India Kills 3 JeM Terrorists, Hunt for Pahalgam Attackers On
India Kills 3 JeM Terrorists, Hunt for Pahalgam Attackers On | Vantage with Palki Sharma
India Kills 3 JeM Terrorists, Hunt for Pahalgam Attackers On | Vantage with Palki Sharma
Three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were killed in an encounter with security forces during a cordon and search operation in Pulwama's Tral area in Jammu & Kashmir. Acting on intelligence, forces engaged the terrorists hiding in an under-construction building. The gunfight follows India's intensified counterterrorism efforts, including Operation Keller and recent crackdowns post-Pahalgam attack.
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Indian Express
20 minutes ago
- Indian Express
The Census of 1931
The Centre on Wednesday announced that the much delayed Census 2021 will be held in two phases beginning October 1, 2026 and March 1, 2027. This will be the first Census since 1931 to capture granular caste data, beyond the broader classifications of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) that have been enumerated in every post-Independence Census. Some of the debates that took place around the exercise in 1931 continue to be relevant even today. As are questions of methodology, which were discussed in detail in the 518-page report compiled by Census Commissioner John Henry Hutton. Here's a brief history. Context of the Census In 1931, British-ruled India stretched from Baluchistan (Balochistan) in the west to Burma (Myanmar) in the east. Hutton, an ICS officer and an anthropologist by training, wrote about the logistical challenges in his report: 'The taking of the decennial census in India involves the cooperation of more than one-sixth of the world's population over an area of nearly two million square miles [around 50 lakh sq km]… Enumerators' duties were often as onerous physically… [For instance] in Baluchistan the average enumerator had a block of 836 square miles [2,165 sq km]…'. The Raj also faced political challenges. The 1931 Census and preparations for it took place as civil disobedience swept across much of the country. '… [This] census like that of 1921 had the misfortune to coincide with a wave of non-cooperation, and the march of Mr Gandhi and his contrabandistas to invest the salt-pans of Dharasana synchronized with the opening of census operations,' Hutton complained. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 5, 1931, which effectively ended the Civil Disobedience Movement, was signed a week after the date of enumeration on February 27. The Congress boycotted the Census, observing January 11, 1931 as 'Census Boycott Sunday'. Hutton's report, however, claimed that the boycott 'was not taken up with any real enthusiasm' on the ground except for in some cities in Gujarat like 'Ahmadabad (Ahmedabad), Broach (Bharuch) and Surat ' and a few Mumbai suburbs like 'Ghatkopar and and Villaparle (Vile Parle)'. The Congress' boycott, Hutton wrote, 'had very little ultimate effect on the taking of the census'. What did have an effect, however, was the Great Depression and the economic distress it brought. 'It was another of the misfortunes of the 1931 census that it coincided with a fall in revenue and a period of economic depression which…left me no choice but to cut expenditure as fine as possible and to goad my Census Superintendents unremittingly in an attempt to finish sooner and spend less,' Hutton wrote. The 1931 Census cost the exchequer Rs 48.76 lakh compared to roughly Rs 40 lakh spent on the Census a decade previously. Even in absolute terms — not taking inflation into account — the 1931 Census was cheaper per capita than a decade earlier, costing Rs 12.8 per thousand population compared to Rs 14 per thousand population in 1921. One way in which the Census depressed costs was by not paying the nearly 20 lakh enumerators who collected the data. These enumerators, often teachers or low-level government servants, had to collect and collate Census data in addition to other quotidian tasks. Hutton also mentioned other challenges such as the Bhils refusing to have their houses numbered on 'superstitious grounds', and of enumerators in 'less law-abiding places' getting beaten up by locals. At places, enumerators were attacked by wild animals. 'Here and there wild beasts interfered instead of wild men, and the Administrator of Bastar State when inspecting census work on the night itself, was attacked by a tiger, which sprang onto the bonnet of his car, but finding the pace and the radiator too hot for him failed to make an end either of the inspector or his inspection,' Hutton wrote. Key findings of Census The 1931 Census captured crucial demographic data about (undivided) India and its people. 🔴 It found the total population of British India (including Burma and various princely states) to be 35.05 crore, up from 31.89 crores a decade ago. This equated to a decadal population growth rate of 10.6%, much higher than in the last three cycles. (It was 2.2% in 1891-1901, 7.4% in 1901-11, and 1.2% in 1911-21.) Hutton cited significant improvements in public health (particularly a reduction of deaths from the bubonic plague, cholera, and smallpox), an absence of major epidemics and, interestingly, the 'universality of marriage' as the reason for the population growth. '… [It] is enough to point out that in India the birth rate is much higher than in Europe, largely on account of the universality of marriage, the Parsis being perhaps the only Indian community in which late marriage and small families are the rule instead of the exception,' the report noted. 🔴 The distribution of this population, however, was far from uniform. While the overall population density was 85 persons/sq km, Chagai, Baluchistan, had a density of less than 1 person/sq km, the lowest in India. All of Baluchistan had a population density of only 2.5 persons/sq km. On the other hand, Cochin State on the southwestern coast had a population density of 800 persons/sq km, the highest in the country. One particular village in the princely state had a population density 1,635 persons/sq km. Also populous was the Dhaka Division of the province of Bengal, with a population density of 375 persons/sq km. '[The] variation of density of population in India depends not on industry, as in the United Kingdom, but on agriculture, and is greatest of course in the most fertile areas,' Hutton's report said. However, 'the actual rate of increase in population [was] the greatest in the less populated and less fertile areas', it noted. This, Hutton reasoned, was due to dynamics of internal migration. 