NEW DELHI (AP) -- India has begun a yearlong census of its billion-plus population in which it plans to photograph and fingerprint every citizen over the age of 15 to create a national database and then issue its first national identity cards. About 2.5 million census-takers have begun traveling across more than 630,000 villages and 5,000 cities in an effort to visit every structure serving as a home, from tin shanties to skyscrapers, in what the government calls the world's largest administrative exercise.
For the first time, they will note the availability of toilets, drinking water and electricity, and the type of building materials to create a comprehensive picture of housing in India. They will also take fingerprints and photographs of each person and collect information on Internet, mobile phone and bank account usage. The census-takers -- mostly local government officials or schoolteachers -- also plan to include millions of homeless people who sleep on railway platforms, under bridges and in parks.
Some interesting images of India can be found on The Frame.
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