15th census of India | ||
---|---|---|
| ||
General information | ||
Country | India | |
Authority | RGCCI | |
Website | censusindia | |
Results | ||
Total population | 1,210,854,977 ( 17.70% [1] ) | |
Most populous | Uttar Pradesh (199,812,341) | |
Least populous | Sikkim (610,577) | |
Scheduled Castes | 201,378,372 | |
Scheduled Tribes | 104,545,716 |
The 2011 census of India or the 15th Indian census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information for National Population Register (NPR) was also collected in the first phase, which will be used to issue a 12-digit unique identification number to all registered Indian residents by Unique Identification Authority of India. The second population enumeration phase was conducted between 9 and 28 February 2011. Census has been conducted in India since 1872 and 2011 marks the first time biometric information was collected. According to the provisional reports released on 31 March 2011, the Indian population increased to 1.21 billion with a decadal growth of 17.70%. [2] Adult literacy rate increased to 74.04% with a decadal growth of 9.21%. The motto of the census was Our Census, Our Future.
Spread across 28 states [lower-alpha 1] and 8 union territories, the census covered 640 districts, 5,924 sub-districts, 7,935 towns and more than 600,000 villages. A total of 2.7 million officials visited households in 7,935 towns and 600,000 villages, classifying the population according to gender, religion, education and occupation. [3] The cost of the exercise was approximately ₹2,200 crore (US$260 million) [4] – this comes to less than US$0.50 per person, well below the estimated world average of US$4.60 per person. [3]
Information on castes was included in the census following demands from several ruling coalition leaders including Lalu Prasad Yadav, and Mulayam Singh Yadav supported by opposition parties Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. [5] Information on caste was last collected during the British Raj in 1931. During the early census, people often exaggerated their caste status to garner social status and it is expected that people downgrade it now in the expectation of gaining government benefits. [6] Earlier, there was speculation that there would be a caste-based census conducted in 2011, the first time in 80 years (last was in 1931), to find the exact population of the "Other Backward Classes" (OBCs) in India. [7] [8] [9] [10] This was later accepted and the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 was conducted whose first findings were revealed on 3 July 2015 by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. [11] Mandal Commission report of 1980 quoted OBC population at 52%, though National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey of 2006 quoted OBC population at 41%. [12]
There is only one other instance of a caste count in post-independence India. It was conducted in Kerala in 1968 by the Government of Kerala under E. M. S. Namboodiripad to assess the social and economic backwardness of various lower castes. The census was termed Socio-Economic Survey of 1968 and the results were published in the Gazetteer of Kerala, 1971. [13]
C. Chandramouli IAS was the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India for the 2011 Indian census. Census data was collected in 16 languages and the training manual was prepared in 18 languages. In 2011, India and Bangladesh also conducted their first-ever joint census of areas along their border. [14] [15] The census was conducted in two phases. The first, the house-listing phase, began on 1 April 2010 and involved collection of data about all the buildings and census houses. [16] Information for the National Population Register was also collected in the first phase. The second, the population enumeration phase, was conducted from 9 – 28 February 2011 all over the country. The eradication of epidemics, the availability of more effective medicines for the treatment of various types of diseases and the improvement in the standard of living were the main reasons for the high decadal growth of population in India.[ citation needed ]
The House-listing schedule contained 35 questions. [17]
|
The Population enumeration schedule contained 30 questions. [18] [19]