'Where, therefore, there is a population already dense, there is a clearly perceptible spread towards the less profitable land,' the report said. 🔴 Calcutta (now Kolkata), with a population of 14.85 lakh, was the most populous city in British India, followed by Bombay (Mumbai) with 11.61 lakh, Madras (Chennai) with 6.47 lakh, Hyderabad (4.66 lakh) and Delhi (4.47 lakh). Besides these, Lahore, now in Pakistan, and Rangoon (Yangon) in Burma, were the only other cities that had a population of more than 4 lakh at the time. The enumeration of castes Like in earlier censuses, the 1931 Census enumerated individual castes among the Hindu population. This exercise faced strong opposition in Punjab; even in the previous Census of 1921, a total of 20,993 Hindus — about half of them from Bahawalpur State — had declared their caste as 'unspecified' due to the influence of Arya Samaj. Hutton wrote in his report: '[It is] difficult to see why the record of a fact that actually exists should tend to stabilize that existence. It is just as easy to argue and with at least as much truth, that it is impossible to get rid of any institution by ignoring its existence like the proverbial ostrich, and indeed facts themselves demonstrate that in spite of the recognition of caste in previous decades the in institution is of itself undergoing considerable modification. Indeed the treatment of caste at the 1931 census may claim to make a definite, if minute, contribution to Indian unity.' The 1931 Census put 18 questions to respondents, the eighth of which was on 'Race, Tribe or Caste'. This question had appeared in every Census from 1872 — when the first Census was conducted — onward. Thus, in the questionnaire of 1872, the fifth of 17 questions was on 'Caste or Class'; in 1882, the last of 13 questions asked for 'Caste, if Hindu, sect, if of other religion'; in 1891, the fourth of 14 questions was on 'Caste or race-Main caste', and the fifth was on 'Sub-division of caste or race'. In the 20th century, the 1901 and 1911 censuses (16 questions each) had a question on 'Caste of Hindus & Jains, Tribe, or race of others'. In 1921, the eighth of 16 questions was 'Caste, Tribe or Race'. In the 1931 Census, 18.83 lakh people, including 60,715 Hindus, gave the response 'caste nil'; 98% of them were from Bengal. The report said that no return of caste was insisted on from Arya or Brahmo Hindus. Given challenges such as the use of different surnames for the same caste, the Census report noted 'the difficulty of getting a correct return of caste and likewise the difficulty of interpreting it for census purposes'. The Census Superintendent for Madras wrote: 'Had caste terminology the stability of religious returns, caste sorting might be worthwhile. With the fluidity of present appellations it is certainly not… Individual fancy apparently has some part in caste nomenclature.'
Indian Express
27 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Ex-MLA, Congress leader arrested for ‘derogatory comments' on PM Modi on social media
The Chhattisgarh Police have arrested a serving Congress leader and an ex-MLA for allegedly making 'objectionable' remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media. The arrested people have been identified as Arun Tiwari, a 67-year-old ex-MLA formerly associated with the Congress, and Brijmohan Singh, a current Congress leader from Durg district. The arrests have been made in two separate cases. In the first case, Tiwari, a former MLA from Sipat in undivided Madhya Pradesh, was arrested for having made 'objectionable' remarks about the prime minister's estranged wife Jashodaben while speaking about 'Operation Sindoor' on social media. Tiwari, who is no longer with the Congress, was booked under sections section 296 (obscene act) and 352 (intentional insult) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on the back of a complaint registered on June 2. 'Tiwari was produced before a magistrate court Wednesday and has been remanded to judicial custody. He will be in jail till he is granted bail,' a police officer said. In a similar but unrelated case, Congress leader Brijmohan Singh was arrested under sections 296 (obscene act) and 353 (public mischief) of the BNS for having posted 'abusive comments' on Modi on social media. He has been remanded in judicial custody. Reacting to the arrests, Sushil Anand Shukla, the communications head for the Congress in Chhattisgarh said: 'Arun Tiwari is no longer with the Congress party. Brijmohan ji is a good leader and I do not believe he can use such words. It is either a misunderstanding or it is a conspiracy by the BJP'. The development comes less than a month after Operation Sindoor — India's retaliatory strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan in the aftermath of the April 22 Pahalgam attacks in which 26 people, including a resident of Chhattisgarh's Raipur, was killed.
Hans India
an hour ago
- Hans India
Monsoon session of Parl from July 21
New Delhi: The monsoon session of Parliament will be held between July 21 and August 12, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju announced on Wednesday, as the Central government virtually rejected the Opposition INDIA bloc demand for a special session to discuss Pahalgam terror attack, Operation Sindoor and subsequent developments. The unusually early announcement came 47 days before the commencement of the session, with the Opposition believing that it is aimed at blunting its sustained campaign for a special session, which is now planning to send another letter by around 300 MPs after a joint letter by 16 leaders. The session, which will have 17 sittings, will see a discussion on Operation Sindoor as well as initiation of an impeachment motion against Allahabad High Court's Justice Yashwant Varma. It is also likely to see the government taking credit for the announcement of caste census in a year Bihar is going to Assembly elections. The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, has recommended the dates, Rijiju told reporters. Under the rules, all issues can be discussed during the Monsoon session, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister said while responding to a question on the Opposition's demand. This will be the first Parliament session since the Pahalgam attack in Kashmir, where 26 civilians were killed by terrorists.
