Nirupama Menon Rao explains passports indicate nationality but not citizenship
Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao has cleared up some confusion about passports and citizenship.
She explained that while your passport is a solid indicator of your nationality, it isn't the final word on your citizenship in legal situations.
Passports are issued under one law (the Passports Act), while citizenship is governed by another (the Citizenship Act of 1955).
Rao: passports accepted, document mismatches complicate
Rao pointed out that Indian passports are trusted for travel and daily identification: they go through plenty of checks.
Foreign countries will keep accepting them as proof of nationality.
But she flagged issues like missing birth registrations and mismatched documents that can complicate things.
Rao urges universal birth registration
To make verifying citizenship easier for everyone, Rao suggests universal birth registration and better record-keeping.
She mentioned the Assam NRC case to show how document gaps can cause real problems.