Dweep Tulika

There is a simple question hidden inside a powerful piece of political satire : How efficiently can the state find an ordinary citizen when it wants something from them—and how efficiently can it find that same citizen when the citizen wants something from the state? The difference can sometimes be striking. When it comes to collecting taxes, the system knows where you live. When an instalment is overdue, reminders arrive. When a traffic violation is recorded, the challan can reach your phone. When a government fee, penalty or licence payment is due, the machinery of administration can often identify the person responsible. In other words, when compliance is required, the citizen is rarely invisible. But democracy demands something more than compliance. A citizen is not merely a taxpayer, vehicle owner, consumer or beneficiary of government schemes. A citizen is also a voter, a participant in public life and a person with constitutional rights . That is where the cartoon's ...

Sri Vijayapuram, 20 April 2026: India is preparing to undertake Census 2026 , widely regarded as the world’s largest administrative exercise , aimed at creating an extensive demographic snapshot of the country’s population. Conducted under the provisions of the Census Act, 1948 , the exercise extends far beyond a simple population count. It seeks to document how people live, work and interact across the country, providing critical data for governance, development planning and public policy formulation. In formal terms, a census refers to the systematic process of collecting, compiling and recording information about every individual within a defined population. Conducted once every decade, the exercise involves enumerators reaching households across highly diverse terrains—from metropolitan cities and Himalayan regions to remote island territories such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . The central objective remains universal inclusion, ensuring that no individual remains uncounted ...