No meeting of National Integration Council in 7 yrs

New Delhi, February 19

The National Integration Council, the apex body mandated to fight communalism, casteism, regionalism and parochialism, has not met in the last seven years ever since the BJP-led government came to power at the Centre.

The last meeting of the Council, chaired by the Prime Minister of the day, was held on September 23, 2013, under the previous Congress-led UPA government.

That was the 16th meeting of the council, which has in the past discussed Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir, Punjab militancy, Ram

Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue, Dalit atrocities and the scourge of manual scavenging among other challenges.

The Union Home Ministry this week, in an RTI reply to Punjab-based activist Parvinder Singh Kittna said, “It is informed that no meeting of the National Integration Council has been held after 2013. The reconstitution of the NIC is under the consideration of the government.”

Kittna told The Tribune today that he had in 2018 also posed the same query to the government under the Right to Information Act and received the same reply. — TNS