The Minister of State for Minority Affairs (Independent Charge) Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has appointed a renowned social and educational activist George Kurian as Vice-Chairman of National Commission for Minorities.
The other appointed members of the National Minority Commission are social activist Syed Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi (Chairman), former Maharashtra minister Sulekha Kumbhare, Jain representative Sunil Singhi and Vada Dasturji Khurshed Kaikobad Dastoor.
For the first time a Jain member has been appointed to the panel after the community was notified as minority in January 2014.
Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Parsi and Jain are the six notified minority communities in the country.
National Commission for Minorities
The Union Government has set up the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992.
The commission is made up of a Chairperson, a Vice Chairperson and five members. Unlike other bodies like NCSC and NCST, NCM has no constitutional backing or status.
NCM was made a statutory body in 1992 via the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992.
It works under the Ministry of Minority Affairs, and before the formation of this ministry it came under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. Some state viz. Andhra Pradesh, Assam , Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi , Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have also set up State Minorities Commissions.
There’s no prescribed selection process for making appointments with the Cabinet Appointments Committee arbitrarily picking up names from a list suggested by the “nodal” ministry.
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