CENSUS OF INDIA

India begins the largest ever democratic exercise in the world. About 2.5 million census-takers (mostly school teachers and government employees) began traveling across more than 630,000 villages and 5,000 cities in India to perform the task of counting India's population. The Registrar and Census commission of India holds census every 10 years (this is the 15th census of India) and provides vital information essential for future planning and administration of India.

For the first time ever, the census will include photograph and fingerprints of every individual. Also included in this census is the availability of drinking water, toilets, electricity, internet, bank and mobile phone usage, and the type of building material for houses. The painstaking task, spread over 11 months from today will also include beggars, homeless people, and people without proper residences- in a nutshell, it is promised to be a comprehensive picture of the myriad hues of life that is India.

Since finger-printing and photography will be taken into account too, a new system of creating a national identity card each with a unique identification number will be done. This would be the one single source of verifying the identity of a person. While this is common in developed countries, it is a very huge step in reducing the bureaucratic procedures for establishing one's identity in India. Presently, a mix of birth certificates, ration card, driver's license, credit card, PAN card, Tehsildar's letter, VAO's approval etc. are used in a garbled chaotic fashion, replete with bribes and red-tapism- all used to establish one's identity. A single identification number streamlines the process and would become the single most authoritative source to identify an Indian. The benefits of this are enormous, especially in India- this database can be used for policing purposes, medical purposes, administrative purposes, employment and taxation purposes, legal purposes, etc.

A lot of Indians are hopeful and positively optimistic of the whole process, including myself. However, provision should be made for non-resident Indians who constitute a significant chunk of the great Indian population mass of about 1.2 billion.

On a different note, today is the All fool's day. An earlier article on my blog about this day can be found here. Talking about fools, George Bernard Shaw was supposed to have said, "Cricket is a game played by 11 fools and watched by 11,000 fools". If he were alive today, the joke's on him as cricket is fast emerging as the most popular game in the world, second only to soccer. There, you can include it in the Indian census too- games people play/love.

Picture copyright: tinykingdom.com