Everything you should know about Census 2027
WHAT IS A CENSUS?A census is the process of collecting, recording and analysing information about each member of a population and is used to complete a population estimate. Generally speaking, in most countries, including India, the census is a decennial event that aims to collect national-level information on the size and spatial distribution of the population and on various characteristics of the population (e.g. housing, education, employment, etc).The census aims to cover the entire population, whereas surveys primarily use samples, making the census the best and most accurate source of demographic information. The information is used for planning public services, allocating state funds, establishing electoral boundaries, and monitoring social progress, amongst other uses.advertisementCENSUS PHASESHouse Listing Operation (HLO): This phase collects details about housing conditions, household items, and basic facilities.Population Enumeration (PE): This part records information about each person's age, gender, education, work, and other social and economic details.FULLY DIGITAL PROCESSFor the first time, the entire census will be done digitally using mobile apps and tablets.People will also have the option to self-enumerate, meaning they can fill out their details online.TIMELINEData collection will be completed by March 1, 2027, but publishing the results may take another two to three years.For snow-bound and non-synchronous areas like Ladakh, parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the reference date is October 1, 2026.WHY IS THE CENSUS IMPORTANT?Better policy and planningCensus data helps the government decide where to build schools, hospitals, roads, and other public services.Fair distribution of resourcesIt guides how money and resources are divided between different states and districts.Electoral boundaries and representationThe census is used to redraw Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies and decide how many seats each area gets in elections.The Census 2027 will be India's first fully digital census with an option for citizens to self-report their data online. It will be conducted in two phases: house listing and population enumeration, with millions of enumerators using mobile apps across the country. With improved technology, caste data inclusion, and strong data security, this census aims to provide a detailed and timely snapshot of India's population and social fabric.Must Watch
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The Wire
an hour ago
- The Wire
MHA Directive Contradicts Union Minister's Lok Sabha Reply on Detentions of Bangla-Speaking Migrants
While Shobha Karandlaje said state police were responsible for the drives against suspected undocumented immigrants, a May 2 Union home ministry directive proves otherwise. The recent crackdown has left the entire Khatola neighbourhood in Gurgram, where Assamese migrant workers live, deserted. Photo: Shruti Sharma New Delhi: On August 11, speaking in the Lok Sabha, Union minister of state for labour and employment Shobha Karandlaje replied to Trinamool Congress MP Abishek Banerjee's question on detentions of Bangla-speaking migrant workers. She said that the responsibility lay with state governments, citing 'public order' and 'policy' as state subjects. While she shared general statistics on migrants from West Bengal, she evaded Banerjee's question regarding concrete data on detained Bangla-speaking migrants. Karandjale's reply seemed to suggest that somehow, different police forces across states, especially in those ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, spontaneously began simultaneous detention drives of their own accord. However, a directive from the Union home ministry (MHA) and inputs The Wire gathered from officials, lawyers and detainees, point to quite the opposite – that the detentions follow MHA guidelines. On May 2, the MHA (Foreign Division) had issued a directive to the chief secretaries of all states and union territory administrations, DGPs/IGPs of all states/UTs, the DG of the Border Security Force, DG of Assam Rifles, and DG of Coast Guard, outlining the procedure for deporting undocumented Bangladeshi nationals and the Rohingya. Though a copy of this directive is unavailable online, it has been widely reported in the media. The directive reads, 'The Central Government has laid down the legal framework wherein all State Governments and Union Territory Administrations are fully empowered to take action regarding detection, imposing restrictions on the movement of illegally staying foreign nationals and their deportation/ removal/ expulsion as per the provisions in the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Foreigners Order, 1948.' It further states, 'Since the Central Government does not maintain a separate federal police force exclusively dedicated to the task of detection, imposing restrictions on movement and deportation of illegally staying foreigners, action in this regard has been entrusted to the State/ UT police.' 