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The official website of the Government of India about census related information, has one important notification missing… the one dealing with the commencement of the exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR).
This is curious given the recent offer by the government to rethink certain provisions of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in wake of nationwide protests. The double-blows of CAA-NPR are seen by many as a threat to the secular and democratic fabric of the nation. Therefore, it is odd that an official gazette notification would not appear on an official government website, especially one dealing with the census.
The original gazette may be viewed here:
The censusindia.gov.in website explains what the NPR is and mentions the present status of the NPR as follows:
Now it has been decided to update the National Population Register along with the Houselisting phase of Census 2021 during April to September 2020 in all the States/UTs except Assam. A Gazette notification to this effect has already been published by the Central Government.
But the page that lists the Acts, Rules and Gazette Notifications does not have the July 31, 2019 gazette in the list!
Curiously, the gazette also appears to be missing from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) website. While there was an October 10, 2019 press release titled All India Conference of State Coordinators, Directors of Census Operations for Census of India 2021 and updation of National Population Register in the country, the gazette notification could not be found anywhere in the sections titled Notices, Circulars, or Announcements on the MHA website. The press release may be read here:
Oddly enough, the only place where we could find a copy of the gazette was a Dadra and Nagar Haveli Gazette link that ended with nic.in instead of the new gov.in domain to which all government websites have migrated. The gazette may be viewed here:
The gazette may be viewed at this link here