Tag: citizenship

  • Over 17.5 lakh Indians renounced their citizenship since 2011

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: Over 17.50 lakh Indians have renounced their citizenship between 2011 and June 2023, according to data tabled by the Ministry of External Affairs in the parliament.

    External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed the Lok Sabha on Friday that as many as 87,026 Indian nationals have renounced their citizenship till June this year.

    He also cited that 2.25 lakh Indians renounced their citizenships in 2022, 1.63 lakh in 2021, 85,256 in 2020; 1.44 lakh in 2019; 1.34 lakh in 2018; 1.33 lakh in 2017; 1.41 lakh in 2016; 1.31 lakh in 2015; 1.29 lakh in 2014; 1.31 lakh in 2013; 1.20 lakh in 2012 and 1.22 lakh in 2011.

    According to the minister, many of them have taken up foreign citizenship due to personal convenience. “The number of Indian nationals exploring the global workplace has been significant in the last two decades. Many of them have chosen to take up foreign citizenship for reasons of personal convenience,” the minister said.

    Recognising that the Indian community abroad is an asset to the nation, Jaishankar said, the government has brought about a transformational change in its engagement with the diaspora.

    “A successful, prosperous and influential diaspora is an advantage for India and our approach is to tap diaspora networks and utilise its reputation for national gain,” he said.

    “The government is cognizant of this development and has undertaken a range of initiatives around the ‘Make in India’ scheme that would harness their talents at home,” Jaishankar informed the House.

    Sharing the names of countries whose citizenship is being acquired by Indians, the minister further said that there are 135 countries wherein Indians are seeking citizenship. This includes the US, the UK, Australia, Belgium, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Canada, Denmark, Fiji, Ghana, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Russia, Poland, South Africa, Spain and the UAE among others.

    Interestingly, Indians are also taking up citizenship in countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, Jordon, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Qatar, Serbia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, and Vietnam.

    Yearwise data on Indians renouncing citizenship

    2022 – 2,25,6202021 – 1,63,3702020- 85,2562019- 1,44,0172018- 1,34,5612017- 1,33,0492016- 1,41,6032015 – 1,31,4892014- 1,29,3282013- 1,31,4052012 – 1,20,9232011 – 1,22,819

    NEW DELHI: Over 17.50 lakh Indians have renounced their citizenship between 2011 and June 2023, according to data tabled by the Ministry of External Affairs in the parliament.

    External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed the Lok Sabha on Friday that as many as 87,026 Indian nationals have renounced their citizenship till June this year.

    He also cited that 2.25 lakh Indians renounced their citizenships in 2022, 1.63 lakh in 2021, 85,256 in 2020; 1.44 lakh in 2019; 1.34 lakh in 2018; 1.33 lakh in 2017; 1.41 lakh in 2016; 1.31 lakh in 2015; 1.29 lakh in 2014; 1.31 lakh in 2013; 1.20 lakh in 2012 and 1.22 lakh in 2011.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    According to the minister, many of them have taken up foreign citizenship due to personal convenience. “The number of Indian nationals exploring the global workplace has been significant in the last two decades. Many of them have chosen to take up foreign citizenship for reasons of personal convenience,” the minister said.

    Recognising that the Indian community abroad is an asset to the nation, Jaishankar said, the government has brought about a transformational change in its engagement with the diaspora.

    “A successful, prosperous and influential diaspora is an advantage for India and our approach is to tap diaspora networks and utilise its reputation for national gain,” he said.

    “The government is cognizant of this development and has undertaken a range of initiatives around the ‘Make in India’ scheme that would harness their talents at home,” Jaishankar informed the House.

    Sharing the names of countries whose citizenship is being acquired by Indians, the minister further said that there are 135 countries wherein Indians are seeking citizenship. This includes the US, the UK, Australia, Belgium, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Canada, Denmark, Fiji, Ghana, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Russia, Poland, South Africa, Spain and the UAE among others.

    Interestingly, Indians are also taking up citizenship in countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, Jordon, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Qatar, Serbia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, and Vietnam.