'Therefore, State Governments/ UT Administrations are primarily responsible for identifying the illegally and overstaying foreign nationals, their restriction in identified places and their deportation.' Also read: In Dhubri, Muslim Residents Were Evicted First and Then Deleted from Electoral Rolls The directive also lays down guidelines to be followed while apprehending Bangladeshis and Rohingya living illegally in the country. It said: '(i) All State Governments/UT Administrations shall set up a Special Task Force in each District under the police of the State/UT to detect, identify and deport / send-back illegal immigrants from Bangladesh / Myanmar settled in the State/UT concerned. (ii) All State Governments/UT Administrations shall set up adequate Holding Centers in each District under the Police of the State/UT to detain illegal immigrants from Bangladesh / Myanmar. (iii) In respect of Bangladesh / Myanmar nationals identified to be staying unauthorizedly in any particular State/UT, an inquiry shall be conducted by the State Government/UT concerned. (iv) If the suspected Bangladesh / Myanmar national claims Indian citizenship and residence of a place in any other Indian State/UT, the concerned State Government/UT would send to the Home Secretary of the State/UT and District Collector/District Magistrate of the District from where the suspected person claims to hail, the details including name, parentage, residential address, details of near relatives etc. The State Government/ UT/Collector/District Magistrate concerned in turn will ensure that an appropriate report is sent to the deporting State Government/UT after proper verification within a period of 30 days. During the period of 30 days, the suspected person shall be kept in the Holding Center to ensure physical availability at the time of deportation/ send back. If no report is received within the period of 30 days, the Foreigners Registration Officer may take necessary action to deport/ send-back the suspected Bangladesh/Myanmar national. If a person is identified as an illegal Bangladesh national / Rohingya after the enquiry, the State/ UT shall immediately capture their biometrics (fingerprints and facial photographs) and demographic details on the Foreigners Identification Portal (FIP) of the MHA. Where connectivity is not available, these shall be captured offline and then shall then be uploaded on the Foreigners Identification Portal (FIP) of the MHA as soon as possible. For this purpose, the State/ UT shall use the biometric equipment available at the Districts under the District Police Module for capturing the biometric data on FIP. In case biometric equipment is available at the Police Station in the State/UT, the same may be used to upload data on the FIP. The use of NAFIS to capture biometrics will stand to be discontinued. All State Governments/UT Administrations should maintain a record of illegal Bangladesh nationals or Rohingya handed over to designated Border Guarding Forces / Coast Guards for deportation and send a report in this regard to the Ministry of Home Affairs by the 15th day of every month through the FRRO. This report is mandatory. The order instructs states, UTs, and border guarding forces to strictly follow the revised deportation guidelines and avoid 'unnecessary publicity' around such actions. It further says that complete details of any detained Bangladeshi or Rohingya should be sent to the Ministry of External Affairs.' It carries the signature of Pratap Singh Rawat, under secretary, MHA (Foreigners). Initially, this MHA directive was not publicly available, not even on the ministry's website. When The Wire inquired with Gurugram police officials about the order, they confirmed receiving a copy but refused to share it. The PRO of Gurugram Police had told The Wire, 'Although police can detain 'suspected' foreign nationals without any order from the government, in this matter, we have the MHA directives.' Senior police officials at various instances reiterated the same claim. However, under the Foreigners Act of 1946, a uthorities cannot detain individuals solely on suspicion of being foreign nationals. Despite being severely critiqued as flawed by legal experts, there is an expectation on the part of the state to produce some evidence before a foreigners tribunal, like in the case of Assam, to challenge a person's citizenship. Last month, The Wire reported on how the Gurugram Police detained hundreds of Bengali-speaking migrant workers from West Bengal and Assam – most of whom are Muslim – on the suspicion of them being Bangladeshi citizens living in India without the required documents. People were detained despite many of them possessing Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards and, in some cases, even passports issued by the Government of India. All were later released except ten individuals whom the police claimed were 'confirmed Bangladeshis'. Following the crackdown, large numbers of Bengali-speaking migrant workers fled to Assam and West Bengal, fearing police action and harassment. In Gurugram's Khatola village – a neighbourhood that housed around 2,000 Assamese workers – most residents have fled to their villages in Assam. Also read: Bengal Migrant Who Was Stripped and Beaten in Odisha, Returns to Work – in Nagpur A copy of the May 2 MHA directive was obtained by the All India Lawyers Association for Justice (AILAJ), a pan-India association of lawyers and law students. AILAJ has called on the Union home ministry to withdraw this 'unconstitutional and illegal' directive, which they say allows the detention of individuals solely on suspicion of being foreign nationals. It has demanded that such detentions be stopped altogether and urged the courts to intervene to halt what it sees as a violation of constitutional rights. They said the May 2 directive is part of a broader assault on citizenship and the rights of working people, particularly Muslims and non-Hindi-speaking communities. It linked the Gurugram crackdown to other measures such as the verification drive in Assam, sudden voter roll revisions in Bihar, forced evictions, imposition of Hindi and the institutionalisation of Islamophobia through laws and media narratives. Legal scholar Mohsin Alam Bhat, who recently released a report titled 'Unmaking Citizens: Architecture of Rights Violations and Exclusion in India's Citizenship Trials' which argues that India's citizenship tribunals have transformed into instruments of exclusion, told The Wire in an interview this month that the detentions outside Assam – including in Gurugram and NCR – are worse than Assam. 