82-yr-old Shaheen Bagh protestor Bilkis in TIME's 100 Most Influential list

New Delhi, Sep 23: The 82-year-old Bilkis, who sat at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act, has been named in TIME magazine's list of 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bollywood actor Ayushman Khurana, Professor of Clinical Microbiology Ravindra Gupta, and Google Chief Executive officer Sundar Pichai are the other names who made it to the list.

The 'Dadi of Shaheen Bagh' Bilkis became one of the prominent faces of the protest for her sheer resistance despite her age. She was one among the many women who sit in protest all day into the night at Shaheen Bagh.

The Citizenship Amendment Act, approved by Parliament on December 11, provides citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and entered the country by December 31, 2014. It has been widely criticised for excluding Muslims. Protests against the Act started in Delhi in mid-December and spread across the country.

Meanwhile, recently, the Delhi Police have alleged that organisers of the Shaheen Bagh protests also conspired to overthrow the government, and sparked the communal violence in the city which broke out in February.

Many organisers and youth leaders involved in the protests are in police custody.
China President Xi Jingping, United States President Donald Trump, German leader Ursula von der Leyen, Black Lives Matter Founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, Alibaba Group Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang, musician Megan Thee Stallion, tennis star Naomi Osaka, US Federal Reserve Chairperson Jeremy Powell, singer Selena Gomez, actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge were among many who features on the list.