    Yearwise data on Indians renouncing citizenship

    2022 – 2,25,620
    2021 – 1,63,370
    2020- 85,256
    2019- 1,44,017
    2018- 1,34,561
    2017- 1,33,049
    2016- 1,41,603
    2015 – 1,31,489
    2014- 1,29,328
    2013- 1,31,405
    2012 – 1,20,923
    2011 – 1,22,819

  • Chakmas of Chittagong Hills: ‘Indians’ on August 15, Pakistanis two days later and ‘rebels’ by August 19

    By PTI

    KOLKATA: Every year, motley groups of Chakma tribals gather in various parts of the country with placards calling out August 17, 1947 as ‘Black Day’.

    Seventy-five years ago, the Chakmas lost the short-lived ‘rebellion’ they mounted to make their homeland in the Chittagong Hills a part of India and since then, the tribe’s now scattered diasporas lament that loss.

    On August 15, 1947, Chakmas, Tripuris and other tribals, mostly Buddhist, living in the over 13,000 square kilometers of hills and dales in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) decided to raise the Indian tricolour at the Deputy Commissioner’s Bungalow at Rangamati to signify their new citizenship.

    “My father Sneha Kumar Chakma, who was a member of the All India Excluded Areas Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly of India for CHT, engaged with Col GL Hyde, the then deputy commissioner of the district, and after he agreed that the hill tracts were part of India, raised the Indian flag on the morning of August 15, 1947,” said Gautam Chakma, a professor of political science at Tripura University.

    However, the jubilation that accompanied that momentous occasion was short-lived.

    On the evening of August 17, after the Radcliffe Award, which demarcated the boundary between India and Pakistan, was announced over the radio, it came to be known that Chittagong Hill Tracts had been given to the latter.

    A few days later, the Baluch regiment marched in to tear down the tricolour and replace it with Pakistan’s flag.

    In Banderban, also in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, some tribals who felt closer to Burma, now Myanmar, had raised the Burmese flag.

    This too was torn down by the Baluch soldiers.

    An arrest warrant was issued against Sneha Chakma and his associates, branding them traitors.

    However, Sneha along with others, including Indramoni Chakma and Girish Dewan, the ‘captain’ of Chakma guards, had already left for Agartala after an emergency meeting of tribal leaders on August 19 at the deputy commissioner’s bungalow where it was resolved that “CHT shall not abide by the Radcliffe Award and that resistance be put up and squads be immediately set up with indigenous weapons”.

    Sneha Chakma’s team was authorised to travel to Kolkata and Delhi to seek arms and to protest what they felt was “gross injustice”.

    Chakma tribals claim that Sir Cyrill Radcliffe dismissed a seven-page argument written by Justice Bijan Mukherjee and Justice Charu Biswas (non-Muslim members of the Bengal Boundary Commission) in favour of retaining CHT within India, and had agreed to give it to Pakistan.

    While Chakmas in their memorandum, and justices Mukherjee and Biswas in their arguments pointed out that CHT had a 98 per cent Buddhist population whose tribal ethnicity made them clan-cousins to people living in Tripura and Assam, Radcliffe held that the area was the headwaters for Chittagong port and without it, the port, the only major one in East Pakistan, would be unsustainable.

    “The Maharaja of Burdwan offered my father some Lee Enfield rifles and ammunition. But most Indian leaders counselled a legal battle rather than an armed rebellion,” said professor Chakma.

    Raja Nalinaksha Roy, the titular tribal chief of the Chakmas despite being part of the decision to opt for an armed rebellion taken on August 19, later opted to work with the Pakistan government, perhaps to safeguard his clansmen.

    “The princely family and elite among Chakmas did not really support our struggle, some of them felt Pakistan would give them a better deal,” felt professor Chakma.

    However, the Chakma homeland in Chittagong Hills, did not remain a safe haven.

    In 1957, work on Kaptai dam, which eventually flooded hundreds of villages and submerged more than 1,300 sq km, started.

