CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT (CAA), 2019

 The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019has been passed by the Parliament,

with the Rajya Sabha approving it on Dec 11, 2019. 125 members supported
the legislation while 105 opposed parties while approving the Bill.

 The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on December 9, 2019, 311 members
had voted in its favour and 80 memebers opposed it.

 The Bill amends the citizenship Act, 1955 to make illegal migrants of six
coomunities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible for Indian
citizenship . The communities are Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains.

 The Bill seeks to relax the requirement of residence in India for citizenship by
naturalisation from 11 years to 5 years for parsons belonging to the same six
religions and the three countries.

 These provisions of the Bill will not apply on the tribal areas of Assam,
Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura included in the sixth schedule of the
constitution as well as the areas which are regulated through the Inner Line
Permit regime, which includes Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and
Nagaland.The inclusion of Manipur in Inner Line Permit was also announced
on Dec 10, 2019.

 Only those migrants from the aforesaid countries will be eligible for Indian
citizenship who entered Indian on or before December 31, 2014.

 The President accorded his assent to the bill on December 12, 2019. CAB
now bcome CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act).

 Provision of giving citizenship of India on the basis of the citizenship of mother

was introduced in 1992 (Indian Citizenship Amendment Act, 1992).