Indian MPs pass citizenship bill

India’s lower house passed yesterday a legislation that will grant citizenship to members of certain religious minorities. The bill covers select groups -- including Hindus, Christians and Sikhs -- who moved from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and who have lived in India for at least six years.

The legislation, which still needs approval in the upper house, sparked a second day of protests yesterdat in the northeastern state of Assam, where millions have settled in recent decades after fleeing neighbouring countries. Last year the Assam government published a draft citizens’ register that left off four million people unable to prove they were living there before 1971, when millions fled Bangladesh’s war of independence.