The Catch Up: 15 March

This is the Catch Up on 3 Things for the Indian Express and I'm Niharika Nanda
It’s the 15th of March and here are the top stories of the week.

On Monday, the Ministry of Home Affairs notified the rules for the implementation of the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, and a day later the Centre announced a new portal for people who want to apply for citizenship through the act. According to its rules, a Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, or Christian from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who entered India before December 31, 2014, can now seek Indian citizenship without producing a valid passport from these countries or a valid visa from India.

After PM Modi praised Manohar Lal Khattar at the inauguration of the prestigious Dwarka Expressway project on Tuesday, he was removed as the Chief Minister of Haryana by the BJP and replaced by the party’s Kurukshetra MP and its state unit chief, Nayab Singh Saini. Following this development, Manohar Lal Khattar resigned from the Karnal assembly seat in the House on Wednesday, vacating it for the new CM Nayab Saini.

President Droupadi Murmu approved Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code Bill, as announced by the government in the Himalayan state on Wednesday. The Bill, which seeks to govern and regulate the laws related to marriage and divorce, successions, live-in relationships, was passed by the Assembly in February following a two-day discussion. The state government has formed a Rules Making and Implementation Committee headed by retired IAS officer and UCC draft committee member Shatrughan Singh, which will define in detail how the sections will be implemented.

On Thursday, the panel led by former President Ram Nath Kovind on simultaneous elections recommended that the government implement a "one-time transitory measure." This measure would require the Union government to identify an "appointed date" immediately after a Lok Sabha election. Subsequently, all state assemblies that go to poll after this date would have their terms expire with Parliament. Among the 47 political parties that expressed their opinions on simultaneous elections, 32 supported the idea, while 15 opposed it. 

The high-level committee led by PM Modi on Thursday selected retired IAS officers Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu as the new Election Commissioners. However, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Opposition member in the panel, registered dissent, questioning the process. He stated that the shortlisted officer names were not provided to him in advance, despite his request for a short list containing details of all candidates under consideration.

This was the Catch-Up on the 3 Things by The Indian Express