India Implements Citizenship Law Opposed by Muslims

A supporter of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) holds a placard during a protest rally against a new citizenship law, in Kochi, India, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)
A supporter of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) holds a placard during a protest rally against a new citizenship law, in Kochi, India, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)
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India Implements Citizenship Law Opposed by Muslims

A supporter of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) holds a placard during a protest rally against a new citizenship law, in Kochi, India, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)
A supporter of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) holds a placard during a protest rally against a new citizenship law, in Kochi, India, March 12, 2024. (Reuters)

India moved on Monday to implement a 2019 citizenship law that has been criticized by human rights activists as discriminating against Muslims, weeks before general elections take place in April and May.

The Interior Ministry said eligible people could apply from Monday for Indian citizenship through an online portal.

Passed by parliamentarians in December 2019, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) makes it easier for religious minorities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan to get citizenship in India. It grants Indian nationality to refugees who are Hindu, Christian, Parsi, Jain or Buddhist, but not Muslim.

The new law is considered an amendment act of the 1955 Citizenship Act, which prohibits illegal migrants from acquiring Indian citizenship.

Opponents of the law and rights groups say the new law is exclusionary and violates the secular principles enshrined in the constitution.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said the Act is fundamentally discriminatory in nature and in breach of India's international human rights obligations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government did not implement the law following its December 2019 enactment as protests and sectarian violence broke out in New Delhi and elsewhere. More than 100 were killed and hundreds injured during days of clashes.

Human rights activists say the new law is part of the Hindu nationalists to marginalize India's Muslim minority.

Also, residents in the northeast of India, a region with frequent inter-communal clashes and sensitive immigration issues, fear that the new Act will facilitate the arrival of Hindu migrants from the Bangladesh border.

Rights groups also fear that the law, combined with a proposed national register of citizens, might remove the citizenship of Muslims without documents in some border states.

The National Register of Citizens would require people to prove their citizenship by showing family documents going back decades. Critics say the new citizenship law will help protect non-Muslims who are excluded from the register, while Muslims could face the threat of deportation or internment.

In a speech delivered in December 2019, Modi said Muslims “don't need to worry at all” provided they are genuine Indians. He also said that there had been “no discussion” about a nationwide register of citizens, which many Muslims in India fear is targeted mainly at them.

The new law does not provide a route to citizenship for people who've fled persecution in non-Muslim majority nations, such as Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka or Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, of whom there are many thousands in India.

The ruling party promised in their 2019 national election manifesto to pass the CAA.

The main opposition Congress party said Monday's announcement was motivated by the approaching election.

“After seeking nine extensions for the notification of the rules, the timing right before the elections is evidently designed to polarize the elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam,” Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said on X.

Authorities said protests broke out in the eastern state of Assam and the southern state of Tamil Nadu late Monday after the law was announced. There were no reports of damage or any clashes with security forces.



Russia Says Last Ukrainian Troops Expelled from Kursk Region, Kyiv Denies Assertion

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
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Russia Says Last Ukrainian Troops Expelled from Kursk Region, Kyiv Denies Assertion

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a videoconference meeting with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow, Russia, 26 April 2025, to receive a report on the completion of a military operation to liberate Russia's Kursk region from Ukrainian forces. (EPA/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik/Kremlin)

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed on Saturday what he said was the complete failure of an offensive by Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region after Moscow said they had been expelled from the last village they had been holding.

Russia also confirmed for the first time that North Korean soldiers have been fighting alongside Russian troops in Kursk, with the chief of the military General Staff praising their "heroism" in helping to drive out the Ukrainians.

However, Kyiv denied that its forces had been expelled from Kursk and said they were also still operating in Belgorod, another Russian region bordering Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces seized a swathe of territory in Kursk region last August in a surprise incursion that embarrassed Putin. Russian forces, later reinforced by North Korean troops, have been trying ever since to drive them out.

Putin, speaking amid intensified diplomatic efforts by the Trump administration to end the Ukraine conflict, said the expulsion of Ukrainian forces from Russian soil opened the way for further Russian successes inside Ukraine.

"The Kyiv regime's adventure has completely failed," Putin said in video footage released by the Kremlin that showed him receiving a report from the head of Russia's general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

"The full defeat of the enemy in the Kursk border region creates conditions for further successful actions by our forces on other important parts of the front," Putin added.

Gerasimov told Putin that the last occupied settlement in the Kursk region, the village of Gornal, had been "liberated from Ukrainian units" on Saturday.

"Thus, the defeat of the armed formations of the Ukrainian armed forces that had invaded the Kursk region has been completed," Gerasimov said.

The Ukrainian military, in a statement later posted on social media platform Telegram, said its forces were continuing their operations in some districts of Kursk region.

Ukraine also denied Gerasimov's assertion that all Ukrainian "sabotage groups" had been "liquidated" in Belgorod region, where Kyiv's forces launched an incursion last month.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield assertions of either side.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the armed forces were now helping authorities in the Kursk region to restore "peaceful life" and to remove mines planted there.

NORTH KOREANS

Gerasimov praised the North Korean officers and soldiers' contribution in Kursk, saying they had shown "high professionalism, fortitude, courage and heroism", fulfilling combat tasks "shoulder to shoulder" with Russian servicemen.

North Korea sent an estimated total of 14,000 troops, including 3,000 reinforcements to replace its losses, Ukrainian officials said. Lacking armored vehicles and drone warfare experience, they took heavy casualties but adapted quickly.

Russia had previously neither confirmed nor denied the presence of North Korean troops in Kursk.

Russia's military cooperation with North Korea has grown rapidly since Moscow became internationally isolated after invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Kyiv says North Korea has supplied Russia with vast amounts of artillery shells as well as rocket systems, thousands of troops and ballistic missiles, which Moscow began using for strikes against Ukraine at the end of 2023.

Russia and North Korea have denied weapons transfers, which would violate UN embargoes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had hoped his forces' seizure of Russian territory would give him a bargaining chip in any future talks to end the war in his country.

Zelenskiy held what the White House described as a "very productive" meeting with US President Donald Trump on Saturday in Rome, where both leaders were attending the funeral of Pope Francis.

Trump is pressuring Zelenskiy to agree to give up some Ukrainian territory to help end the three-year war that has caused large-scale casualties and devastation in cities, towns and villages across Ukraine.