"India is launching a new census in which every person aged over 15 will be photographed and fingerprinted to create a biometric national database.
The government will then use the information to issue identity cards.
Officials will spend a year classifying India's population of around 1.2 billion people according to gender, religion, occupation and education.
The exercise, conducted every 10 years, faces big challenges, not least India's vast area and diversity of cultures.
Census officials must also contend with high levels of illiteracy and millions of homeless people - as well as insurgencies by Maoists and other rebels which have left large parts of the country unsafe.
President Pratibha Patil was the first person to be listed, and appealed to fellow Indians to follow her example 'for the good of the nation'.
'Everyone must participate and make it successful,' she said in Delhi." ...more
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