|
The National Population Register household schedule contained 9 questions. [20]
|
Once the information was collected and digitised, fingerprints were taken and photos collected. Unique Identification Authority of India was to issue a 12-digit identification number to all individuals and the first ID have been issued in 2011. [21] [22]
Provisional data from the census was released on 31 March 2011 (and was updated on 20 May 2013). [23] [24] [25] [26] Transgender population was counted in population census in India for the first time in 2011. [27] [28] The overall sex ratio of the population is 943 females for every 1,000 males in 2011. [29] The official count of the third gender in India is 490,000 [30]
Population | Total | 1,210,854,977 |
Males | 623,724,568 | |
Females | 586,469,294 | |
Literacy | Total | 74% |
Males | 82.10% | |
Females | 65.46% | |
Density of population | per km2 | 382 |
Sex ratio | per 1000 males | 943 females |
Child sex ratio (0–6 age group) | per 1000 males | 919 females |
The population of India as per 2011 census was 1,210,854,977. [31] India added 181.5 million to its population since 2001, slightly lower than the population of Brazil. India, with 2.4% of the world's surface area, accounts for 17.5% of its population. Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state with roughly 200 million people. Over half the population resided in the six most populous states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. [32] Of the 1.21 billion Indians, 833 million (68.84%) live in rural areas while 377 million stay in urban areas. [33] [34] 453.6 million people in India are migrants, which is 37.8% of total population. [35] [36] [37]
India is home to many religions such as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, while also being home to several indigenous faiths and tribal religions which have been practiced alongside major religions for centuries. According to the 2011 census, the total number of households in India is 248.8 million. Of which 202.4 million are Hindu, 31.2 million are Muslim, 6.3 million are Christian, 4.1 million are Sikh, and 1.9 million are Jain [38] [39] According to 2011 census, there are around 3.01 million places of worship in India. [40]
State / Union Territory (UT) | Capital | Type | Population | Males | Females | Sex Ratio [42] | Literacy rate (%) | Population | Area [43] (km2) | Density (1/km2) | Decadal Growth% (2001–11) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
number | % of total [44] | Rural [45] | Urban [45] | ||||||||||
Uttar Pradesh | Lucknow | State | 199,812,341 | 104,480,510 | 95,331,831 | 912 | 155,111,022 | 44,470,455 | 240,928 | 828 | 20.1% | ||
Maharashtra | Mumbai | State | 112,374,333 | 58,243,056 | 54,131,277 | 929 | 61,545,441 | 50,827,531 | 307,713 | 365 | 16.0% | ||
Bihar | Patna | State | 104,099,452 | 54,278,157 | 49,821,295 | 918 | 92,075,028 | 11,729,609 | 94,163 | 1,102 | 25.1% | ||
West Bengal | Kolkata | State | 91,276,115 | 46,809,027 | 44,467,088 | 950 | 62,213,676 | 29,134,060 | 88,752 | 1,030 | 13.9% | ||
Andhra Pradesh [lower-alpha 1] | Hyderabad | State | 84,580,777 | 42,442,146 | 42,138,631 | 993 | 56,361,702 | 28,219,075 | 275,045 | 308 | 10.98% | ||
Madhya Pradesh | Bhopal | State | 72,626,809 | 37,612,306 | 35,014,503 | 931 | 52,537,899 | 20,059,666 | 308,245 | 236 | 20.3% | ||
Tamil Nadu | Chennai | State | 72,147,030 | 36,137,975 | 36,009,055 | 996 | 37,189,229 | 34,949,729 | 130,058 | 555 | 15.6% | ||
Rajasthan | Jaipur | State | 68,548,437 | 35,550,997 | 32,997,440 | 928 | 51,540,236 | 17,080,776 | 342,239 | 201 | 21.4% | ||
Karnataka | Bengaluru | State | 61,095,297 | 30,966,657 | 30,128,640 | 973 | 37,552,529 | 23,578,175 | 191,791 | 319 | 15.7% | ||
Gujarat | Gandhinagar | State | 60,439,692 | 31,491,260 | 28,948,432 | 919 | 34,670,817 | 25,712,811 | 196,024 | 308 | 19.2% | ||
Odisha | Bhubaneshwar | State | 41,974,218 | 21,212,136 | 20,762,082 | 979 | 34,951,234 | 6,996,124 | 155,707 | 269 | 14.0% | ||
Kerala | Thiruvananthapuram | State | 33,406,061 | 16,027,412 | 17,378,649 | 1,084 | 17,445,506 | 15,932,171 | 38,863 | 859 | 4.9% | ||
Jharkhand | Ranchi | State | 32,988,134 | 16,930,315 | 16,057,819 | 948 | 25,036,946 | 7,929,292 | 79,714 | 414 | 22.3% | ||
Assam | Dispur | State | 31,205,576 | 15,939,443 | 15,266,133 | 958 | 26,780,526 | 4,388,756 | 78,438 | 397 | 16.9% | ||
Punjab | Chandigarh | State | 27,743,338 | 14,639,465 | 13,103,873 | 895 | 17,316,800 | 10,387,436 | 50,362 | 550 | 13.7% | ||
Chhattisgarh | Raipur | State | 25,545,198 | 12,832,895 | 12,712,303 | 991 | 19,603,658 | 5,936,538 | 135,191 | 189 | 22.6% | ||
Haryana | Chandigarh | State | 25,351,462 | 13,494,734 | 11,856,728 | 879 | 16,531,493 | 8,821,588 | 44,212 | 573 | 19.9% | ||
Delhi | Delhi | UT | 16,787,941 | 8,887,326 | 7,800,615 | 868 | 944,727 | 12,905,780 | 1,484 | 11,297 | 21% | ||
Jammu and Kashmir | Jammu(winter) Srinagar(summer) | State | 12,541,302 | 6,640,662 | 5,900,640 | 889 | 9,134,820 | 3,414,106 | 222,236 | 56 | 23.7% | ||
Uttarakhand | Dehradun | State | 10,086,292 | 5,137,773 | 4,948,519 | 963 | 7,025,583 | 3,091,169 | 53,483 | 189 | 19.2% | ||
Himachal Pradesh | Shimla | State | 6,864,602 | 3,481,873 | 3,382,729 | 972 | 6,167,805 | 688,704 | 55,673 | 123 | 12.8% | ||
Tripura | Agartala | State | 3,673,917 | 1,874,376 | 1,799,541 | 960 | 2,710,051 | 960,981 | 10,486 | 350 | 14.7% | ||
Meghalaya | Shillong | State | 2,966,889 | 1,491,832 | 1,475,057 | 989 | 2,368,971 | 595,036 | 22,429 | 132 | 27.8% | ||
Manipur | Imphal | State | 2,721,756 | 1,290,171 | 1,280,219 | 992 | 1,899,624 | 822,132 | 22,327 | 122 | 18.7% | ||
Nagaland | Kohima | State | 1,978,502 | 1,024,649 | 953,853 | 931 | 1,406,861 | 573,741 | 16,579 | 119 | −0.5% | ||
Goa | Panaji | State | 1,458,545 | 739,140 | 719,405 | 973 | 551,414 | 906,309 | 3,702 | 394 | 8.2% | ||
Arunachal Pradesh | Itanagar | State | 1,383,727 | 713,912 | 669,815 | 938 | 1,069,165 | 313,446 | 83,743 | 17 | 25.9% | ||
Puducherry | Pondicherry | UT | 1,247,953 | 612,511 | 635,442 | 1,037 | 394,341 | 850,123 | 479 | 2,598 | 27.7% | ||
Mizoram | Aizawl | State | 1,097,206 | 555,339 | 541,867 | 976 | 529,037 | 561,997 | 21,081 | 52 | 22.8% | ||
Chandigarh | Chandigarh | UT | 1,055,450 | 580,663 | 474,787 | 818 | 29,004 | 1,025,682 | 114 | 9,252 | 17.1% | ||
Sikkim | Gangtok | State | 610,577 | 323,070 | 287,507 | 890 | 455,962 | 151,726 | 7,096 | 86 | 12.4% | ||
Andaman and Nicobar Islands | Port Blair | UT | 380,581 | 202,871 | 177,710 | 876 | 244,411 | 135,533 | 8,249 | 46 | 6.7% | ||
Dadra and Nagar Haveli | Silvassa | UT | 343,709 | 193,760 | 149,949 | 774 | 183,024 | 159,829 | 491 | 698 | 55.5% | ||
Daman and Diu | Daman | UT | 243,247 | 150,301 | 92,946 | 618 | 60,331 | 182,580 | 112 | 2,169 | 53.5% | ||
Lakshadweep | Kavaratti | UT | 64,473 | 33,123 | 31,350 | 946 | 14,121 | 50,308 | 32 | 2,013 | 6.2% | ||
India | 1,210,854,977 | 623,724,248 | 586,469,174 | 943 | 833,087,662 | 377,105,760 | 3,287,240 | 382 | 17.64% |
The religious data on India census 2011 was released by the Government of India on 25 August 2015. [46] [47] [48] Hindus are 79.8% (966.3 million) while Sikhs are 20.8 million comprising 1.72% of the population, [49] Muslims are 14.23% (172.2 million) in India. [47] [50] [51] and Christians are 2.30% (28.7 million). According to the 2011 census of India, there are 57,264 Parsis in India. [52] [53] For the first time, a "No religion" category was added in the 2011 census. [54] 2.87 million were classified as people belonging to "No Religion" in India in the 2011 census [55] [56] 0.24% of India's population of 1.21 billion. [57] [58] Given below is the decade-by-decade religious composition of India until the 2011 census. [59] [60] [61] There are six religions in India that have been awarded "National Minority" status – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis. [62] [63] Sunnis, Shias, Bohras, Agakhanis and Ahmadiyyas were identified as sects of Islam in India. [64] [65] [66] As per 2011 census, six major faiths- Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains make up over 99.4% of India's 1.21 billion population, while "other religions, persuasions" (ORP) count is 8.2 million. Among the ORP faiths, six faiths- 4.957 million-strong Sarnaism, 1.026 million-strong Gond, 506,000-strong Sari, Donyi-Polo (302,000) in Arunachal Pradesh, Sanamahism (222,000) in Manipur, Khasi (138,000) in Meghalaya dominate. [67] Maharashtra is having the highest number of non-religious in the country with 9,652 such people, followed by Kerala. [68]
