KATHMANDU, August 14

The task force formed by the Constitution Drafting Committee made some amendments in the preliminary draft of the constitution but did not make any substantial change in the citizenship clause.

CDC member Ram Narayan Bidari, who attended the task force meeting, said the children of Nepali women married to foreigners will get naturalised citizenship and not citizenship by descent. “There is a majority of those people who believe that due to Nepal’s location between two giant neighbours and open border with India it would not be in the country’s interest to grant citizenship by descent to the children of Nepali women married to foreigners,” Bidari said.

The task force changed the language of the draft from preamble to different clauses, including the provisions of fundamental rights. Bidari said right to religion clause was also changed, stating that followers of religion will have freedom of religion, which means people can voluntarily change their religion but forced conversion will not be allowed. Bidari also said foreign women married to Nepali men would get naturalised citizenship immediately after marriage as is the case now.

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He said the Dalits would now be proportionally represented in all the state organs. “Fundamental rights of both women and Dalits have been expanded compared to the preliminary draft,” he said.

According to task force member Aindra Sundar Nembang, although the first draft proposed to provide unemployment allowance but that was removed on Friday. “The new provision states that unemployment allowance will be guided by law,” Nembang said.

However, the task force is yet to tackle the issues of boundaries of provinces, threshold and reappointment of the office bearers of the constitutional bodies. Nembang said these issues would be tackled after consulting the leaders of the Special Committee formed by the Constitutional Political Dialogue and Consensus Committee.

Bidari said the meeting of the task force would continue at 7:00am tomorrow and try to finalise the draft by the evening. “If we fail to complete our task by Saturday evening we would submit the draft by Sunday morning,” he added.