition cannot be anything but that.
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">Claudio Schuftan Dr MDProf. Ram Puniyani[/caption]
Highratedmaan
September 28, 2019 @ 10:06 PM
Excellent Article