Year | Hindus | Muslims | Christians | Sikhs | Buddhists | Jains | Zoroastrians | Atheists or other religion |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1951 | ||||||||
1961 | ||||||||
1971 | ||||||||
1981 | ||||||||
1991 | ||||||||
2001 | ||||||||
2011 | ||||||||
Change in growth rate since 1951 | 5.12% | 45.21% | 3.04% | 3.91% | 5.41% | 19.56% | 61.53% | 12.51% |
Hindi is the most widely spoken language in northern parts of India. [70] The Indian census takes the widest possible definition of "Hindi" as a broad variety of "Hindi languages". [71] According to 2011 census, 57.1% of Indian population know Hindi, [72] in which 43.63% of Indian people have declared Hindi as their native language or mother tongue. [73] [74] The language data was released on 26 June 2018. [75]
Hindi is the fastest growing language of India, followed by Kashmiri in the second place, with Meitei (officially called Manipuri) as well as Gujarati, in the third place, and Bengali in the fourth place, according to the 2011 census of India. [69]
The 2011 census report on bilingualism and trilingualism, which provides data on the two languages in order of preference in which a person is proficient other than the mother tongue, was released in September 2018. [76] [77] [78] The number of bilingual speakers in India is 314.9 million, which is 26% of the population in 2011. [79] 7% of Indian population is trilingual. [80] Hindi, Bengali speakers are India's least multilingual groups. [81]
Numbers regarding languages spoken available in the 2011 Indian census data may not reflect actual data in India due to how the data was collected, with participants being allowed to give any response they wished for what languages they spoke.
Language | First language speakers | Second language speakers | Third language speakers | Total speakers | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
num. [82] | % of total pop. | num. [72] [83] | % of total pop. | |||
Hindi | 528,347,193 | 139,207,180 | 24,000,000 | 692,000,000 | ||
English | 259,678 | 83,125,221 | 46,000,000 | 129,000,000 | ||
Bengali | 97,237,669 | 9,037,222 | 1,000,000 | 107,000,000 | ||
Marathi | 83,026,680 | 13,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 99,000,000 | ||
Telugu | 81,127,740 | 12,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 95,000,000 | ||
Tamil | 69,026,881 | 7,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 77,000,000 | ||
Gujarati | 55,492,554 | 4,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 60,000,000 | ||
Urdu | 50,772,631 | 11,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 63,000,000 | ||
Kannada | 43,706,512 | 14,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 59,000,000 | ||
Odia | 37,521,324 | 5,000,000 | 390,000 | 43,000,000 | ||
Malayalam | 34,838,819 | 500,000 | 210,000 | 36,000,000 | ||
Punjabi | 33,124,726 | 2,230,000 | 720,000 | 36,600,000 | ||
Maithili | 13,063,042 | 400,000 | 130,000 | 13,583,464 | ||
Sanskrit | 24,821 | 1,230,000 | 1,960,000 | 3,190,000 |
Any individual above age seven who can read and write in any language with an ability to understand was considered literate. In censuses before 1991, children below the age five were treated as illiterates. The literacy rate taking the entire population into account is termed as "crude literacy rate", and taking the population from age seven and above into account is termed as "effective literacy rate". Effective literacy rate increased to a total of 74.04% with 82.14% of the males and 65.46% of the females being literate. [84]
Effective literacy rate (1901–2011)[ citation needed ] [85] | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
S.No. | Census year | Total (%) | Male (%) | Female (%) |
1 | 1901 | |||
2 | 1911 | |||
3 | 1921 | |||
4 | 1931 | |||
5 | 1941 | |||
6 | 1951 | |||
7 | 1961 | |||
8 | 1971 | |||
9 | 1981 | |||
10 | 1991 | |||
11 | 2001 | |||
12 | 2011 |
India is the most populous country in the world with one-sixth of the world's population. According to estimates from the United Nations (UN), India has overtaken China as the country with the largest population in the world, with a population of 1,425,775,850 at the end of April 2023.