'There is no process here,' he said. 'This is a system built on distrust and suspicion. A police official sitting in Haryana can decide who's an Indian just by looking at their faces or hearing them speak.' The Trinamool Congress has accused the Union government of evading questions on the detentions. The party alleged that the Union home ministry under Amit Shah had earlier directed BJP-ruled states to profile Bengali speakers, brand them as 'Bangladeshis' and push them out, making the Union government equally accountable for the harassment, detention and deportation of innocent workers. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
The Hindu
5 hours ago
- The Hindu
Shelter or vaccinate? Before deciding, India must count its stray dogs accurately
On August 11, the Supreme Court directed the Delhi government and local bodies to immediately capture stray dogs and put them in shelters. The Court was hearing a suo motu case on the increasing instances of stray dog attacks on children, including infants. The Court said, 'Not a single dog picked up shall be released back on the streets/public spaces.' The order has divided public opinion. While some people agree with it given the extent of the problem of dog bites, others have questioned the effectiveness of simply relocating dogs to shelters, pointing out that Delhi lacks shelters to keep so many dogs. Whether or not India has a stray dog problem, it certainly has a dog-counting problem. Getting that right could be key to making any policy, whether it is confining dogs or vaccinating them, effective. The most recent nationwide stray dog count is the Livestock Census of 2019. In fact, reports show that the Delhi-specific dog census was conducted even earlier, in 2016. So, in 2025, policies are being framed using estimates of the dog population based on an outdated censuses. More importantly, an analysis of the 2019 Census itself raises several questions. Take the case of Tamil Nadu. In 2019, there were 4.4 lakh stray dogs in the State. In the same year, according to data from the Integrated Disease Surveillance Platform, Tamil Nadu recorded 8.3 lakh dog bites. The chart below shows the number of dog bites and stray dogs in each State in 2019 In other words, that year, there were two dog bites for every stray dog in the State. Even allowing for the possibility of the same dog biting multiple people, the number of dog bites remains staggeringly high compared to the estimated dog population. In the case of Manipur, the 2019 Livestock Census recorded no stray dogs in the State. That data point alone is hard to fathom. Yet, that same year, Manipur reported around 5,500 dog bite cases. In Odisha, there were 17.3 lakh dogs in 2019. Odisha housed the second highest number of dogs among all the States. Yet, there were only 1.7 lakh bites that year in Odisha. If the data is correct, then States such as Tamil Nadu — which suffer 'severely' from dog bites with nearly 1,900 bites for every 1,000 dogs, as shown in the chart below — could learn from States such as Odisha, which report only about 100 bites per 1,000 dogs. The chart shows the number of dog bites for every 1,000 stray dogs in each State in 2019 Such knowledge-sharing could help address the crisis. The fact that this has not happened clearly points to a data mismatch rather than ground reality. Since all dog bites will be reported by the victims due to fear of rabies, and since hospitals are required to record these cases, the data mismatch likely lies in dog population figures. With the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that 99% of human rabies cases are caused by the bite of infected dogs, India's National Action Plan for Dog-Mediated Rabies Elimination by 2030 had proposed strategic mass dog vaccination as the way forward in 2018. The plan had stated that vaccinating 70% of dogs and sustaining the effort for three years can eliminate rabies. The WHO also recognises this as a cost-effective strategy. Evidence from a data-driven rabies elimination programme in Goa, published in the journal Nature, showed that vaccinating 70% of the State's dogs eliminated human rabies cases by 2019 and reduced monthly canine rabies cases by 92%. The chart below shows the results from a data-driven rabies elimination programme in Goa show that vaccinating dogs helps reduce human rabies cases In fact, Goa recorded the highest number of dog bites per capita in 2019. As can be seen from chart below, there were 1,412 dog bites for every 1 lakh people in Goa in 2019, the highest among all the States. The chart shows the number of stray dogs and dog bites for every 1 lakh people in each State in 2019 The data for the charts were sourced from the Livestock Census-2019, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Some of the datasets were accessed through Dataful developed by Factly
The Hindu
8 hours ago
- The Hindu
