It's Official! Amid CAA-NRC Protests, Modi Govt Rolls Out First Phase Of Census India

Amid the CAA-NRC protests, the Narendra Modi government issued an official notification that set the ball rolling for the mega Census exercise on Friday. In the official notification, the government published the set of questions that will be covered in the first phase of Census India. The house-listing operations of the Census India will take place from the April 1st, 2020 and will conclude on September 30. The information that will be sought from every household is: whether the family owns a telephone, mobile phone, smartphone, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, moped, car or jeep or van, radio or transistor, television, laptop or computer or has access to the internet.

The official notification said that the numerators will ask whether the head of the household belongs to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe or Other category, ownership status of the census house, number of dwelling rooms exclusively in possession of the household, number of married couple(s) living in the household, main source of drinking water, availability of drinking water source and main cereal consumed in the household. Questions related to main source of lighting, whether the family has access to a toilet, the type of toilet, waste water outlet, availability of bathing facility, availability of kitchen and LPG/PNG connection and main fuel used for cooking will also be asked by the enumerators, the notification also said.

The central government has also decided to prepare a National Population Register (NPR) by September 2020 which will be carried out along with the house-listing phase of the census. The NPR will be a list of usual residents of the country. The Opposition has been against the Census and its connection with the NPR.

Earlier, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi had accused Narendra Modi government of misleading people on the issues of Citizenship Act, National Population Register and National Register of Citizens. In an exclusive interview with News Nation, Owaisi said that NPR and NRC are two sides of the same coin. Asaduddin Owaisi explained his stand on various issues including the violence during the anti-CAA protests and his reasons for opposing NRC and NPR.

When asked whether opposing a law passed by the Indian Parliament was right, Owaisi gave the example of Emergency. He said everyone came together to oppose Emergency. He said that CAA was a black law and there was not anything anti-national in protesting against it. Owaisi added the government should decide who is an infiltrator or refugee based on someone's religion. It should divide India into Hindu vs Muslim, he said.