Ahead of the announcement of dates for the Lok Sabha (LS) elections by the Election Commission of India, the Centre on Tuesday notified the rules for implementing the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), four years and three months after Parliament passed it on December 11, 2019. The law will enable the government to grant Indian nationality to persecuted religious minorities — Hindus, Jains, Parsis, Christians, Buddhists, and Sikhs — from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who had come to India until December 31, 2014. According to officials, the CAA’s avowed objectives are to remove legal barriers to the rehabilitation and acquisition of Indian citizenship for migrants, which would help protect their cultural, linguistic, and social identity. The law will also ensure economic, commercial, free movement, and property purchase rights for these migrants.
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