CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

 Stay tuned for all the updates! 
Live updates from 10:00 A.M. (February 02, 2019)
Hello everyone. We are all set and ready to welcome our guests, panelists, paper presenters and esteemed members of the audience to the conference. We shall be starting with the conference in a while and deeply apologise for the delay. 
INAUGURAL SESSION
10:54 AM- Our chief guest for this session NRC Conference Senior Advocate Mrs. Indira Jaising has arrived which signals along with our distinguished guest for the inaugural session Mr. Fuzail Ayyubi which signals the start of our conference. 
10:59 AM- Mr. Fuzail Ayyubi begins his welcome address on the NRC and the issues surrounding it. He points out the three phases surrounding the NRC debate, First the agitation part, second the intervention by the Supreme Court and thirdly the implementation by the executive on this issue.
11:10 AM- Senior Advocate Mrs. Indira Jaising starts with the welcome address. Mrs. Jaising talks about the issue of entitlement. Further, Mrs. Jaising spoke about citizenship being an overarching identity which protects all other identities. Mrs. Jaising also spoke about S.6A of The Citizenship Act which discriminates people on the grounds of religion and the constitutional validity of which has been challenged before the apex court.
Technical Session-1 
12:10PM– Our First paper presenters are Ms. Monika and Ms. Mansimran Kaur who shall be presenting their paper on “The National Register of Citizens- legal Framework and implementation” 
 
 12:20 PM- Our second paper presenter is Mr. Bhaskar Debroy who shall be presenting his paper on “Fatal flaws in the implementation of Standard operating Procedure related to NRC, Assam” 
 
12:30 PM- Our third paper presenters are Ms. Aviva Jogani and Mr. Mohak Kapoor on “Past,Present and Future: The NRC Regime”
 
12:38 PM- Our fourth and final paper presenters are Professor Dr. Anand Pawar and Ms. Ishita Sharma who shall be presenting their paper on ” National register of Citizens in Assam: A savior or a curse” 
 
12:42 PM- Professor Anupama Roy addresses the gathering.
AR- “Statelessness is an issue which we need to look at whether our Constitution allows it within the ambit of Constitutional morality.” 
12:52 PM- Professor Sanjoy Hazarika addresses the gathering.
SH- “Assuming that people who are of Bangladeshi origin in Assam is rubbish and my problem with this discourse. 250,000 people were displaced due to the communal riots that took place in Assam. Assam is bearing the brunt of hatred and the NRC hasn’t come out of anywhere. This raises the narrative of outsiders and insiders. If law and we don’t uphold human rights we aren’t upholding anything. Art. 14,19,21 uphold the rights of citizens irrespective of caste, religion, etc. We should also look at the preamble of our Constitution and encompass it as well on this issue and not just the narrow definition of law. There’s never been an actual discussion on deportation with Bangladesh. 182,000 people are kept in prisons in Assam. Earlier male and female prisoners were kept separate which was disallowed by J.Lokur of Supreme Court as it was a violation of their FR. NRC has to be done without prejudice.”
1:10 PM- Mr. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan one of our panelists addresses the gathering.
1:20 PM- Advocate Fuzail Ayyubi addresses the gathering
1:30 PM- Dr. Ghulam Yazdani gives the closing remarks fo the first technical session
After a short lunch break we are back with the second technical session
Technical Session II
2:10 PM- We welcome our esteemed panelists for the second technical session
2:20 PM- The first paper presenter for our second technical session are Ms. Madhumita Acharjee and Ms. Trisha Sabhapandit who shall present their paper on “A critical analysis on citizenship laws in India: With special reference to citizenship amendment bill, 2016 and its impact on Assam”
2:30 PM- The second paper presenter for our second technical session is Mr. Pranay Jalan who shall be presenting his paper on ” The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill,2016: The conflict between constitutional morality and morality of the popular majority”
2:40 PM- The third paper presenters are Mr. Karsin Manocha and Ms. Arisha Azhar who shall be presenting their paper on “Citizenship Law in India: failure to stop illegal immigrants from Bangladesh”
2:47 PM- The fourth and final paper presenter in the second technical session is Ms. Arushi Kaushik who shall be presenting their paper on “Charging concerns and contour of good citizenship: reshaping and decoding civic virtue in consonance with return of civic republicanism”
2:57 PM- Professor Lama addresses the gathering.
3:08 PM- Advocate Katarki addresses the gathering. He stressed on the need for strengthening international law human rights and the new kind of area under international law which has emerged recently.  
3:15PM- Ms. Jayshree Satpute addresses the gathering. She stresses on the interchangeable usage of the terms refugees and immigrants as the major drawback of the Citizenship Amendment Bill. Further she talks about D-voters or doubtful voters who fall into the poorest of poor category, are rape victims, disabled people, old citizens whose names aren’t included in the NRC. She concludes by talking about the Foreigners tribunal in Assam and how a person is prosecuted twice thrice and hence, double jeopardy comes into the picture as well.
3:25PM- Advocate Nizam Pasha addresses the gathering on NRC. He talks about the politics of the centre, state and the court which should be kept in mind while discussing this issue. He further questioned such issues like citizenship, NRC, etc being the last thing to be decided when the entire NRC registry is being updated. He states that it is not required from the Supreme Court to regulate the entire NRC registry.
3:45PM- Professor Mahendra Lama addresses the gathering. He states that in the entire discourse we’ve lost the major discourse of how,close to 40 lakh people are illegal and as to who brought them and the role played by paramilitary forces in this. This issue should be looked at from an inter-disciplinary aspect for instance the impact on relations of India with its neighbors due to this issue, the shape of the border line to be considered, etc. Further, it becomes necessary to go beyond legal interpretations and to examine this issue in the context of public interest.
4:00PM- Adv. Ayyubi addressing the gathering and spoke about the politics of the courts while dealing with the NRC issue.
4:15PM- Senior Advocate Salman Khurshid the chief guest for the valedictory ceremony of the conference addresses the gathering. He spoke about the big problem of lack of communication existing in Indian politics with the congress party in Assam being unaware about the issue and having never been consulted on this issue. Further he pointed out that the apex court is incompetent to find a solution to this issue and that it is doubtful whether the people involved in the entire NRC exercise have been given the appropriate training to conduct this exercise. NRC has no mitigating factors and no law can be without its mitigating factors.