India has spoken to international community on CAA, NRC: Govt

MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar mentioned five points that have been emphasised in India’s messages to the international community.

“We emphasised that the matter is internal to India. We also asked them (missions) to convey that the Act just provides expedited consideration for Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities already in India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh,” he said.

India, he said, has further said that the new law “will not affect the existing avenues which are available to other communities to seek citizenship”. The MEA spokesperson added that the law “does not seek to strip anybody of citizenship” and that the CAA “does not alter the basic structure of the Constitution”.

Regarding NRC, Kumar said India had said in its briefing to the countries that CAA and NRC are not related.

“We have said that NRC is a Supreme Court-mandated process, this is our internal matter. What we are doing is directed by the Supreme Court, mandated by the Supreme Court and monitored by the Supreme Court,” he said, referring to the NRC in Assam.

Exuding confidence that the international community has understood India’s perspective, Kumar said, “If you notice the reaction which we have received from across the world, barring a few countries, we feel most of the countries have accepted that this is an internal matter of India and that is what is getting reflected in their reactions and their pronouncements.”

The Indian Express had reported on December 30 that though diplomats have publicly maintained that the CAA is an “internal issue”, ambassadors and diplomats from at least 16 countries that The Indian Express spoke to had expressed “concern” at the situation on the new law and the protests against it.

MEA: India, Japan in touch for Modi-Abe meet, dates out soon

New Delhi: The MEA said on Thursday that it is in touch with Japan to decide the new dates for the summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe. The summit was postponed in December owing to protests against the new citizenship law. The MEA said the two countries are in contact through diplomatic channels and new dates for the annual summit will be decided “very soon”.  —ENS