    Between 1962 and 1965, tens of thousands of Chakma villagers were forced to leave for India and Myanmar.

    READ HERE | Chakmas, Hajongs protest denial of residential certificates by Arunachal government

    “After the Kaptai dam was built (and tribals displaced), there was a rise in political consciousness among the Chakmas,” said Amena Mohsin, a professor of Dhaka University’s International Relations Department While some became refugees in neighbouring Tripura and Assam, where their clan brethren lived, others were resettled in Arunachal Pradesh.

    However, life in diaspora has not been a bed of roses.

    Most of those settled in Arunachal still do not have voting rights and periodically there are agitations, which seek their resettlement elsewhere, branding them “foreigners”.

    “There are just 60,000 of the 2.5 lakh Chakmas in India living in Arunachal Pradesh. Just 6,000 of them have voting rights, yet they face agitations,” said Suhas Chakma, the director at Rights and Risks Analysis Group, and author of several books on Chakma issues.

    Chakmas living in Mizoram are similarly in a quandary with the state government seeking to conduct surveys to create a National Register of Citizens (NRC), which could identify “illegal” Chakmas living in the state.

    “In 1900, the British took a slice of Chittagong Hill Tracts and made it part of the district which is today Mizoram, making many Chakmas and Rheangs citizens of that area yet today, they face illegal censuses which could target them,” alleged Suhas.

    In Chittagong Hill Tracts where an estimated 7 lakh Chakmas still live, much of their ancestral lands have been encroached upon by settlers from the plains, often with the help from the Bangladesh Army.

    “Much more than partition or the Kaptai Dam displacements, the throttling of tribal identity by the Sheikh Mujib government in Bangladesh and the later displacement of Chakma tribals by plains settlers have been disasters for them,” said professor Ranabir Samaddar, the former head of Kolkata-based Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies.

    The ‘Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti’ (Chiitagong Hills People’s Solidarity Committee) was formed in 1972, soon after Bangladesh became independent and its armed wing ‘Shanti Bahini’ (Peace Army) launched its first attack on that country’s army in 1977.

    “India was willing to assist them (Shanti Bahini) after the death of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975,” claimed Mohsin, a charge many Bangladeshis make, but one which India denies.

    In 1997, after Sheikh Hasina came to power, a peace accord was brokered, ending the two-decades-long bloody rebellion.

    However, as plainsmen-settlers continued to grab land in the hills, and as a strong army presence kept the tribals in check, the peace remained an uneasy one.

    KOLKATA: Every year, motley groups of Chakma tribals gather in various parts of the country with placards calling out August 17, 1947 as ‘Black Day’.

    Seventy-five years ago, the Chakmas lost the short-lived ‘rebellion’ they mounted to make their homeland in the Chittagong Hills a part of India and since then, the tribe’s now scattered diasporas lament that loss.

    On August 15, 1947, Chakmas, Tripuris and other tribals, mostly Buddhist, living in the over 13,000 square kilometers of hills and dales in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) decided to raise the Indian tricolour at the Deputy Commissioner’s Bungalow at Rangamati to signify their new citizenship.

    “My father Sneha Kumar Chakma, who was a member of the All India Excluded Areas Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly of India for CHT, engaged with Col GL Hyde, the then deputy commissioner of the district, and after he agreed that the hill tracts were part of India, raised the Indian flag on the morning of August 15, 1947,” said Gautam Chakma, a professor of political science at Tripura University.

    However, the jubilation that accompanied that momentous occasion was short-lived.

    On the evening of August 17, after the Radcliffe Award, which demarcated the boundary between India and Pakistan, was announced over the radio, it came to be known that Chittagong Hill Tracts had been given to the latter.

    A few days later, the Baluch regiment marched in to tear down the tricolour and replace it with Pakistan’s flag.

    In Banderban, also in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, some tribals who felt closer to Burma, now Myanmar, had raised the Burmese flag.

    This too was torn down by the Baluch soldiers.

