Citizenship acquiring process eased

The Council of Ministers has passed a bill to make acquiring citizenship more convenient to those who have been facing difficulties obtaining one.
The meeting of the cabinet held at the prime minister's residence at Baluwatar on Wednesday decided to move ahead the process to provide Nepali citizenship to those who have been residing in Nepal until the second week of April 1990 and for those having any written evidence of being a Nepali.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Civil Aviation Pradip Gyawali said that the government passed the bill to ease the citizenship acquiring process.
"To end the citizenship crisis permanently, the government, in the new bill, has amended the existing Citizenship Act adding some provisions to punish any illegal acquirement of one. And the citizenship acquiring process has been simplified so that no genuine Nepali shall be deprived of a citizenship certificate," said the minister.
It is learnt that with the government decision, some 4 million people living in the Terai regions will benefit from the new bill.
Now, descendants whether from the father or mother, who has Nepali citizenship and given birth to their child before 1990, will have the opportunity to acquire citizenship.
Today's bill, passed by the cabinet also has made provisions for those who have registered their names at the last national census to acquire citizenship.

SAC deprives King from approving Public Documents

The Parliament's State Affairs Committee (SAC) has decided to scrap the terminology ‘His Majesty’ from the Bill on Approving Public Document and deprived the King from the power of approving Public Documents.
The meeting of the SAC took the decision to remove the terminology from the bill, saying it would not affect the functioning of the Act.
The Bill, in Clause (2), had given the right to approve public documents to ‘His Majesty’. After the bill is passed by the parliament, any person appointed by the Nepal government will have the authority of approving the public documents.
Earlier, the meeting of the committee adjourned twice following dispute among lawmakers on whether to allow the King the right to verify public documents or not.
In previous meetings, Nepali Congress and Nepali Congress-Democratic (NC-D) leaders proposed going with the ‘Head of the State,’ but leftist lawmakers strongly opposed it, demanding definition of the term, if it was to be used to replace the term His Majesty.
The amended act presented by law minister Narendra Bikram Nemwang before the parliament earlier sparked criticism and was referred to the SAC after Clause (2) had given the right to approve public documents to ‘His Majesty’.
Meanwhile, chairman of the SAC Hridaya Ram Thani told Nepalnews that henceforth the credentials of the foreign diplomats will be received by the person appointed by the government of Nepal. He said the person could be Prime Minister, chief secretary or Speaker.
"This has scrapped all powers vested in the king making him a citizen of the country," Thani said. He, however, said the king will still be the head of the state even after this amendment.