Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2017/02 for five years and has resided in India for twelve months51 before making an application for registration.52 The registration of minors in Section 5 (1) (d) of the Act requires a declaration from the parent of the child,53 however the term ‘parent’ has not been clarified for instance whether the term covers adoptive parents or children born out of wedlock. Thus it remains unclear what happens if one parent is an Indian citizen and the other is stateless. So, it can be said that Indian citizenship by registration does not really consider those who are stateless. Although stateless persons may fulfil the requirement of duration of residency in India, they are still not eligible for citizenship by registration under Section 5 as they are not considered of Indian origin, married to an Indian citizen or children of Indian citizens. 2.2.4 Citizenship by naturalisation Section 6 in conjunction with the Third Schedule of the Citizenship Act provides for the acquisition of Indian citizenship through naturalisation. The requirement that persons shall not be ‘illegal migrants’ introduced by the 2003 Act already disqualifies most stateless persons from acquiring citizenship via naturalisation. Furthermore, the fact the individual has not previously renounced nor been deprived of Indian citizenship seals the barrier for most stateless persons from being able to naturalise in the future as well. Nevertheless, the condition in Section 6(1) provides that the Central Government may waive any of the conditions from the Third Schedule for individuals that have rendered distinguished service to “the cause of science, philosophy, art, literature, world peace or human progress generally.”54 Ultimately, the Central Government has the discretion to decide whether the person has fulfilled such service, and thus plays a key role in the reduction of statelessness in India. However it seems very unlikely that stateless persons would have the possibility to render such distinguished services as they are usually marginalised and lack resources to excel in such fields. Another potential barrier to naturalisation is that Rule no.10 of the Citizenship Rules55 requires applicants to have “adequate knowledge”56 of at least one language specified in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution.57 This can be burdensome for many stateless persons who do not know any of the specified languages, which is the case for many Rohingyas.58 The obligations under Article 2(1) of the ICCPR states that all rights and freedoms must be guaranteed “without distinction of any kind such as […] language”. Additionally, Article 29(c) and Article 30 of the CRC states that education of the child 51 Substituted from ‘2 years’ from the Principal Act to ‘twelve months’ by Section 3(i)(b)(B) Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2015 52 Section 5, Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 53 Rule no. 5, The Citizenship Rules, 2009, 54 Section 6(1), The Citizenship Act, 1955 55 Rule no. 10, The Citizenship Rules, 2009 56 ibid. 57 'Specified languages' are the following: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Eight Schedule, The Constitution of India, 1950 58 Khan, A.Y., ‘Hyderabad’s Rohingya refugees fight language barriers.’ The Hindu, 1 July 2013, available at: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/hyderabads-rohingya-refugees-fightlanguagebarriers/article4866622.ece [accessed 15 July 2016] 6