    An arrest warrant was issued against Sneha Chakma and his associates, branding them traitors.

    However, Sneha along with others, including Indramoni Chakma and Girish Dewan, the ‘captain’ of Chakma guards, had already left for Agartala after an emergency meeting of tribal leaders on August 19 at the deputy commissioner’s bungalow where it was resolved that “CHT shall not abide by the Radcliffe Award and that resistance be put up and squads be immediately set up with indigenous weapons”.

    Sneha Chakma’s team was authorised to travel to Kolkata and Delhi to seek arms and to protest what they felt was “gross injustice”.

    Chakma tribals claim that Sir Cyrill Radcliffe dismissed a seven-page argument written by Justice Bijan Mukherjee and Justice Charu Biswas (non-Muslim members of the Bengal Boundary Commission) in favour of retaining CHT within India, and had agreed to give it to Pakistan.

    While Chakmas in their memorandum, and justices Mukherjee and Biswas in their arguments pointed out that CHT had a 98 per cent Buddhist population whose tribal ethnicity made them clan-cousins to people living in Tripura and Assam, Radcliffe held that the area was the headwaters for Chittagong port and without it, the port, the only major one in East Pakistan, would be unsustainable.

    “The Maharaja of Burdwan offered my father some Lee Enfield rifles and ammunition. But most Indian leaders counselled a legal battle rather than an armed rebellion,” said professor Chakma.

    Raja Nalinaksha Roy, the titular tribal chief of the Chakmas despite being part of the decision to opt for an armed rebellion taken on August 19, later opted to work with the Pakistan government, perhaps to safeguard his clansmen.

    “The princely family and elite among Chakmas did not really support our struggle, some of them felt Pakistan would give them a better deal,” felt professor Chakma.

    However, the Chakma homeland in Chittagong Hills, did not remain a safe haven.

    In 1957, work on Kaptai dam, which eventually flooded hundreds of villages and submerged more than 1,300 sq km, started.

    Between 1962 and 1965, tens of thousands of Chakma villagers were forced to leave for India and Myanmar.

    READ HERE | Chakmas, Hajongs protest denial of residential certificates by Arunachal government

    “After the Kaptai dam was built (and tribals displaced), there was a rise in political consciousness among the Chakmas,” said Amena Mohsin, a professor of Dhaka University’s International Relations Department While some became refugees in neighbouring Tripura and Assam, where their clan brethren lived, others were resettled in Arunachal Pradesh.

    However, life in diaspora has not been a bed of roses.

    Most of those settled in Arunachal still do not have voting rights and periodically there are agitations, which seek their resettlement elsewhere, branding them “foreigners”.

    “There are just 60,000 of the 2.5 lakh Chakmas in India living in Arunachal Pradesh. Just 6,000 of them have voting rights, yet they face agitations,” said Suhas Chakma, the director at Rights and Risks Analysis Group, and author of several books on Chakma issues.

    Chakmas living in Mizoram are similarly in a quandary with the state government seeking to conduct surveys to create a National Register of Citizens (NRC), which could identify “illegal” Chakmas living in the state.

    “In 1900, the British took a slice of Chittagong Hill Tracts and made it part of the district which is today Mizoram, making many Chakmas and Rheangs citizens of that area yet today, they face illegal censuses which could target them,” alleged Suhas.

    In Chittagong Hill Tracts where an estimated 7 lakh Chakmas still live, much of their ancestral lands have been encroached upon by settlers from the plains, often with the help from the Bangladesh Army.

    “Much more than partition or the Kaptai Dam displacements, the throttling of tribal identity by the Sheikh Mujib government in Bangladesh and the later displacement of Chakma tribals by plains settlers have been disasters for them,” said professor Ranabir Samaddar, the former head of Kolkata-based Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies.

    The ‘Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti’ (Chiitagong Hills People’s Solidarity Committee) was formed in 1972, soon after Bangladesh became independent and its armed wing ‘Shanti Bahini’ (Peace Army) launched its first attack on that country’s army in 1977.