SIR of Bihar's electoral rolls and its political ripple effects
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar has raised concerns about possible disenfranchisement of migrant voters. Bihar, along with Uttar Pradesh, is a key source of outmigrants, and people from these two States are relocating in large numbers. This mobility is visible across the country. While it was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is little data to document it. The last Census was in 2011. The 2027 Census will capture these migration patterns of the last 15 years, but there are proxy data sets and recent sample surveys that give insights into where people are going and from where. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is clear that one of the objectives of the SIR is to eliminate migrants who have relocated out of the State from Bihar's electoral rolls. The concerns regarding migrant voting rights is misplaced, for the simple reason that they are supposed to be voters where they have migrated to — where they are ordinarily residents. The Bihar SIR is an experiment in determining whether one can vote, and where one can vote; whether one is a citizen, and where one is a resident. This experiment in both demographic accounting and engineering will have many political implications, far beyond Bihar. Changing the demographic composition of constituencies is one way of influencing electoral outcomes. A citizen from Bihar voting in Bihar and voting in Maharashtra or Kerala will have different implications for the national political map. By enforcing the law on residency and voting, the ECI is trying to fast-track the political implication of population shifts. People move from where there are more of them to where there are fewer; and they move from places of poor economic opportunity to places with better opportunity. Though the 2011 Census captures the direction and the quantum of this movement, the proxy data from recent years supports this — this is how we can make sense, certainly directionally, though not necessarily in absolute numbers, of where people are arriving and where they are leaving from. The first clue comes from unreserved train travel, according to a paper by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM). A regression analysis in the paper shows a strong correlation between unreserved train travel and the migrant population. Chart 1 shows the share of passengers arriving in Maharashtra in 2023 with unreserved tickets, based on their departure stations. Such travel is common between neighbouring States, as people from border districts often use this mode to cross the border with a strong possibility of returning to their homes the same day. Therefore, unreserved train travel between States that do not share a border becomes a stronger proxy for migration. About 50% of travellers with unreserved tickets originate within Maharashtra, followed by 12.3% from Gujarat and 5.4% from Karnataka — both neighbouring States (Chart 1). The two non-neighbouring States among the top five points of origin are Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, each accounting for over 7%, which clearly shows the direction of migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra. Another measure is the ratio of savings account balances to current account balances. A current account, typically operated by businesses, offers features that a savings account does not. The districts with low savings-to-current account ratios are typically cities with high levels of economic activity which attract migrants. In Mumbai (0.56), Delhi (2.24), and Bengaluru (2.21), the ratio was much lower compared with the national median (3.72). In contrast, cities with relatively higher savings-to-current account ratios are seen as having limited economic activity. For instance, many districts in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have a higher ratio, indicating possible outmigration. Map 2 shows the district-level average ratio of savings account deposits to current account deposits from 2017-18 to 2022-23. Many southern capitals such as Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, as well as industrial hubs such as Tiruppur and Coimbatore, stand out in blue, indicating possible in-migration. A study by the State Planning Commission of Tamil Nadu, conducted in November–December 2024, surveyed migrant workers in Chennai and three neighbouring districts and found that 35% of them were from Bihar, 20% from Odisha and 16% from the northeast (Chart 3). Another dataset reflecting this trend comes from an analysis of migrant labourers who returned to their home towns from Tamil Nadu in trains during the pandemic lockdown. The analysis, published on the IIM Bangalore website, shows that most (30%) passengers leaving Tamil Nadu were bound for Bihar. These migrant populations turn permanent residents of their host States through a gradual process, but the residency rule enforcement could possibly accelerate the process. The political character and electoral dynamics respond to the changing composition of the population. In Delhi and Mumbai, migrants from the Hindi belt are now a decisive political constituency, and parties respond accordingly. In the U.S. and the U.K., politicians of Indian origin emerged on the national stage corresponding to the rise of their population in the country. Bihar SIR's politics will ripple far beyond the borders of the State. Source: EAC-PM and the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission
