Scannable, background-forward — built for a reader with zero prior context.
A Census of India 2011 enumerator at work in West Sikkim. Census 2027's own methodology — the open column this piece explains — grew directly out of what went wrong the last time an enumerator's pen tried to record caste at this scale. — MoSPI, Government of India / Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India
The open-ended caste question tested this July is now official policy. Ladakh counts first, starting this October. Here is exactly what happens between now and the first full caste count since 1931 — and what still hasn't been decided.
Seattle became the first US city to ban caste discrimination in 2023. Months later, California's governor vetoed a state-wide version — the patchwork fight over caste protection in the US, explained.
A Supreme Court stay reinstated a weaker, decade-old rule for campus caste discrimination just as students began organizing against the reversal — what the stay actually changes, and what it doesn't.
Independent wage surveys years apart keep finding the same pattern: Dalit women in rural India are paid less than men, and less than other women, for the same work in the same field.
