India, Aug. 4 -- Parliament on Tuesday passed the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Bill, 2026, tightening one of the country's oldest and most consequential civil laws.

The change is narrow on paper - a single sub-section of the 1969 Act - but it re-routes the process for registering any birth or death reported more than two years after the event. A delay beyond this threshold sends the cases to a judicial magistrate of the first class, a judicial officer under the high court, rather than to an executive magistrate, a district-cadre administrator under the state government.

This is the second time in three years Parliament has moved to amend a statute most people encounter only when they need to prove they were born.

The R...