    “India was willing to assist them (Shanti Bahini) after the death of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975,” claimed Mohsin, a charge many Bangladeshis make, but one which India denies.

    In 1997, after Sheikh Hasina came to power, a peace accord was brokered, ending the two-decades-long bloody rebellion.

    However, as plainsmen-settlers continued to grab land in the hills, and as a strong army presence kept the tribals in check, the peace remained an uneasy one.

  • Citizenship an important right: Gauhati HC sets aside order of Foreigners’ Tribunal

    Express News Service

    GUWAHATI:  The Gauhati High Court has set aside an ex-parte order issued by a Foreigners’ Tribunal that declared one Asor Uddin as a foreigner.

    A two-judge bench of justices Manish Choudhury and N Kotiswar Singh observed that citizenship should be decided on the basis of merit by considering the material evidences that may be adduced by the person concerned and not by way of default as happened in this case.

    Asor Uddin had filed a petition in the court after the Foreigners’ Tribunal of Morigaon declared him a foreigner. He had missed multiple hearings at the tribunal and failed to produce documentary evidence to establish his citizenship. The Tribunal declared him a foreigner ex-parte (without being heard) on April 26, 2011.

    “The plea of the petitioner for his inability to appear before the Foreigners’ Tribunal is that the petitioner is a very poor person and he could not readily collect the relevant documents bearing the names of his grandfather, father and also in respect of him for filing the written statement and as such, the petitioner did not appear before the Tribunal,” the court said.

    The petitioner submitted that he could not communicate with his counsel nor the latter communicated with him in connection with the dates of hearing fixed by the Tribunal. He submitted that he had to leave the state for Kerala for earning a livelihood.

    He further submitted that the case against him was lodged without proper examination of his documents. However, on receipt of the notice from the Tribunal, he had appeared on February 12, 2010.

    Thereafter, several dates were given by the Tribunal for filing of written statement on certain facts but the petitioner failed to do so and as a result, the impugned ex-parte order was passed.

    “However, we are of the view that citizenship, being an important right of a person, ordinarily, should be decided on the basis of merit by considering the material evidences that may be adduced by the person concerned and not by way of default as happened in the present case,” the division bench said.

    “In the present case, the petitioner has drawn our attention to the voters’ lists of 1965, 1970 and 1971, wherein the names of his grandparents, parents and the petitioner himself have been shown to be included…There are sufficient documents and evidences to prove that he is an Indian citizen. However, these are factual aspects which are to be ordinarily considered by the Foreigners’ Tribunal…,” the court said.

    It directed him to appear before the Tribunal on or before November 8 to prove he is an Indian.

    “However, since his citizenship has come under cloud, he will remain on bail…on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 5,000 with a local surety of the like amount.

    “…We also make it clear that in the event of failure to pay the aforesaid cost of Rs 5,000/- as well as in the failure to appear before the Foreigners’ Tribunal, Morigaon, on or before 08.11.2021, the impugned ex-parte order which has been set aside will stand revived and the law will take its own course,” the court said. 

  • 4,046 applications of Hindus for citizenship still pending: Centre to Rajya Sabha

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: A total of 4,046 applications for Indian citizenship from Hindus belonging to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are pending with various state governments, Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

    Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai also said that 4,171 foreigners were given Indian nationality in the last five years – from 2016 to 2020.

    Of the pending applications for citizenship from Hindus, 1,541 are with the Rajasthan government, 849 with the Maharashtra government, 555 with Gujarat, 490 with Madhya Pradesh, 268 with Chhattisgarh and 123 with Delhi, he said.

    In addition, 10 applications of Hindus for citizenship are pending with the central government, Rai said in a written reply. Referring to those who were granted Indian citizenship in the last five years, the minister said 1,105 foreigners were given Indian nationality in 2016, 814 in 2017, 628 in 2018, 986 in 2019 and 638 in 2020.

    The Indian nationality has been given to these people under the Citizenship Act 1955. However, no one has been given Indian citizenship under the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act as the rules under the 2019 legislation were yet to be notified.

