Indian Govt would be taken to Court if it was in Canada....

eater

For the same reason Indian Govt would be banned from using the words "Dual Citizenship" on Govt of India websites - and all documents circulated in Canada - if the Govt of India was in Canada - instead of being in New Delhi.

True Dual Citizenships are proferred by UK, EU, Canada or Israel (I think) to name a few -

The OCI (called Dual Citizenships on Indian websites / documents) are not true Dual Citizenships - OCIs have several restictions that true Indian Citizens do not face.

http://india.gov.in/overseas/dual_citizenship.php
Persons registered as OCI have not been given any voting rights, election to Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha/Legislative Assembly/Council, holding Constitutional posts such as President, Vice President, Judge of Supreme Court/High Court etc

Based on the recommendation of the High Level committee on Indian Diaspora, the Government of India decided to grant Overseas
Citizenship of India (OCI) commonly known as ‘Dual Citizenship’.
.

http://india.gov.in/outerwin.htm?id=...i/oci-main.htm
Can a person registered as an OCI travel to protected
area/restricted area without permission?
No. He/she will be required to seek PAP/RAP for such visits.

Can OCI be granted to foreign nationals who are not eligible for
OCI, but married to persons who are eligible for OCI?
No.

Is the OCI entitled to voting rights?
No.
Is the OCI entitled to hold constitutional post in India?
No.
Is the OCI entitled to hold Government posts in India?
No,except for the posts specified by an order by the Central
Government.

Whether an OCI be entitled to apply for and obtain a normal
Indian passport which is given to a citizen of India?
No. Indian Passports are given only to Indian citizen.

Just a few clarifications.....for Canadians applying for Dual Citizenships of India / Canada....

__________________
Just happy to be here.........

shashank.aggarwal

They do not claim it to be Dual Citizenship...!!

__________________
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Nick-H

Whilst they do [mis-]use the term dual citizenship in the OCI material, they have chosen this label, Overseas Citizen of India to say 'it's not really dual citizenship'.

It's a blunder, indeed, that they ever used the words.

But anyone reading the provisions should be clear about what's really on offer. Essentially it is only slightly more than a visa-for-life.

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.


Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

Nick-H

The thing about true dual citizenship is that it is a passive, rather than an active thing: something that is not objected to rather than offered.

The Indian constitution does not allow it.

There isn't a British constitution, so it can't be mentioned and is going to be subject to current law. Simply, you are not asked to renounce currently-held citizenship(s)

nycank

Here is an interesting article on OCI and GC

http://littleindia.com/news/157/ARTI...007-07-12.html

Dilliwala

The reverse is/was true also:
When Bill Aitken became an Indian citizen (late 60s? early 70s?), he informed the British HC in order to return his British PP and was told "British citizenship cannot be renounced. Once u have it, u keep it", or words to that effect.

Nick-H

Things may have changed in that time, but British Citizenship can be renounced. See Here

It even looks as if they are prepared to let you renounce it if you need to to get another citizenship that you want --- and then ask for it back again! Which I do find surprising.

Nycank... yes, an interest article showing how very unimpressed the majority of overseas Indians are with the OCI scheme with, apparently, only 1% having applied for it. Or perhaps the desire to have that symbolic relationship with the mother country is not as strong as the Indian government might have imagined.

We only see one side of that picture here: those who want to live, work, to stay in, return to, or at least spend more time in India.

1% of 24,000,000. That'll be 23,760,000 people who aren't queueing up to become IndiaMike members, then!

nycank

I am the one of those who aint in the line for the OCIand yet I'm in IM Hey if the Russians can grab land in Goa without a concern; what real adv. does OCI get one ??

Nick-H

Well, I never was very good at statistics, and it may very well be that most of those people just don't think it a good deal.

Even more telling would be the number of ex-pat Indians who have never heard of OCI or PIO! Even on this site we come accross a few. I imagine that one of the ideas that the Indian Gvt must have had was to raise some money --- but they have never publicised the scheme very much.

Dilliwala

Unwittingly u are pointing in the right direction - this whole thing was a BJP scheme for their own supporters in Britain, USA, Canada who BTW were/are more rabidly nationalistic than the BJP. Unique, when u consider they voluntarily renounced their Indian citizenship in the first place.
In fact, becos the Constitution doesn't allow dual citizenship this "half-way house" was the alternative and I agree it is a rort, neither here nor there, in fact the BJP started with only 7 countries. There are other ways to give people long term visas.
The present govt of course had to play catch-up and decided to go one better to prove that they are no less caring about the Great Indian Diaspora than the BJP, the only true patriots (in their own mind).