"Forced to leave India": French journalist after Overseas Citizenship row
New Delhi (PTI): French journalist Vanessa Dougnac on Saturday left India saying she cannot afford to wait for the outcome of the legal process set in motion in the wake of a notice issued to her by the government regarding cancellation of her Overseas Citizen of India card.
"Today, I am leaving India, the country where I came 25 years ago as a student, and where I have worked for 23 years as a journalist. The place where I married, raised my son, and which I call my home," Dougnac, the South Asia Correspondent for French publications La Croix and Le Point, Swiss newspaper Le Temps and Belgian daily Le Soir, said in a statement.
Last month, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office served a notice on Dougnac asking why her OCI card should not be cancelled, claiming she was "undertaking journalistic activities without any special permission as required under Citizenship Act 1955 and rules/regulations issued thereunder".
She said leaving India was not her choice and that she was forced to by the government which had claimed that her articles were "malicious" and harming "the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India".
The notice to Dougnac also figured in the delegation-level talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron, who was the chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations.
On January 26, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra, in response to a question, had said that France did "appreciate" India's "frame of reference" to look at the case purely through a lens of compliance with rules.
"People are free to do what they are accredited to do in a given space. But here I think the principal issue is whether the person is compliant with the rules and regulations of the state under which they come," Kwatra had said.
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Caste census report to be tabled in next cabinet meeting: Karnataka CM
Mangaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah Friday said a report on caste census in the state would be tabled in the next meeting of the Cabinet.
The Karnataka Socio-Economic and Education Survey report, commonly known as the 'Karnataka caste census', was originally scheduled to be presented in the state cabinet meeting on January 16.
"We didn't table the caste census in this cabinet meeting but we will table it in the next meeting," he told reporters here. Asked what was there in the report, he said, "I don't know what is there because it has not been tabled yet."
On the Mangaluru bank heist, the chief minister said he has instructed police to find out the culprits.
Caste census has emerged as a contentious issue, particularly among the state's dominant communities -- the Lingayats and Vokkaligas -- who have expressed reservations about the survey done, calling it "unscientific" and have demanded that it be rejected and a fresh survey be conducted.
The survey was commissioned by the previous Congress government in 2015, with then Backward Classes Commission chairman H Kantharaju heading the committee.
The survey, conducted at a cost of approximately Rs 169 crore, was completed by 2016 but subsequent governments kept it in cold storage. In 2020, the BJP government appointed Jayaprakash Hegde as the commission chief. Hegde submitted the final report to the Siddaramaiah government on February 29, 2024.
Hegde had said the report was prepared based on data collected by 1.6 lakh officials, including 1.33 lakh teachers, under the leadership of respective deputy commissioners across the state.
