(Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said it will start building a comprehensive identity database of all those living in India, amid a growing public uproar over the administration’s move to grant citizenship to undocumented migrants based on religion. The plan to create a National Population Register has been criticized by the opposition as a precursor to countrywide citizens register that, along with a new citizenship law, is driving angry protests across India. The government allotted 130 billion rupees ($1.8 billion) to the population register, which will be part of India’s census exercise to be carried out between April to September 2020, the minister said. Taken together the citizenship register and the new law are seen as a way for Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to discriminate against India’s Muslim minority. The National Population Register, which is tied to India’s census exercise, is the first step toward a nationwide citizens register, according to a government statement by the previous Congress-led government in 2012.

Source: National Post December 24, 2019 14:17 UTC