Tora Agarwala

In Assam, citizenship is traced by descent, which means that to be considered an Indian citizen in the state, it is imperative that they link their identity to that of a pre-1971 ancestor.

According to Sarma, students who attend “maktab” schools later face difficulties during high school admission processes.

In the drug-ravaged district of Tuensang, Chingmak Kejong and Phutoli Shikhu have not only built roads and health care centres, rehabilitated drug addicts and treated HIV-patients, but created a lasting atmosphere of hope, love and trust.

The status of 3.3 crore applicants to the Assam NRC — published on August 31, 2019 — was inaccessible due to non-renewal of IT Services Contract with Wipro, the company which looks after the online NRC data.

The “ineligible persons”, the official memo said, particularly referred to “Doubtful Voters (DV), Declared Foreigner (DF), descendants of Doubtful Voters and Declared Foreigners (DVD, DFD) and those with cases pending in Foreigners’ Tribunal (PFT)”.

Sources said there is unease in the central government over the report because the committee is learnt to have recommended a 1951 cut-off date to define “Assamese” people, and has also suggested an Inner Line Permit regime for the state.

BJP’s Alok Ghose said he was determined to make this work, with or without the government’s help. “We will raise funds and collect donations if need be,” said Ghose, who has been Chairman of the ALMDB since 2018.

Jabeda Begum submitted as many as 15 documents to back her claim of citizenship after being declared “a foreigner of post-1971 stream” by a Foreigners Tribunal in May 2019 but they were rejected by the Gauhati High Court.

On February 8, Assam University – a Central university established in 1994 in Silchar — rusticated Milan Das, a research scholar of the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, for two years.

Since the publication of the final list, which excluded 19 lakh people, five FIRs have been filed against Prateek Hajela, accusing him of allegedly tampering with NRC data and misappropriating funds.

As the narrative moves on to CAA and a possible nation-wide NRC, the Assam list hangs in a limbo. So does the fate of children out of it. The Centre has assured the Supreme Court, Parliament that such children, whose parents are on the list, won’t be taken to detention centres. But that hasn’t lessened their dread, of being sent away to “a place called Bangladesh”.

Hajela, now posted in Bhopal, has been booked in another FIR following a complaint by Assam Public Works, the NGO which originally petitioned the Supreme Court about the NRC updation.

The Assam government has proposed a census of four Muslim groups. Who are these groups, seen as indigenous, and who are the other Muslims left out of the census? The history and the emerging debate.

Morphological and genetic studies are underway to determine what could possibly be the world’s largest subterranean fish — an almost-blind species that seems similar to the Golden Mahseer

“We have decided this because teaching Arabic, or some other language, or any religious text for that matter, is not the responsibility of the government,” said Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Wipro Limited says IT Services Contract was not renewed by the authorities upon its expiry in October 2019.

With Assam facing vehement opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which people believe poses a threat to their indigenous identity, the central government is now trying to pitch Clause 6 of Assam Accord as a balm to soothe the anger.

"This was proposed because there is a lot of controversy around the term ‘khilonjiya’ or 'indigenous'," said Assam’s Welfare of Minorities Minister Ranjit Dutta

“It has been five-six months that he left for UK. I last spoke to him on January 26. And his mother had spoken to him on February 8 —according to her account, he sounded normal then,” said D Pul, his step mother, “However, we do not not know what happened.”