Passports of NRIs may bear marriage stamp

The government may soon decide to stamp the marital status of non-resident Indians on their passports.

Published on: Feb 17, 2007, 19:11:29 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government may soon decide to stamp the marital status of non-resident Indians on their passports.

Alarmed by the increasing instances of NRIs abandoning their wives in India, the government is considering ways to check fraudulent marriages in the country. It is estimated that 30,000 women have been abandoned by NRIs in India.

Overseas Affairs minister Vayalar Ravi and minister of state for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury discussed the proposal at a meeting on Wednesday. "The stamp will have details like the place and the date of marriage," a senior government official said.

The government is considering two approaches for this. It will ask the US and the UK governments to seek information about the marital status of persons applying for visas and provide this information on the visa itself. Most NRI distress marriages are reported from Indians in the US and UK.

Alternately the marital status would be mentioned on the passport. "It will provide documentary evidence to check the status," the official explained. However, the proposal will need the permission of the Ministry of External Affairs, as the Passport Act would have to be amended. "It would be discussed with MEA soon," an official said.

On the mandatory registration of marriages, the two ministries have decided to pursue the registration of marriages with the Law Ministry. Mandatory registration can be a deterrent, as experience in NRI surplus Kerala has shown.

The two ministries have also sought information from the MEA about extradition treaties between India and other countries on marriage related cases.

The government is also examining recommendations on NRI marriages including mandatory registration of NRI marriages, bilateral agreements between India and other countries with large Indian diaspora, government processed reconciliation process and counselling of NRI marriage victims.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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