    Of those who were granted Indian citizenship in the last five years, 1,089 were in Gujarat, 751 in Rajasthan, 535 in Madhya Pradesh, 446 in Maharashtra, 303 in Haryana, 301 in Delhi, 146 in West Bengal, 145 in Uttar Pradesh, 75 in Uttarakhand, 73 in Tamil Nadu, 72 in Karnataka and 65 in Kerala.

  • Citizenship under CAA only after issuance of rules; no more amendments proposed: Government

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Centre said on Wednesday that Indian citizenship to the eligible beneficiaries under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will be given only after rules under the legislation are notified. Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai also said there is no proposal under consideration of the government for any further amendment of the Citizenship Act.

    “Eligible persons covered by the Citizenship Amendment Act may submit applications for grant of citizenship after appropriate rules are notified by the central government,” he said in a written reply to a query in Rajya Sabha.

    He was asked whether the government has received new applications for citizenship after the CAA 2019 was enacted. The CAA was notified on December 12, 2019 and came into force with effect from January 10, 2020, the minister said.

    “The Committees on Subordinate Legislation, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have been requested to grant further extension of time up to January 9, 2022 to frame the rules under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019,” Rai said.

    The objective of the CAA is to grant Indian citizenship to persecuted minorities like Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The government got an extension for the fifth time for framing these rules.

    According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation should be framed within six months of presidential assent or an extension of the time must be sought. Those from the mentioned communities who had come to India till December 31, 2014, facing religious persecution there, will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship.

    After the CAA was passed by Parliament, widespread protests were witnessed in different parts of the country leading to the death of nearly 100 people in police firing and related violence.

  • Rajasthan HC asks Gehlot govt, Centre to furnish report on vaccine availability for Pakistan Hindu migrants

    Express News Service
    JAIPUR: The Rajasthan High Court has asked the Central Government to furnish a factual report on  the availability of vaccines to the state government for Pakistani Migrants settled in Rajasthan who do not have prescribed identity cards. The Court has also asked the State and the District administration to chalk out a plan for vaccinating the Pakistani Hindu Migrants settled in Rajasthan, further ordering the Gehlot government to provide food on a priority basis to them during the lockdown.

    While the Indian citizens over 18 are being vaccinated against coronavirus, the Pakistani Hindu migrants living in Rajasthan are being turned away from vaccine centers as they do not have Aadhaar cards. Activists had claimed that 10 Pakistani Hindu migrants have succumbed to Covid due to lack of medical facilities. 

    In all, 50 people had been found positive while 1,500 people have an influenza-like illness. But none of them received any medical attention. 

    A bench of Justice Vijay Vishnoi and Justice Rameshwar Vyaas on Thursday heard the case. On behalf of Pakistani migrants, it was submitted that in the absence of an Aadhaar card, the eligible Pakistani migrants were deprived of vaccination. Seemant Loksanghthan, an NGO working for the rights of Pakistani migrants, had requested to vaccinate all the eligible migrants but the same has not been taken into consideration.

    ALSO READ | Pakistani Hindu migrants in Rajasthan appeal to PM Modi for vaccination based on travel documents

    Further, Mukesh Rajpurohit, ASG, and Vipul Singhvi, ASG, had submitted that the Centre had already issued an SOP on Covid vaccination of persons without identity cards thorough CO-WIN.

    Court directed AAG KS Rajpurohit to apprise it about the steps taken by the district administration in pursuance of the SOP dated May 6 issued by the central government regarding vaccination of those who do not have any prescribed ID cards.

    Rajasthan’s Jodhpur district is the biggest hub for Pakistani migrants in the country. More than 30,000 Pakistani Hindu migrants are living in Jodhpur, Jaipur, and Jaisalmer waiting for their citizenship.

    The court observed that it is a serious issue and no person residing in the state can be allowed to starve due to non-availability of food. It directed the State Government to furnish a report regarding the availability of ration to the Pakistani migrants residing in Jodhpur by May 28.