India has kicked off a mammoth exercise to count its entire population – all 1.4 billion of them, give or take a few, in a census initially delayed by the pandemic then administrative issues.
Over the next year, more than three million people will go door-to-door, traveling through megacities and remote villages, to tally up every household and resident of India – and collect data on their social and economic characteristics.
For the first time in almost 100 years, the survey will include caste – a controversial decision that some say could further entrench divisions.
The final count will not be known until next year, underscoring the vast scale of an exercise that seeks to…