India launches its national census

The census, conducted every 10 years, has a new element this year with the collection of biometric data in which every citizen over the age of 15 will be photographed and fingerprinted, information that will form the base of a new National Population Register of the country's 1.2 billion population..

So far, India has not had a system of issuing a national identity number or card to its citizens. The collection of biometric data using a combination of fingerprints and facial identification will be linked with another massive exercise launched last year to ensure every Indian is assigned an identity number.

President Pratibha Patil marked the start of the 11-month exercise yesterday at her pink sandstone presidential palace, which became the first household to be listed for the first phase of the census, known as "houselisting".

Over the next six months, census-takers will travel across more than 630,000 villages and over 5,000 cities in the country to visit every structure that serves as a home to put together a national database. They also plan to include millions of homeless people who sleep on railway platforms, under bridges and in parks.