Germany's revised citizenship law, allowing for dual citizenship, comes into force on Thursday (June 27). As a result, more people will have the opportunity to acquire German citizenship. InfoMigrants takes a look at the key points of the Act.

German news agency Deutsche Welle reported this information.

According to federal government data, Germany's citizenship attainment rate is half the European Union average, the report said.

At least 14 percent of Germany's total population, i.e. 1 crore 20 lakh people, do not have the country's citizenship At least 5.3 percent of people have lived in Germany for the past 10 years.

The law will come into effect on June 27, nearly seven months after the reform proposal was passed by the German parliament, the Bundestag. If this law comes into effect, immigrants will be able to apply for German citizenship after five years instead of eight years.

According to the German Ministry of the Interior, the law has been reformed with emphasis on five issues These include speeding up the process of acquiring citizenship, allowing for dual citizenship, recognizing special qualifications, simplifying citizenship by birth, giving lifetime, achievement or lifetime honors to the generation of 'guest workers' and allowing more immigrants to become German citizens.

With the law coming into effect, foreigners living in Germany will be able to apply for citizenship after five years instead of eight years.

If someone is married to a German citizen, they can apply for citizenship after four years.

Applicants who can show 'special success' in their integration into German society can apply for citizenship after three years. Specific achievements include: doing well in school, proving you in the workplace, language skills and excellence in volunteer work.

According to the German Federal Statistics Office, in 2022 almost a quarter of the total population of Germany has a history of migration.

To get a German passport or to become a citizen, a foreigner does not have to give up the citizenship of his country as before. This facility is also effective from June 27.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, applicants can retain their previous citizenship without fulfilling any conditions while acquiring German citizenship. As a result, there will be no regret of leaving the passport of your country while taking the German passport.

However, it will also depend on whether the applicant's home country allows dual citizenship or whether there is an agreement with the German government of another country in this regard.

Regarding the special privileges of newborns, the Ministry of Interior said that in the future, children born in Germany to foreign parents will "unconditionally receive German citizenship."

Even children of German origin can now retain their parents' citizenship, if one of them has regularly lived in Germany for at least five years (down from eight years).

Members of the guest worker generation can only obtain German citizenship if they can provide proof of language skills. They will not need to pass the German naturalization process They must prove they can speak German "in everyday life," the Interior ministry said.

Germany has taken this simple measure to show special respect to guest workers

Many Turkish citizens came to Germany in the 1950s to help rebuild Germany from the ruins of World War II. They are called 'Guestrbeiter' or 'Guest Workers' in German until now, if any of them wanted to become a German citizen, they had to give up their Turkish citizenship

The Interior Ministry said that any foreigner applying for German citizenship with a criminal record will not be accepted. However, the authorities will not take into account minor crimes. If someone is convicted of a crime and sentenced to a maximum of 90 days in jail, he or she will be eligible to apply for citizenship after serving the sentence.

But there is an exception. If an immigrant is convicted of 'anti-Semitic, racist or other inhumane acts', regardless of the length of the sentence, he or she will no longer be granted citizenship.

In order to obtain citizenship, foreigners must be able to support themselves and their family members. This is because, according to Sections II and XII of the German Social Code (SG Two and Twelve), they are not included in the public welfare allowance.

Asylum seekers whose asylum applications have been rejected, but whose repatriation is prohibited for security reasons, i.e. staying in Germany for a long time in the Düldung process, will not be eligible for citizenship.

According to a study by the Migration Media Service, at least 24,000 applications are currently being processed in Germany's 50 largest cities. The number is more than the total number of citizenship acquisitions in Germany in 2023 25 thousand 600 people applied for citizenship in Germany's second largest city, Hamburg.

Last year, the number of applications for citizenship increased by at least 19 percent compared to 2022. And the number is more than double compared to 2020.

Due to such initiatives of the ruling coalition government, the number of applications for citizenship will increase in the future, the concerned people think.

According to the German news agency DPA, the relevant departments of the government may be under pressure due to the increase in citizenship applications So the government is focused on digitizing the entire process

According to the Migration Media Service survey, in almost every city in Germany, Syrians lead the way in applying for citizenship. Then there are citizens of Iraq and Turkey. According to last year's statistics, the number of Iranians and Afghanis in this race is not less.

It should be noted that Germany's conservative opposition party CDU/CSU has achieved the best results in the European Parliament elections this June. The far-right AfD came in second place. But the parties in the coalition government led by German Chancellor Olaf Schalz are at the bottom. As a result, there are doubts about the future of this legal reform.

General elections will be held in Germany at the end of this summer or in the fall of next year. Currently, the opposition party CDU/CSU is very active in German politics. If they come to power in the future, they have announced to cancel these reforms of the citizenship law. 

