Census Plans Will Trigger Delimitation Debate; Hasina Ally 'Looted $17 Billion'; Canada's Reveals 'Off Ramp' India Chose Not to Take in Nijjar Matter

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Sushant Singh, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Tanweer Alam, Siddharth Varadarajan and Seema Chishti | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK 

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Snapshot of the day

October 29, 2024

Siddharth Varadarajan

Reports citing officials say the long overdue census is likely to begin in early 2025 and will take a year to conclude, following which the process to redraw Lok Sabha seats will commence. Amrita Madhukalya reports that to this end, the government last week extended the term of registrar general and census commissioner Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan by 20 months, which means he will retire in August 2026 rather than a little over a month from now. She reports that there is no clarity yet on whether the census will record everyone’s caste.

The census timing will also tell us whether and when the Modi government intends to proceed with its controversial plan of delimitation – the reconfiguring of state-wise Lok Sabha representation based on population. This exercise has been deferred for decades now because of the Pandora’s Box it will open: southern states will lose relative representation to the more populous north. The 84th constitutional