The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland or the Hindi speaking states, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India where various Northern, Central, Eastern and Western Indo-Aryan languages are spoken, which in a broader sense is termed as Hindi languages, with Standard Hindi serving as the lingua franca of the region.
The Other Backward Class (OBC) is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify communities that are "educationally or socially backward". It is one of several official classifications of the population of India, along with general castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The OBCs were found to comprise 52% of the country's population by the Mandal Commission report of 1980 and were determined to be 41% in 2006 when the National Sample Survey Organisation took place. There is substantial debate over the exact number of OBCs in India; it is generally estimated to be sizable, but many believe that it is higher than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or the National Sample Survey.
The Mandal Commission or the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBC), was established in India in 1979 by the Janata Party government under Prime Minister Morarji Desai with a mandate to "identify the socially or educationally backward classes" of India. It was headed by B. P. Mandal, an Indian member of parliament, to consider the question of reservations for people to address caste discrimination, and to use eleven social, economic, and educational indicators to determine backwardness. In 1980, based on its rationale that OBCs identified on the basis of caste, social, economic indicators made up 52% of India's population, the commission's report recommended that members of Other Backward Classes (OBC) be granted reservations to 27% of jobs under the central government and public sector undertakings and seats in the higher education institutions, thus making the total number of reservations for SC, ST and OBC to 49.5%.
Hinduism is the second largest religious affiliation in Pakistan after Islam. Though Hinduism was one of the dominant faiths in the region a few centuries ago, Hindus accounted for just 2.17% of Pakistan's population in the 2023 Pakistani census. The Umerkot district has the highest percentage of Hindu residents in the country at 54.6%, while Tharparkar district has the most Hindus in absolute numbers at 811,507.
Kerala is a state in south-western India. Most of Kerala's 34.8 million people are ethnically Malayalis. People of Kerala trace their origins to Dravidians and Aryans. Kerala people have mixed ancestry. Additional ancestries derive from millennia of trade links across the Arabian Sea, whereby people of Arab, Jewish, Syrian, Portuguese, English and other ethnicities settled in Kerala. Many of these immigrants intermarried with native Malayalam speakers resulting in formation of many Muslim and Christian groups in Kerala. Some Muslims and Christians thus take lineage from Middle Eastern and European settlers who mixed with native population.
Bihari is a demonym given to the inhabitants of the Indian state of Bihar. Bihari people can be separated into three main Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic groups, Bhojpuris, Maithils and Magadhis. They are also further divided into a variety of hereditary caste groups. In Bihar today, the Bihari identity is seen as secondary to caste/clan, linguistic and religious identity but nonetheless is a subset of the larger Indian identity. Biharis can be found throughout India, and in the neighbouring countries of Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. During the Partition of India in 1947, many Bihari Muslims migrated to East Bengal. Bihari people are also well represented in the Muhajir people of Pakistan because of Partition.
Reservation is a system of affirmative action in India created during the British rule. Based on provisions in the Indian Constitution, it allows the Union Government and the States and Territories of India to set a percentage of reserved quotas or seats, in higher education admissions, employment, political bodies, etc., for "socially and economically backward citizens".
Bihari Muslims are adherents of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, and genealogically as Biharis. They are geographically native to the region comprising the Bihar state of India, although there are significantly large communities of Bihari Muslims living elsewhere in the subcontinent due to the Partition of British India in 1947, which prompted the community to migrate en masse from Bihar to the dominion of Pakistan.
Karnataka, with a total population of 61,100,000, is one of the major states in South India. Kannada is the official state language, while other linguistic minorities in the state include Kodava, Konkani, Tulu and Urdu. Karnataka is also at the forefront of population control measures, with the first two birth control clinics in history opening in 1930 in the Mandya district.
At the 2011 Census, Bihar was the third most populous state of India with total population of 104,099,452, nearly 89% of it rural. It was also India's most densely populated state, with 1,106 persons per square kilometre. The sex ratio was 918 females per 1000 males. Almost 58% of Bihar's population was below 25 years age, which is the highest in India. At 11.3%, Bihar has the second-lowest urbanisation rate in India after Himachal Pradesh.