India's former foreign secretary Muchkund Dubey, a true friend of Bangladesh, has died. This diplomat, who joined the country's foreign service in 1957, served in Bangladesh for a time. From 1979 to 1982, he handled the duties of the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka. Later, Muchkund was appointed Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations till 1985.

According to Indian media reports, Muchkund was ill for the past few months due to various complications related to old age. He breathed his last while undergoing treatment at Delhi's Fortis Escorts Hospital on Wednesday. He was 90 years old at the time of his death.

Muchkund served as a diplomat in Tehran, Geneva, Bern, New York and Dhaka. After retiring as the Foreign Secretary of India in 1991, he taught in the Department of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi for about 7 years. Muchkund later became the President of Delhi Council for Social Development.

After retiring from the Indian Foreign Service, Muchkund joined the Jawaharlal Nehru University as a professor where he taught for about eight years. The diplomat served as an international civil servant at the headquarters of the United Nations and UNDP.

The former foreign secretary is also considered a disarmament expert. Apart from this, he was the Indian member of the Executive Board of UNESCO, Chairman of the Common School System Commission of Bihar and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of Sikkim.

Muchkund Dubey was born on 3 November 1933 in Deoghar, Bihar, India. Presently it is located in Jharkhand. His cremation is scheduled to take place on Thursday evening at the Laudi Road crematorium in New Delhi. 

Russia has banned 81 media from 25 countries belonging to the European Union (EU). Apart from this, the country has also been accused of jamming the satellite.

This information is given in the report of SMW.

According to the report, among the closed media outlets are Politico, the French news agency AFP, Germany's Spiegel, Spain's El Paris, Austria, and Italy's National Press Agency.

Moscow complains that these media have been spreading anti-Russian news and giving wrong information for a long time. These media are also accused of spreading false information about the war in Ukraine.

In fact, Russia is not in favor of calling the Russia-Ukraine conflict a 'war'. The conflict began on February 24, 2022 and since then Moscow has called it a "special military operation". Legal action is being taken against anyone who calls it war. But most of the western mass media call it war.

Earlier, Moscow had banned several independent Russian media outlets. There are also rumors that the mass media is being threatened to be shut down if it speaks out against President Putin.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Moscow made this decision in response to an incident last May. That month, the EU imposed sanctions on four Russian media outlets. Allegedly, those mass media are spreading propaganda for the Kremlin. Prague's Voice of Europe is also on that list. This press is directly opposed to the Western world. At the time, Moscow strongly criticized the European Union's move.

EU Vice President Vera Zourova termed Moscow's move as "nonsense" and said in a message posted on social media X that the Kremlin (the Russian president's office) has consistently interfered with press freedom. The steps taken by the Kremlin recently are complete nonsense. A free and independent media does not spread propaganda; Instead, Russia funds the media that spread the propaganda. It is part of their militarism.

Moscow said it could reverse the move. But in that case, the ban on the mass media that the EU has imposed, should be lifted. The statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry said in this regard, "We have repeatedly warned. Journalists of news organizations speaking for Russia in the EU cannot be harassed or obstructed. But the EU didn't listen then."

After Russia launched its offensive in Ukraine in 2022, many Western media outlets moved their staff out of Russia because the Russian parliament passed several laws against the press and journalists. DW was also banned by Russia at that time.

The lawsuit against Wall Street Journal reporter Ivan Gershkovic began a day before Tuesday's ban. He was arrested earlier. In fact, Russia ranks 162 on the Press Freedom Index, a global index of free journalism. 

Dhaka: France's national elections are ahead. The election campaign is going on in the country ahead of this election. In such a situation, the current President Emmanuel Macron has expressed the fear of a ‘civil war’ in the country.

On Monday (June 28), Macron gave an interview to a French podcast called Generation Do It Yourself. News Reuters.

According to Reuters, the current president of the country, Emmanuel Macron, expressed fear in an interview that the political party of the right-wing National Rally (RN) party and the left-wing New Popular Front could start a "civil war" in France. The election campaign that the RN is running suggests that the party is relying on a 'divide' policy to tackle crime and immigration.

He said, they want to solve state problems on the basis of caste and religion. By doing this, they are leading the country towards 'civil war'.

At the time, he criticized La France Insomize (LFI), a political party that is part of the country's New Popular Front alliance, saying, "This party is only prioritizing their own community groups." This alienates a large population of France. Because of this, the country's groups that are being kept apart can be tied to civil war.

Meanwhile, in response to Macron's comments, Jordan Bardella, president of RN, said, "Macron should not have made such comments as the president of a country."

On the other hand, LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon condemned Macron's comments, saying that Macron's own policies could lead to "civil war" in the country as is happening in New Caledonia.