The demographics of Uttar Pradesh is a complex topic, which is undergoing dynamic change. Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state, and the largest subdivision in the world. It has a population of about 199,812,341 as per the 2011 census. If it were a separate country, Uttar Pradesh would be the world's fifth most populous nation, next only to China, the rest of India, the United States of America and Indonesia. Uttar Pradesh has a population more than that of Pakistan. There is an average population density of 828 persons per km2 i.e. 2,146 per sq mi. The capital of Uttar Pradesh is Lucknow, and Prayagraj serves as the state’s judicial capital. Hindus and Muslims both consider the state as a holy place.
Punjab is home to 2.3% of India's population; with a density of 551 persons per km2. According to the provisional results of the 2011 national census, Punjab has a population of 27,743,338, making it the 16th most populated state in India. Of which male and female are 14,639,465 and 13,103,873 respectively. 32% of Punjab's population consists of Dalits. In the state, the rate of population growth is 13.9% (2011), lower than national average. Out of total population, 37.5% people live in urban regions. The total figure of population living in urban areas is 10,399,146 of which 5,545,989 are males and while remaining 4,853,157 are females. The urban population in the last 10 years has increased by 37.5%. According to the 2011 Census of India, Punjab, India has a population of around 27.7 million.
The 2001 census of India was the 14th in a series of censuses held in India every decade since 1871.
Delhi's ethnic groups are diverse. The Yamuna river's flood plains provide fertile alluvial soil suitable for agriculture but are prone to recurrent floods. The Yamuna, a sacred river in Hinduism, is the only major river flowing through Delhi. The original natives of Delhi are those whose ancestors lived in the Yamuna basin, a region which spreads radially from the capital up to a distance of approximately 200 kilometres. This province was not ethnically homogeneous and large amounts of Hindi-speakers resided in the southeast, now Haryana, eastern side, now West Uttar Pradesh and in Delhi's Yamuna Basin. Today the migrant population consists largely of Punjabis, Haryanavis, Bengalis and recently, Biharis and Uttar Pradeshis etc.
Muslim in Uttar Pradesh is the second largest religion in the state with 38,483,967 adherents in 2011, forming 19 .26% of the total population. Muslims of Uttar Pradesh have also been referred to as Hindustani Musalman. They do not form a unified ethnic community, but are differentiated by sectarian and Baradari divisions, as well as by language and geography. Nevertheless, the community shares some unifying cultural factors. Uttar Pradesh has more Muslims than any Muslim-majority country in the world except Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Legislative Assembly election was held over five phases in Bihar through October–November 2015 before the end of the tenure of the prior Legislative Assembly of Bihar on 29 November 2015.
The Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC) was conducted for the 2011 Census of India. The Manmohan Singh government approved the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 to be carried out after discussion in both houses of Parliament in 2010. SECC-2011 was not done under the 1948 Census of India Act and the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India was not entrusted to do the same. The SECC 2011 was conducted in all states and union territories of India and the first findings were revealed on 3 July 2015 by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. SECC 2011 is also the first paperless census in India conducted on hand-held electronic devices by the government in 640 districts. The rural development ministry has taken a decision to use the SECC data in all its programmes such as MGNREGA, National Food Security Act, and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana. SECC 2011 was the first caste-based census since 1931 Census of India, and it was launched on 29 June 2011 from the Sankhola village of Hazemara block in West Tripura district.
The 2024 census of India, or the 16th Indian census, is to be conducted in two phases, a house listing phase and a population enumeration phase. Although initially the house listing was to begin in April 2020 along with the updating of the National Population Register, and the population enumeration on 9 February 2021, they have been continuously postponed. Initially the house listing was to be conducted between April and September 2020, with population enumeration in February 2021 and a revision round in March 2021. The reference date was to be 1 March 2021 in most of the states and 1 October 2020 for Jammu and Kashmir and some areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. On 2 January 2023, Additional Registrar General of India communicated to all the states that the date of freezing of administrative boundaries had been extended till 30 June 2023. The 16th census can only begin three months after the administrative boundaries have been frozen. The completion of the census in its two phases takes at least 11 months, so the possibility of the completion of this decennial census exercise in 2024 or early 2025 is ruled out, as the census was expected to begin in September 2024, but due to unexplained reasons, had still not started by early October 2024.
The population of Assam consist of tribal ethnic groups and linguistic groups such as Assamese, Bengali, Hindi speakers, Nepali and Odia speakers.